Verizon Doubles Early Termination Fee and More 520
An anonymous reader writes "If you buy a smartphone through Verizon, be prepared for an increase in the early termination fee. Verizon is doubling the phone-subsidy to $350. What's more, is that Verizon also actively charges customers for accidental data transmissions of as little as 0.02kb. 'They configure the phones to have multiple easily hit keystrokes to launch 'Get it now' or 'Mobile Web'—usually a single key like an arrow key. [...] The instant you call the function, they charge you the data fee. We cancel these unintended requests as fast as we can hit the End key, but it doesn't matter; they've told me that ANY data--even one kilobyte--is billed as 1MB. The damage is done.'"
Wow (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Wow (Score:5, Funny)
The flaw of DROID is locked to Verizon.
The flaw of the iPhone is locked to AT&T (but at least you can jail break it).
I guess I am sticking with my SonyEricsson w810i until the phone providers adopt the buisness model in Europe...which might be right about the time they are tossing snowballs in hell...or DukeNukem Forever is released.
Re:Wow (Score:4, Interesting)
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AT&T uses different frequencies than Europe. Not sure about CA, I think they may use the same 3G bands as AT&T.
The Milestone says UMTS in 900 and 2100. At best it may cover one of the two bands AT&T uses. (I always get 850 vs 900 and 1800 vs 1900 confused.)
T-Mo uses the 1700 MHz band for UMTS, few phones support this.
Re:Wow (Score:4, Informative)
I don't recall if AT&T uses the same frequencies as Europe
Nope. AT&T uses 850Mhz & 1900Mhz for 3G, Europe uses 2100Mhz. T-Mobile uses 1700Mhz (which nobody else uses) and 2100Mhz for 3G. Unfortunately, they use 1700Mhz for the uplink and 2100Mhz for downlink, making their network incompatible with Europe and Asia.
Re:Wow (Score:4, Informative)
Droid vs. Android (Score:4, Informative)
No, you're confusing Droid with Android. Droid is a specific Android-based phone made by Motorola and currently only available through Verizon. Droid is also, by most measures, significantly better than any other Android-based phone.
Re:Wow (Score:5, Informative)
AT&T is no different when it comes to nickel-and-diming their customers to death.
- I have unlimited messaging on my family plan. It allows me to send unlimited SMS and MMS messages.
- I quite often accidentally push the dedicated "MediaNET" button on the phone. This opens a browser, and I am charged $0.01 per KB (rounded up, of course).
- You can have them block the browser, but blocking the browser blocks picture messages (both sending and receiving).
So either I put up with paying an extra buck or so every month (across five phones) or I shut off MMS entirely.
There's other games that cell carriers like to play, too:
AT&T loves charging you "upgrade" fees when you upgrade your phone (quite separate from getting charged for the phone itself). They claim it's so they can update their system - which is of course a gargantuan lie. I sat on the phone for twenty minutes coaxing the CSR into refunding it for me, last time they did it. The same goes for "activation" fees. I signed a two-year contract with an early cancellation fee; there's no reason to charge me on top of that. (I got that fee refunded as well.)
Seriously, people - call your cell service provider next time you upgrade your phone. Insist that they refund the "upgrade" fee, and if they need a reason tell them they're obviously charging you for nothing (since you could have merely obtained your phone some other way and they'd never know). A two-year contract is enough to satisfy their "well we subsidized the phone" fake concerns. AT&T will cave to your demand - if enough of us do it, maybe they'll stop charging it altogether. I can only assume Verizon and Sprint will follow suit given enough customer pressure.
I don't even want to start ranting about SMS messaging rates without a plan. $0.20 for a 160-byte text message that (quite literally) costs them nothing? That's where to look if you want to show nickel-and-diming...
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if enough of us do it, maybe they'll stop charging it altogether.
No they won't, if enough people start getting it waived some manager somewhere will notice it in his metrics and an order will come down from on-high and nobody will be able to waive it anymore
the real issue is lack of real competition. Lawmakers need to force the carriers to be more transparent (i.e. the total cost of the subsidy phone plan must be at least equal to the cost of the phone outright plus the same amount of time on the same no-contract plan) because people sign these contracts because they are
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Assuming neither sender nor recipient has a text messaging plan, yeah.
I'm paying $30/month for unlimited texting, as I mentioned; my sister makes good use of it (~1000 outgoing, ~1000 incoming texts monthly). Figure that's the only way I'll get my money's worth.
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To be fair I'm sure the SMS is compressed to about 70bytes, maybe less.
Nah, it's sent uncompressed. It uses some free space in the command channel of the cell network (meaning it's being sent anyway, so it's literally free). They have no incentive to compress it.
