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Google Reduces Its Nexus One Termination Fee
CWmike writes "The only smartphone Linus Torvalds doesn't hate is that much less unlikable now that Google has quietly chopped $200 off its early termination fee on the Nexus One. Customers who cancel the service had been on the hook for $550, including a $350 Google cancellation charge. Google has reduced their fee to $150 — but users are still liable for a $200 ETF from T-Mobile. Users have a 14-day grace period during which they do not have to pay either charge, although they may be hit with a restocking fee. The $350 total fee matches one of the highest in the industry, charged by Verizon. Google did not announce the change but simply altered its online terms-of-service document." The price cut could add momentum to a phone that, by one reckoning, costs only $49 unlocked.
Linking to an article mentioning Linus and an older advertisement, with a tiny bit of new information (a 200$ cut because of an about-to-be ruling by the FCC), that overall shows Google in a positive light. With clumsy maths at the end.
Slashdot at its best!
The price cut could add momentum to a phone that, by one reckoning, costs only $49 unlocked.
And, by another reckoning, it actually saves you $5,000 and rescues your cat from a tree. Incidentally, both reckonings are fallacious.
It's one thing to have a story/advertisement, it's another to blatantly lie in it.
The bullshit statistic of the $49 dollar unlocked version was ably debunked in the comments of the last story where this was claimed.
Please stop doing it. When you're caught in a blatant lie, you don't repeat it unless you are also an idiot.
How else do you expect it to work? If you want subsidised phones, early termination fees are a necessary evil. If you could just cancel your contract one month in with no penalty, then everyone would just sign up, get the phone, and cancel.
-- Lattyware (www.lattyware.co.uk)