Comments on: FAQ: Why you're still paying early-termination fees

Nearly a year after a California court ruled that Sprint's early-termination fees are unlawful, people who quit their contracts early are still socked with fees. Why?

[drezjohnson]

I don't have a problem with ETFs just as long as the fees are made crystal clear before from the start. As long as the company doesn't blatantly deceive customers then I don't see a reason why they should be deemed illegal. Then again, we live in such a sales driven economy that sales people (in any industry) have very little incentive to be genuine.

[dodgerdog27]

Baloney... I sold cell phones for 4 years and never once deceived a customer... the average commission on a sale of a contract is $3-$5.... any sales rep that has been around for at least 1 year knows its easier just to tell the truth to the customer. If they are ok with it you do the sale and move on.. If they aren't... then you move on to another customer. No sales rep ever wants a customer to come back and complain to the manager and waste an hour of sales time playing the who said what game.... Trust me.... NO SALES REP CARES ENOUGH ABOUT YOU OR YOUR $5 TO LIE TO YOU. You make your money in volume. And! if you change your plan in any way within the first 6 months they take the sales reps money away from them.... so if you change anything at all the sales rep gets screwed. Trust me, they want you to be happy and not change a single thing ever. In my 4 years i probably worked with about 150 different sales reps and maybe 10 were dishonest. And half of them get fired in the first year for being dishonest.

[janejim76]

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[bottle12am]

I have a Virgin Mobile pay-as-you-go phone. $50/ month, unlimited talk/text. No contracts. No credit report hits. Choice of phones. If I don't pay, they just shut me off til I reactivate with a new PAYG card, without badmouthing me to FICO or forcing me to pay a ridiculous reactivation fee.

Oh yeah, and their call centers are U.S. based.

[sal4114]

The posts on here don't surprise me in the least. No one likes cell phone contracts with $200 termination fees, but no one likes paying $400 for a cell phone either. But you can't have it both ways. In fact, some of these contracts are good deals and I'll tell you why. Just the other day I saw a phone in Verizon for $450. With a 2 year contract the phone was $150. That would save me $300! Now, Verizon charges a $175 term fee if you end the contract early. The way I see it... $150 + $175 = $325. Even with the stupid term fee I still saved $125 on the phone!!

So what's the problem? Is it better for Verizon or any other cell company to just charge full price for the phone with no contract? You think people are ******** now about price?? Look, It's because of these contracts that minorities and poorer people can afford to even attain a cell phone to begin with! Everyone is walking around with a cell phone these days. Even the poorest of the poor have cell phones! I thought helping minorities and poor people was a staple of liberal California? Unfortunately, anti-business liberals haven't figured it out yet. By suing companies, you ONLY hurt their customers', their employees' and their stock holders' wallets, NOT THE COMPANY OR THE RICH EXECS!

[supert1020]

Contracts are NECESSARY but you don't need to sign a contract to get a phone. All carriers let you buy phones at retail cost. The reason you sign a contract is to get the phone at a subsidized price if there where no contracts phones would be $200 or more. I own a windows mobile phone I love it but at the time it was $600 dollars unlocked there is no way i was going to buy it at that price. Guess what a carrier had it for half the cost. so to save $300 dollars all i have to do is sign a contract. explain to me why a carrier should subsidize my phone and get nothing for it?? To terminate my contract is $175 so even if i needed to leave the carrier and pay the termination fee i still saved money by buying the contract. I am all for contracts because i want my phones cheap. Look at boost mobile phones then look at any major carrier for the money you can get much better phones at a major carrier for the same price as boost mobiles crappy phones why....Contracts. All you people saying contracts suck i'm sure you would be bi$ching about phone prices without them.

I have heard of carriers making you sign a contract when you change your rate plan or feature that is WRONG the only time you should sign a contract is to get a phone subsidized. If you try to change something on you plan and a carrier makes you sign a contract to do it. I would suggest you leave that carrier because that is just messed up.