‘My Two Cents’ On How To Avoid Cell Phone Termination Fees

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In this post, I’m going to add ‘My Two Cents’ on avoiding cell phone early termination fees.

(Originally I had planned on covering cell termination fees, unlimited data plans and cutting your cable bill in half, but the post became prohibitively long, so I’ll break it into three shorter individual posts.)

A little background here

I wanted to get out of my cell contract because I needed the ability to respond to emails and instant message on the go, especially the many emails I’m starting to receive here. The phone I have makes that very difficult, so much so, that I haven’t even bothered to get a data plan.

Early termination of a cell phone contract

On January 7th Patrick over at Cash Money Life wrote an article on how to cancel your cell phone contract without paying fees.

I was excited when I read this post because I was very unhappy with my current cell phone situation, as you’re aware of. Like many people, I figured I was stuck with my contract to the bitter end. Well, I decided to investigate after reading Patrick’s post and here’s what happened.

(The portion of Patrick’s post are highlighted with quotes)

The early termination fees that cell phone companies charge are outrageous! Most companies charge anywhere from $150-200 if you cancel your contract before you fulfill the terms.

In my case, the termination fees were $175 with AT&T. Obviously these fees are in place to discourage you from switching carriers. And as of this writing AT&T does not prorate termination fees. They told me, in the future, for new customers they plan on changing that rule.

If your cell carrier changes the terms of the contract you signed, you can cancel your contract without paying any early termination fees. Many states require cell phone companies to give customers advance notice of contract changes which could increase the cost or extend the length of the contract… Cell providers are required to notify you of these changes to their contract terms, but they are often buried in small print within your bill.

This is very interesting. I never read the small print or the updates that accompany my cell phone bill, I wish I had. The reason being, you only have a finite period of time (i.e. one month) to call and terminate your contract after you discover the loophole window, you have to be quick on your feet.

If you’re actively looking to get out of your contract, I would scrutinize each piece of correspondence you get from your cell provider. You can also look for this kind of information on your cell provider’s website.

No Dice

Now I know this information worked out perfectly for Madison at My Dollar Plan. In my case, there were no material changes to my contract, over the past few months, that would have allowed me to take advantage of this loophole.

There are 2 ways you can do this. The first is if you transfer your cell phone contract to someone you know.

I didn’t have any friends who wanted to exchange cell contracts. If you do, go to the original article to read more… Patrick was able to switch his contract with one of his friends.

The second way to transfer your service is to use a third party to find someone willing to assume the contract for you. This is essentially the same process as above, but you are using someone else to help you find a match. Trade My Cellular provides this service free of charge. Cell Swapper and Cell Trade USA charge $20 to the person giving up their contract.

I signed up for 2 of these sites, Trade My Cellular and Cell Swapper. Before doing so, you need to gather all the information about your plan (cost, minutes, features, etc.) because you have to fill it all in at the site.

It also helps to ’sell it a little bit’ in the additional comments field, when filling out your profile at these sites. For instance, in my case I have 2600 rollover minutes that I thought would be attractive to potential swappers. I made sure to write about that feature.

These services can also be a great place to find a deal on a contract because many people are willing to give their phone and accessories as well as pay for the first month’s service to whoever takes over the contract… However, at $20 + paying for a month of service (which many people do), it can run $60 or more to transfer your contract. This is still much cheaper than paying the early termination fee of $150-200!

Many of the listings on both sites do come with extras thrown in. A lot of people are willing to sweeten the deal by offering a rebate, equivalent to the first month of services. In addition, many of the listings come with the cell phone thrown into the mix.

Cell phone contract swapping services

Trade My Cellular is a free service and was easy to use. I posted my listing on a Monday and received a response by Wednesday. The person was upfront, we communicated via email and eventually spoke on the phone, but made no deal. This was the only response I received from Trade My Cellular.

At Cell Swapper, I paid $24.95 which covered the fees for the service and an additional $4.95 (I think) to have my profile showcased prominently. My listing went live on a Monday and by Tuesday night I had someone who was interested in a swap.

 

This person was also upfront, easy to deal with and we ended up speaking over the phone, as well. No deal was made here either, this was the only response I received from Cell Swapper.

Ironically, after all the research I did, it made the most sense for me to pay the termination fees. Why?

Because although the $175 is a bitter pill to swallow, I was able to sign up for the Sprint SERO plan and it gave me all the services and fees for the incredible price of $49.99 a month. I will cover this whole part of the story in my next post.

My Findings

If it wasn’t for the incredible deal I received from Sprint (coupled with the huge discount I’m getting on a phone with a user friendly slide out keyboard) I would have accepted either one of the swap offers I received. So my experience with both sites was a good one. I would recommend starting on Trade My Cellular since it’s free. If you have no luck there you can move over to Cellswapper.

A few last tips on cell termination fees and contract swapping:

• If you find someone who wants to swap contracts with you, (on your own or through one of the services) this can be done over the phone and should take less than a half hour. In essence, you both agree to assume the terms of each other’s contract and do the swap.
• Even if your contract features are completely different, when you finalize the swap you can customize your new contract however you like. For instance, in my case both of the guys I spoke with both had plans of 500 minutes or less. My plan was 900 minutes. If I had taken over either of those contracts, I could have adjusted the minutes to go back up to 900 minutes.
• Although AT&T doesn’t prorate cell termination fees, there are other companies that do. For example, if you’re half way through a 2 year contract, you may only have to pay half the termination fee. Check with your provider for more on this.
• When posting a listing on any of the sites, it pays to offer sweeteners. This way you’re far likelier to attract the attention of swappers. Like Patrick says in the original article, ‘… paying $60 is far cheaper than paying $150-200.’
• It pays to jazz up the listing a little bit. Put a little time into your profile, much like you would a Match.com or Ebay listing;) Make sure you have all the correct information about your contract.

Hope that helps…

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