How to cancel Cingular w/o fee

I signed onto a 2 year family plan with Cingular at the end of August 2006. My problem is that we both got Sony Ericson phones that we hate. Cingular will not let us get new phones at any kind of a decent discount and I hate their service anyway so i would like to get out but can't afford the $350 dsconnect fee. Is there anyother way to get out of this? I had read somewhere that if a cell phone company increased any of it's rates you have 30 days to leave them. I don't use any extras(text messaging etc) so I don't know if the rates have increased. I'd appreciate any ideas or if somewhere knows where we can purchase decent phones without paying full price. Thanks in advance.

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the only way to get out of the contract is to pay the ETF. You willingly and knowingly signed the contract. And you had 30 days to cancel, or at least to change phones. Sorry.

there was the chance to get out of your contract when cingular raised their text rates from 10 cents to 15, but the time period for you to do this passed already. it was only valid for a month

Originally Posted by Shrocat

You willingly and knowingly signed the contract.

You may have knowingly signed it but it was hardly a "willingly" experience.

Initiating cell-phone service is a consumer experience rarely encountered any where else in life. Carriers have all banded together to screw the public with this ETF scam. No where else in life does this nonsense go on. You aren't forced to agree to be blackmailed into paying off your cable TV company with ETFs. Your electric power company doesn't pull this scam. Your dentist doesn't charge you $200 if you go to another dentist. Your mechanic doesn't do it. Burger King doesn't charge you a fee if you eat at McDonalds.

Only cell phone carriers do it. And why do they get away with it? Because they have all gotten together behind closed doors and agreed to all hold hands and screw the public.

It's wrong. It's against U.S. anti trust laws. It should be investigated and ended by the U.S. Department of Justice.

There is no way of getting out of having to pay the fee for cancelling your service. RF Shield Box Home

Originally Posted by wirelessfan

You may have knowingly signed it but it was hardly a "willingly" experience.

Initiating cell-phone service is a consumer experience rarely encountered any where else in life. Carriers have all banded together to screw the public with this ETF scam. No where else in life does this nonsense go on. You aren't forced to agree to be blackmailed into paying off your cable TV company with ETFs. Your electric power company doesn't pull this scam. Your dentist doesn't charge you $200 if you go to another dentist. Your mechanic doesn't

oh sure, I can buy a car or a house, or anything else on a time payment, and then decide I don't want it and just walk away with no further payments.
Or did you mean that you are forced to carry a cell phone and pay enormous amounts of money to do it? Actually, unless you boss requires you to carry one nobody is forcing you to use a cell phone. Nobody is forced you to use cingular, or any other carrier. And nobody forced you to accept an expensive piece of equiptment for almost nothing, in return agreeing to use the service for 24 months.
It is your choice all the way through.

Originally Posted by Shrocat

oh sure, I can buy a car or a house, or anything else on a time payment, and then decide I don't want it and just walk away with no further payments.
Or did you mean that you are forced to carry a cell phone and pay enormous amounts of money to do it? Actually, unless you boss requires you to carry one nobody is forcing you to use a cell phone. Nobody is forced you to use cingular, or any other carrier. And nobody forced you to accept an expensive piece of equiptment for almost nothing, in return agreeing to use the service for 24 months.
It is your choice all the way through.

1.) Buying a Home/Getting a Cellphone? The concept of comparing the magnitude of the purchase of a $500,000 real estate transaction to opening a telephone account is so silly that if you were to re-read what you wrote above it could do nothing but embarrass you.

2.) Boss Requiring Cellphones? Whether I am forced to carry a cell phone or I do it by choice is irrelevant. We no longer live in the dark ages. It is assumed that normal people will be able to communicate with other normal people either for business or for personal reasons by telephone. In the 1970s only CEOs of large companies had portable phones. Today, mothers call their 12 year olds to find out if they are out of school and ready to come home. Cell phone service is not a luxury. It is a commodity service, just like electric service or water service or landline service in your home.