Long distance calls cost more on cellphones
Not on any plan I've seen. AT&T, Verizon, and Sprint all include long distance at no extra charge. (I'm of course referring to domestic long distance.)
Cellphone bills cost something like 90$/mo w/ a data plan.
Well the easiest way to save money on cell phones is to get a family plan. I share 700 minutes between five phones, and we pay for unlimited messaging.
My bill c
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That's why they are doing it I assume. Someone could technically buy a Droid or other smart phone on contract for ~$350, break the contract and come out less than buying the phone outright. ($175 + $350 $600) so you'd be dumb to outright by it when you can get $75 (plus the $100 MIR) by buying a contract and canceling it.
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There's a lawsuit for that. [engadget.com]
Their EVDO 3G is barely better than EDGE (2.5G). I'll take UMTS, even if it isn't available in East Bum-Fuck Kansas.
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Really? In what service areas exactly do you find that Verizon's EVDO is "barely better" than any competing network--especially EDGE?
Really? Did you even read what you linked to?
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Re:Wow (Score:4, Interesting)
My 11 month old daughter is able to figure out how to unlock my phone. It's random chance that they figure it out, but once they do, they're pretty good and remembering it and duplicating the results.
RUN AWAY FROM VERIZON WIRELESS! (Score:5, Funny)
Please, for the love of God and all that is decent in this world, steer clear of Verizon Wireless!!!
I am a Verizon Wireless customer. They make "horrible customer service" sound like something to aspire to.
They haven't been able to get my bill "right" for months. Every single month there are random charges tacked on, that they cannot explain when I call. Until recently, they've cancelled these charges with good apology. But now?
I have two phones suspended because they are lost. Originally, I was told I could suspend them indefinitely. Then I was told that I could only suspend them month-by-month. Then I was was told I could suspend them three months at a time. Now, they're telling me that I can only suspend 6 months per year. None of which was mentioned when I asked up front, and none of which is ever consistently said after the fact.
So I decided to buy out the contract. Get this: Not only are they're charging me for two months' service for two phones I don't even have, they're charging me for an entire two months of service for both of those two phones AFTER the contract has been cancelled by being bought out!
If you are ever, EVER tempted to go Verizon, RUN LIKE HELL OUT OF THERE. They make a pack of lying vultures being eaten by a horde of hungry lawyers seem friendly!
Positive comments for VZW (Score:4, Informative)
Re:RUN AWAY FROM VERIZON WIRELESS! (Score:4, Insightful)
Verizon is doubling the phone-subsidy to $350... (Score:5, Insightful)
And yet people make fun of me for using a TracFone, for about only $9 per month.
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People who make a lot of calls aren't going to come in at $9 per month - pre-paids are only good for people with very low usage.
Also, unlike most other services, with TracFone you don't own your number. You decide to switch carriers and your phone number goes with it. Personally keeping my number is worth quite a bit more than $350. To each his own though.
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"People who make a lot of calls aren't going to come in at $9 per month - pre-paids are only good for people with very low usage."
And the award for the best stating of the obvious goes to MBGMorden. Take a bow.
Re:Verizon is doubling the phone-subsidy to $350.. (Score:5, Informative)
Tracfone has a brand, Straight Talk [straighttalk.com] (I have no affiliation and that's not a referral link), with phones available at WalMart with unlimited voice and text plus 30 MB data for $45/30 days. Prepaid being only for low-usage folks is a bygone idea.
Re:Verizon is doubling the phone-subsidy to $350.. (Score:5, Informative)
Also, unlike most other services, with TracFone you don't own your number.
Google Voice to the rescue.
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I'm on T-mobile prepaid and i __love__ it. Yeah, i don't talk much. Verizon doesn't have any kind of cost effective service for customers like me. They
Re:Verizon is doubling the phone-subsidy to $350.. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Verizon is doubling the phone-subsidy to $350.. (Score:4, Informative)
Also, unlike most other services, with TracFone you don't own your number. You decide to switch carriers and your phone number goes with it. Personally keeping my number is worth quite a bit more than $350. To each his own though.
According to TracFone's FAQ. They will allow you to transfer your number out of TracFone, but your personal information on the TracFone account must match the information on the new carrier's account. Source [tracfone.com]
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When you start talking about $350 charges I am thinking well fuck, thats at least 2500 minutes
And you know what happens if I break my phone? I pay $30 for a new one, and I don't even have to argue with anybody.
It's not just a "phone subsidy." (Score:2, Insightful)
If you buy a smartphone through Verizon, be prepared for an increase in the early termination fee. Verizon is doubling the phone-subsidy to $350.
