early cell phone termination fees illegal :)
 

news:http://tech.yahoo.com/blogs/null/99655

bun

Re: early cell phone termination fees illegal :)
 

Hmm, interesting.. Though I thought this applied to the company terminating service then charging you the fee. What Sprint was doing was terminating people's contracts then charging them the termination fee.

Re: early cell phone termination fees illegal :)
 

I don't know, the articles I've read don't mention that part (in fact, that seems blatantly illegal, but I'm sure the telcos/wireless providers have gotten away with worse) and there's been a lot of talk by the FCC about at least requiring pro-rated fees.

I'm sure they're making tons of money off of 2 year contracts so I'd say their should be some pretty strict limits on cancellation fees that they can collect. Hopefully, some day a real company will provide the service and all of these companies can go to hell :)

Re: early cell phone termination fees illegal :)
 

Wireless telcoms only require a signed contract when the customer requests getting a cell phone at a drastically reduced price. It takes about a one or two year contract for the telcoms to make their money back on the cell phone discount. A pro-rated early termination fee would be fair.

PS: I quit my job with a wireless telcom's technical support today.

Re: early cell phone termination fees illegal :)
 

Congrats (I think) on quitting :) I was very glad to leave a tech support position a few years ago!

I understand the logic behind the termination fees, it just seems like they're padding it a bit. Not prorating at all is proof that they've been overcharging customers on termination fees alone, but even without that, they were caught padding taxes earlier in the year. There's no wonder these companies have a horrible perception in the public :)

I certainly won't pretend they're the only companies doing this, I'd rather say that all companies have some shady tactics :) I used to work in the web hosting "industry." Cancellations were prorated except for a non-refundable $20 domain registration. This company gets a bulk discount on domain registrations, and the cancellation fee is more than you would pay at most consumer domain registration companies. It's really just taking advantage of people.

Enough of my ranting, I'm not saying anything new on the topic :)