No fees for ending you cell phone contract

[MIB]

Californai judge ruled it is illegal. But cell phone carriers are going to try to find a way around the ruling.

MIB

Edit to add: The ruling is probably only valid in California.

[linear]

bex0 just posted this on the UPL board you theif!

http://www.phonelosers.net/forums/index.php?topic=34.0

[MelloKira]

I can't make up my mind to whether this is a good idea or not. I guess it has its Ups and Downs.

[Hebbie Hauler]

I can't make up my mind to whether this is a good idea or not. I guess it has its Ups and Downs.

Can u list one good point (not obvious) and one bad point, as you see it.

[MelloKira]

I can't make up my mind to whether this is a good idea or not. I guess it has its Ups and Downs.

Can u list one good point (not obvious) and one bad point, as you see it.

Okie dokie.

Good - The only reason why I'm currently stuck with U.S. Cellular and a half-broken cell phone is because I have another 6 months or so on my contract. If there weren't any early termination fees, I wouldn't have to worry about that.

Bad - Not only would phone companies not be able to offer sweet deals on new phones when you sign up to them like the article said, they wouldn't be able to offer much good deals at all for fear that you would sign up and then immediatly quit after taking advantage of them (kinda like they've been doing to you all these years). At worst, cell phone companies may become our new alternitave to Pay Phones. Walk in, sign up, use a phone to call somebody, quit their service, and leave.

Waddya think?

[linear]

those costs would be offset by monthly fees bottoming out to prevent people from switching over

[Hebbie Hauler]

I can't make up my mind to whether this is a good idea or not. I guess it has its Ups and Downs.

Can u list one good point (not obvious) and one bad point, as you see it.

Okie dokie.

Good - The only reason why I'm currently stuck with U.S. Cellular and a half-broken cell phone is because I have another 6 months or so on my contract. If there weren't any early termination fees, I wouldn't have to worry about that.

Bad - Not only would phone companies not be able to offer sweet deals on new phones when you sign up to them like the article said, they wouldn't be able to offer much good deals at all for fear that you would sign up and then immediatly quit after taking advantage of them (kinda like they've been doing to you all these years). At worst, cell phone companies may become our new alternitave to Pay Phones. Walk in, sign up, use a phone to call somebody, quit their service, and leave.

Waddya think?

Lack of contracts will probably raise the price of service. And true you most likely wont see many decent phones offered for free anymore. Without contracts companies wont effectively be able to project their earnings into the future, perhaps causing instability in the market.

I personally dislike whenever the govt. gets involved with regulating commerce, they are buffoons who rarely understand business... that's why they have to work for the govt. in the first place, which itself is unaccountable and noobish. I'm not even going to go into the fact this ruling comes out of CALIFORNIA!

[linear]

yeah, competition will cause prices to go UP.

 

[linear]

also, as was brought up on the other board, we could still get deals on new phones because companies could still charge prorated early termination fees.

but i think those should be done away with too. even though there's not a legal basis for doing away with that like there is for doing away with the flat-fee.

[rbcp]

I think forcing you into 2 years of service keeps the phone companies from being a true competitor of land line service.  When has a land line ever forced you to remain a subscriber for any amount of time or said no to you for bad credit?

On the other hand, I got a Blackberry Pearl for $150.

[linear]

imagine saving like $20/month on your cell phone bill. you'd save alot more money that way in the long run than you saved on that phone.

[Tachyon]

Charging people money to leave was and always will be a straight up bullshit pathetic tactic that's always pissed me off.

[MattGSX]

I've never really had to worry about this, so the threat of a termination fee isn't that big of a deal. Then again, my carrier is pretty cheap (I pay $30/mo MAX), and it's the only one that gets decent, un-interrupted service in my area.

This is complete speculation, but I feel like killing a termination fee like this would only give an initial drop on service prices as carriers try to entice new customers to leave their current providers. Once companies that consistently can't compete get weeded out, the "power carriers" will probably start raising prices again. I can also see phone companies trying to put a tighter lock on their equipment to keep it from being transferred to a new provider (though people will always get past this), or a drop in specials or promotions that have initial up-front costs for the companies to be offset later through service payments.

Anyone who says that government agents don't know anything about business have never talked to government acquisition officers. They are some of the stingiest, crooked bastards out there that would make any Fortune 500 company proud.

[rbcp]

imagine saving like $20/month on your cell phone bill. you'd save alot more money that way in the long run than you saved on that phone.

$20 * 24 = $480

On Ebay, a Blackberry goes for $300 right now, but I'm pretty sure they were $400 or $500 back in December when I got my phone.  So instead of paying $150, I would have paid $400 (Possibly $500) up front, which is an extra $250 (or $350) for me.  So I would save either $130 or $230 over the course of 2 years.  But the problem is that I wouldn't have $400 or $500 to blow on a phone in the first place and most other people probably don't either.  That's a lot of money to drop on a phone.  Having it financed for a year or two is worth it to me.

[Lord Valmont Illamato]

get a prepaid