Termination Fees Archive

  • With hours before the new iPhone announcement, AT&T shift upgrade eligibility forward

    With hours before the new iPhone announcement, AT&T shift upgrade eligibility forward

    Posted on June 7, 2010 | No Comments
    Are you as keen as the Colonel for the soon-to-be-announced fourth-gen iPhone? Are you bound by an existing contract with AT&T? Are you feeling lucky, punk? Well, if you are, you should head on over to the AT&T upgrade eligibility page (go to http://wireless.att.com/ to log in, then click "Check Upgrade Options"), because AT&T have just bumped forward the upgrade eligibility dates for a whole heap of their bitter loyal customers, and you could be one of them!

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  • FCC offers ’simple’ ‘tips’ for avoiding pesky early termination fees

    FCC offers ’simple’ ‘tips’ for avoiding pesky early termination fees

    Posted on May 26, 2010 | No Comments
    The government is just about the last place we'd look for helpful pointers on much of anything, much less when shopping for a new phone -- but that didn't stop the FCC's Consumer Task Force from whipping up a PDF of things you can to do prevent yourself from getting burned with a multi-hundred dollar early termination fee when buying the handset of your wildest dreams. There's nothing in here that isn't obvious to a seasoned phone buyer -- buy the phone at full price instead, ask about a trial period, look into proration, and so on -- but it goes without saying that these are the kinds of tidbits average consumers should know before setting foot in the store. Perhaps the more interesting thing about this effort on the FCC's part is that it indicates the feds haven't forgotten about the stink it made about rising ETFs not long ago -- and AT&T's move to hop on the bandwagon can't be helping to smooth things over in Washington. Anyhow, go get your learn on before some seedy carrier sales rep takes advantage of you, won't you?

    FCC offers 'simple' 'tips' for avoiding pesky early termination fees originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 26 May 2010 22:31:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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  • AT&T to nearly double early termination fees on smart phones

    AT&T to nearly double early termination fees on smart phones

    Posted on May 21, 2010 | No Comments
    Thinking about snatching up an AT&T iPhone, unlocking it, breaking contract, and selling it on eBay for a small profit? Yeah, that’s not gonna work anymore. The Wall Street Journal is reporting that AT&T’s planning on doubling the early termination fees for smartphone contracts from $175 up to an oh-so-painful $325, with the fee dropping by $10 [...]

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  • AT&T, T-Mobile, Sprint and Verizon break down ETFs for the FCC

    AT&T, T-Mobile, Sprint and Verizon break down ETFs for the FCC

    Posted on February 24, 2010 | No Comments
    Early termination fees. No one likes them but they can sometimes be a necessary evil. If you become unhappy with your service provider or you are overwhelmed with lust for a new gadget on a different carrier, you pay the price. Carriers say that these termination fees, or ETFs, allow them to subsidize handsets and recover those costs over the course of a contract. Should a contract be broken, a carrier recovers those subsidies with an ETF. The FCC recently decided something was amiss with ETFs and probed carriers into explaining the rhyme and reason behind the fees. The carriers have finally spoken, albeit a little unconvincingly. Most of you are already familiar with why ETFs exist, but it is interesting to see the canned and obvious responses from the carriers.

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  • Google dials down early termination fee for the Nexus One

    Google dials down early termination fee for the Nexus One

    Posted on February 8, 2010 | No Comments
    No one likes early termination fees, but for one reason or another they can become a necessary evil. When Google introduced a new channel for buying the Nexus One, I was excited at the thought of grabbing a phone without being hassled by a retail sales rep. The only downside was that if I bought it at the subsidized price and wanted to cancel within 120 days, Google would charge a $350 device recovery fee... on top of the carrier's cancelation fees!

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  • Termination fees for Nexus One come from both Google and T-Mobile

    Termination fees for Nexus One come from both Google and T-Mobile

    Posted on January 12, 2010 | No Comments
    Screen-shot-2010-01-11-at-January-11-10.05.44-AM[1] Prepare the foot soldiers from the Internet Nerd Rage army for this one. Apparently if you buy a subsidized Google Nexus One and “cancel your wireless plan prior to 120 days of continuous wireless service,” you’ll be charged the difference between what you paid for the device and its full retail price of $529. So at its current subsidized price of $179, you’d pay a $350 early termination fee. That fee is paid to Google, by the way, “and is in addition to any early termination fees that may be charged by your chosen carrier.”

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  • FCC gives Verizon the third degree over $350 ‘advanced device’ ETF

    FCC gives Verizon the third degree over $350 ‘advanced device’ ETF

    Posted on December 4, 2009 | No Comments
    Early termination fees have always represented the flipside of subsidized pricing -- the necessary evil that keeps free phones free. Thing is, they were tough enough to swallow at $175 or $200, but Verizon's recently gone for the jugular in a hell-bent effort to keep subscribers locked in by upping the fee on vaguely-defined "advanced devices" (read: any phone a power user would ever want) all the way up to a mind-bending $350. Turns out the FCC is as confused and worked up as everyone else, though, having fired off a 4-page communique to Verizon's veep of legal and external affairs today asking how customers are notified of the new ETF, how the prorating formula is calculated (hint: they don't like that you still pay $120 after 23 months of a 24-month contract), and how an "advanced device" comes to be, among other things. Riding on the letter are a few extra questions about inadvertent mobile web charges for customers that aren't signed up for a data plan, totaling nine paragraph-long queries that the feds want answered by December 17. Your move, Verizon.

    [Thanks, Daniel P.]

    FCC gives Verizon the third degree over $350 'advanced device' ETF originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 04 Dec 2009 13:46:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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  • The More You Know: An Overview of the Major Carriers’ Early Termination Fees

    The More You Know: An Overview of the Major Carriers’ Early Termination Fees

    Posted on November 20, 2009 | No Comments
    Turkey Day is just around the corner, which means that the annual American tradition season of losing one’s mind in exchange for slightly discounted goods will officially begin a week from today. Yes, I speak of the infamous day that is Black Friday. The very same day in which hundreds of thousands of Americans transform [...]

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  • Verizon to raise ETF to $350 on “advanced devices”

    Verizon to raise ETF to $350 on “advanced devices”

    Posted on November 4, 2009 | No Comments
    Don't expect to scam Verizon on BOGO deals anymore, folks. The carrier is raising early termination fees on Novermber 15 to $350 for "advance devices" only. Clearly VZW is targeting users who were abusing the buy one get one free BlackBerry deals and those that figured out that it was cheaper cancel their current contract and pay the $175 ETF than to pay full retail for the hot new handsets like the Droid.

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