You sign a contract with Verizon. Verizon is providing the services. You are contracting with them and saying you will use their services for X years. It's a contract. Breaking a contract is something where both parties agree what the response should be. In this case, Verizon is saying that you are charged $350 if you break your contract and stop paying them what you said you would pay them.
Honestly, I don't see what the deal is. Chances are you are paying what... average of $100 a month for a Verizon
Re:It's not just a "phone subsidy." (Score:5, Insightful)
You would be right if the contract actually worked both ways. If you have problem with your service, or a billing dispute, or any of a number of other problems, their answer is likely to be "Too bad."
The customer is left with two choices - a very costly and unlikely to succeed lawsuit, or to walk. Taking your business elsewhere is sometimes the only effective protest against a corporate bully.
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You would be right if the contract actually worked both ways. If you have problem with your service, or a billing dispute, or any of a number of other problems, their answer is likely to be "Too bad."
Not really. We've have billing disputes and problems with both Verizon and AT&T. We got a discount from AT&T and refunds from Verizon. Is it difficult to actually talk to someone who knows what they are talking about and works with you? Yes. It's not impossible though, and we were not told "too bad."
The customer is left with two choices - a very costly and unlikely to succeed lawsuit, or to walk.
I suppose this depends on the nature of the issue. In the case of an early termination, I can't see how you have a leg to stand on in the first place. If you mean overcharges or something like tha
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Can't speak for GP, but I am (and for many years have been) a Sprint PCS customer.
Yes, they have some really poor customer service reps. HOWEVER, every time I've had a legitimate billing dispute, and once even when it was a grey area where I'd made an error that was my fault, they ended up giving me a refund.
Guess what? That's the nature of cell phone call centers. The difference between "good" and "bad" in terms of call center staffing, is in a good call center only some of the CSR's lack both a working
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How doesn't it work both ways? They give you $X as a sort of signing bonus, knowing that across two years they will make that back. Do you think it's unfair that you can't just walk away with that money the next month? Isn't it only reasonable they get back the money they gave you (prorated even, IIRC) if you don't fulfill the expectations of the contract?
Contrary to the GP's post, the penalty is, in principle, because of the phone subsidy. Ongoing general service or support contracts rarely have severa
There is no phone subsidy (Score:3, Insightful)
"Contrary to the GP's post, the penalty is, in principle, because of the phone subsidy."
I think that's incorrect.
If you get a $200 phone for $100 because of 2 year agreement, not considering interest, you think, "right, subsidy of about $4.16 per month". But yet, when you hit the 25th month, the monthly service doesn't go down by $4.16. Worse, if you bring your own phone to the carrier, they don't lower the price.
In my opinion, you're getting a subsidy for the difference between the "normal" price and the
Re:It's not just a "phone subsidy." (Score:4, Funny)
Guy/Girl: "Hey Verizon, can you block my data service so I don't accidentally use it?"
Verizon: "Sure we can. (click)"
Guy/Girl: "Uh, Why is my bill showing charges for data, that I have disabled?"
Verizon: "Because silly.... we have to send you data to tell you that you can't use the data plan!"
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I had that happen. I specifically called them to have them block data service.
The next 2 months each had data charges that I had to call them up and insist they remove the charges and enforce the block.
Verizon sucks. I never want to use them again. They nickel and dime you worse than any other provider.
Re:It's not just a "phone subsidy." (Score:5, Insightful)
Haven't you noticed? Nowadays we don't vote with our wallets any more, we just dash to the lowest up front cost and then start bitching when we realize we can't act like children. Then we do it again with the next company, because we now "hate" the first.
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(Also, the numbers Americans throw around for their cell phone contracts scare me - $100 a m
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(Also, the numbers Americans throw around for their cell phone contracts scare me - $100 a month or more? Do they deliver your data to you in gold-plated USB sticks or something?)
Meh. Family plan. Data plans are expensive, too, though...
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Re:It's not just a "phone subsidy." (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem for me isn't that they have ETF fees, in fact given most phones have a subsidy I under stand that. My problem is that you cannot sign a contract without an ETF even if you provide your own phone. On top of that if you buy a phone without a subsidy it's not like you can negotiate a service discount with Verizon. You pay the same amount in either case and that's not really fair.
If Verizon actually cared about the customer they would offer a choice of the following two plan options.
1. Subsidized phone, contract, and ETF. You pay for you phone over the life of your contract, basically you're leasing the phone.
2. Unsubsidized phone, no contract, no ETF, discounted plan rate. You buy the phone outright since you paid full price for it you should save the difference between the price you paid and the subsidized price over the same length of time as the contract from option 1.