3.) Carrier Equipment? I actually did not "accept an expensive piece of equipment" at all. You make a lot of bold and unfounded conclusions that are silly and don't advance your standing in threads like this. You may want to think a little before you shoot off unthoughtout post responses in the future. I have not used any carrier supplied equipment in years. Actually many people who participate in forums like this are very similar to me. Many people want the latest and greatest cell phones and can't get them from their carrier. I wanted a Moto Razr V3i a year ago. My carrier only started carrying this phone recently. I bought my V3i on the open market and brought it to my carrier. They have given me no equipment subsidy. Their only cost for retaining me as a client is sending me a large bill each month which I always promptly pay.

4.) My choice? Had you bothered to read my initial comments and think about them rather than just scanning for posts where you think you can pick a fight to try and get attention, you would have noted that I referenced U.S. anti-trust law. Current U.S. anti-trust law stipulates that U.S. companies may NOT price fix. They may NOT all hold hands and conspire to charge the public higher prices than the market will bear simply because they all agree to hold hands and screw the public. Cell phone carriers do not need ETFs anymore than does your electricity provider or dozens of other service providers we could mention. Only cell phone carriers pull this nonsense. And they do so because they have all agreed to do so behind closed doors. The minute any carrier eliminates ETFs, they will all be forced to follow and they know it. This is extortion. When you practice extortion, you cannot claim that people have choices because they do not. Holding a gun to someone's head is not giving them a choice.

Please try to be less argumentative and more thoughtful in future posts.

Point 1. The only differences between buying house and buying cell phone service is the size of the transaction and the length of the contract. In both cases you are agreeing to pay for a service. With a house, or a car, or some other purchase the service you are buying is the use of the money to obtain the item. You agree to make payments, including interest, to pay for the service. If you decide to terminate early, by giving back all the money you borrowed, you are still on the hook for an early termination fee. Check your contract. Just the same as with cell phone service.
Point 2. I only mentioned it because some companies require their employees to use, and pay for, devices from one carrier. Forcing people to leave their carrier of choice. And these companies typically do not pay for any etfs.
Not many companies operate this way, but some do.
I only mentioned the carrier provided phones because most people opt for one carrier because of the neat phone they can get for cheap, and then scream when they realiaze that they have to pay the etf to change carriers to get their nifty phones.
And your final point, which is the meat of the post, is simply ridiculous.
In the U.S. the electric companies have a monopoly, and you really have no choice but to get your electricity from them. There are no other practical options. They do not charge an etf because the house will be using electricity no matter who lives there. And the landline phones are pretty much the same, at least until the last 5 years or so.

The fact is, the carriers sell you a service. An entirely optional service. Nobody made you sign up, with few exceptions. You chose to use a cell phone on Cingular. You had ample oppurtunity to read and understand the contract before you signed up. And from what you say, you are more knowledgeable than most. You had to know before hand that you had to pay the ETF to get the service you wanted. If you did not want to pay that ETF, then you shouldn't have signed up. You could have used a different carrier, or you could have used prepaid minutes, or you could have simply not used the cell phone service at all.

Originally Posted by Shrocat

Point 1. The only differences between buying house and buying cell phone service is the size of the transaction and the length of the contract.

In a real estate contract and mortgage, you are buying a very expensive PHYSICAL ASSET over time. You are going to a bank and taking out a LOAN.

In acquiring cell-phone service, you're not building equity ownership in any carrier. They are providing a month-to-month service to you. They provide ongoing service just like cable companies, water companies, land line phone companies, electric companies, gasoline companies, insurance companies, pool maintenance companies, car detailing companies, and so forth and so forth and so forth.

The only difference between cell-phone carriers and the long list of service providers above is that only cell-phone carriers pull this shameful ETF scam. Comparing a mortgage to buying cell-phone service is just ridiculous.

Originally Posted by Shrocat

I only mentioned the carrier provided phones because most people opt for one carrier because of the neat phone they can get for cheap, and then scream when they realiaze that they have to pay the etf to change carriers to get their nifty phones.

You're offering sips from the paper cup with the carriers' "Kool Aid" again here. Carriers do not lose money giving customers "nifty phones" at cheap prices. The discounted prices are almost always still more than they are paying for the phones. And even if we assume carriers are losing money on giving away phones, it's THEIR DECISION to do it. Atari used to make video games. They usually broke even or lost a small amount of money selling the game box required for the software to play their games. It's called "lost leader" marketing. Many consumer companies do this. They know that they'll make their money on their reoccuring revenue fees.

Now, none of this takes into consideration the fact that many of us do NOT ask for subsidized phones. What is my carrier's investment in me? Absolutely nothing. Using your kooky mortgage analogy above, I'm being charged points and fees and I've never taken out a mortgage with the "Bank of CellPhone Inc." to get their so-called subsidized phone. You skip over this point for obvious reasons -- you have absolutely no way to argue that someone like me deserves to be charged ETFs.

Originally Posted by Shrocat

In the U.S. the electric companies have a monopoly.

Actually that is not true, there are alternate electricity providers I can use but aside from yet another error, we need to define what U.S. cell phone companies are. And they are oligopolies ... (Defining the new Oligopoly) which is as bad or worse than a monopoly. As I've noted several times, this small band of thieves know that they can price fix if they simply hold hands and band together and screw the public. ETFs are anti-consumer, they violate the spirit of the Sherman Anti Trust Act of 1890 and they should be investigated by the U.S. Department of Justice.

In your rush to drink more KoolAid, you keep ignoring the citation of the law. The law says price fixing is illegal. You have no argument for this. You keep ignoring it.

Originally Posted by Shrocat

And the landline phones are pretty much the same, at least until the last 5 years or so.

Landline phone carriers do not charge ETFs. And with an unbelievably high percentage of young adults (18-34 age group) foregoing buying landline service in favor of just having a cell phone, the argument for carriers screwing the public with ETFs becomes even lamer.

Originally Posted by Shrocat

The fact is, the carriers sell you a service. An entirely optional service. Nobody made you sign up, with few exceptions.

The exact same argument could be made about water company providers. They provide an optional service. You don't NEED to sign up for their water service. You can buy Perrier at 7-11. You can stand in the rain outside your back door in the nude with a bar of Ivory soap. You can dig a hole in your backyard to relieve yourself. Their service is a convenience. And yet they don't charge ETFs. And with zero doubt, their cost infrastructure is significantly greater than anything any cell-phone carrier could imagine. Compare the cost of digging reservoirs, engineering waterways, building filteration plants, ... yes compare that to putting up a couple of cell-phone towers. Not EVEN the same league. And again water companies don't charge ETFs.

Originally Posted by Shrocat

You chose to use a cell phone on Cingular. You had ample oppurtunity to read and understand the contract before you signed up.

Do you really think it is ok to try and make any point you want to make yet ignore anything anyone else says?

First of all, I don't use Cingulbar. If you bothered to look, you would have noticed that. Secondly, when a pack of oligopolists band together and tell us that we must agree to the terms of their cartel or else we don't get their service, that is not free trade. That is extortion. You've ignored this point twice now. We cannot negotiate with carriers on the ETF. Carriers tell us it's a take-it-or-leave it proposition. Carriers tell us that IF we want their service, we will agree to their terms. Since they operate as a cartel, their ETF terms are all the same. Again, that's not free trade, that is extortion.

Originally Posted by Shrocat

You could have used a different carrier.

You keep drinking that KoolAid and missing the point. There are no alternatives. The carriers operate as a cartel and price fix on ETFs.

Let me explain this in simple terms. The market for cell-phone subscriptions in the United States is not static. It is a growing (exploding actually) market and has been for years. Your pals at Cingulbar just announced record profits. Yet the carriers pass around the KoolAid and claim they need ETFs to insure stability. Cell phone use is EXPLODING. Carrier profits are EXPLODING. ETFs are simply a profit center, a way for carriers to restrain trade and produce additional revenue.

What possible consumer benefit do ETFs offer? They only protect incompetence. If you were to leave Cingulbar tomorrow, it wouldn't affect their base of business at all. You have not and cannot give me one good reason for carriers to charge ETFs. They do NOTHING for consumers and are nothing other than just another profit center for carriers ... and the carriers are already reaping record profits.

I see how eager you are to drink the carriers' KoolAid. I can't understand why, but I do see your eagerness. Perhaps if you wish to respond again you'll give us at least ONE good consumer reason to support these ETFs which you are so passionate over. Just one. One benefit to consumers. Just one.

Wow, that's a long post What wirelessfan said...