In fact at one point I was going to sign up for a plan with Verizon and bring my own phone, but even if I didn't get a new phone from them to setup new service I had to agree to a 1 year contract which included an ETF. There was NO way to avoid the contract.
This entire subsidy and ETF thing on your phone reminds me of old MA Bell. Before the original AT&T got broken up due to being a monopoly it wasn't actually possible for you to buy a telephone. You HAD to lease the phone from the phone company, and the phone company owned your phone. You basically got whatever phone Ma Bell wanted you to have. Cellphone companies are in that position now. While they say you "buy" your phone, you're really leasing it with no option to truly own it. If these companies were forced to offer a choice of phones, and didn't have these crazy contracts to hide behind I'm sure the cost of cellphone handsets would drop along through real competition.
Re:It's not just a "phone subsidy." (Score:5, Informative)
What you are saying is good if it wasn't false.
No Contract Required -- New Month-To-Month Agreement Gives Verizon Wireless Customers Even More Freedom [vzw.com]
No, you don't get a plan discount, but I don't believe that the plan pricing has to do with the ETF or the subsidy anyway.
Make money now ... pay FCC later (Score:2, Insightful)
They'll make more now than the class-action will cost later.
Termination Fees (Score:4, Insightful)
I understand, on principle why they charge early termination fees. $350 for a smartphone seems extreme, but taking the new Droid for example, the phone costs $550 without a plan and the customer gets it for $200 which is right in line. What doesn't make sense is the fact that if I cancel my contract 1 year and 11 months in, I'm expected to pay the whole termination fee, despite the fact that Verizon has already made back $335 of it. That's just abussive. Termination fees should be proportional to the amount of the contract you are terminating and capped at the amount of subsidization on the phone.
Re:Termination Fees (Score:5, Informative)
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even then they haven't made back all of it yet... minus all the overhead with running the company, etc. they probably really do need the full two years to break even.
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Manage these features online. (Score:2)
As much as I can bash Verizon for their gestapo-like moves in other areas, at least they've given us the tools to completely disable features like these through account management online. I know this doesn't offer much of a solution for the casual user of these features, but at least it helps with certain users who intend to NEVER use the features.
As far as purposely designing these features on phones that make it VERY easy to accidentally activate and thus get charged for it no matter how quickly you try
Re:Manage these features online. (Score:5, Funny)
As much as I can bash Verizon for their gestapo-like moves in other areas, at least they've given us the tools to completely disable features like these through account management online.
Cool. I never really understood what "Stockholm Syndrome" meant until now.
Verizon: "there's a scam for that". (Score:5, Funny)
Don't want to use the data service? There's a scam for that. Want to upgrade your phone? There's a scam for that. No matter what you want to do, we'll get your money. Because there's a scam for that.
Re:Verizon: "there's a scam for that". (Score:5, Funny)
Charging for incoming text messages: Scam
Charging for data service without a verification nag: Scam
Seeing an iphone/droid user wander into oncoming traffic: Priceless!
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Where does it say "we'll charge you $1.99 every time you hit the wrong key when you flip the phone open" on the contract?
They doubled it because... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:They doubled it because... (Score:4, Insightful)
The cure for that is to STOP GIVING AWAY FREE SPARE BLACKBERRIES, not FUCK ALL YOUR USERS.
Mine was a $175 termination fee (Score:2)
Re: Your .sig (Score:2)
Shaka, when the walls fell.
Free market (Score:2, Insightful)
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Hopefully this is a joke. A free market is a nice idea, as is using a competing service, but what do you do when there are only 4 or 5 players in the market, and they all charge an early termination fee? It's collusion.
The new termination fee is high, but justifiable (Score:5, Insightful)
Using the DROID as an example:
The DROID with no contract is $560.
Math with the current termination fee:
$200 for the phone +
$175 to immediately break your contract =
$375 (You save $185 over the no-contract price)
Math with the new termination fee:
$200 for the phone +
$350 to immediately break your contract =
$550 (You save $10 over the no-contract price)
Either way you save more than simply buying the phone without a contract. The new fee is high, but I can understand their reasoning.
Re:The new termination fee is high, but justifiabl (Score:4, Insightful)
Ha! Ha! Ha! I really screwed Verizon over!!
Hey, wait...
Point is, no matter how much Verizon sells a phone for, that phone can only do one of two things: be used to make Verizon money, or go in the trash. Is it justifiable for a CARRIER-LOCKED PHONE to be contractually *fully* subsidized by the purchaser? If this was AT&T, T-Mobile, etc. I could see the point - I take my phone and run, screwing the company out of money. But with Verizon's phones, regardless of how long I am with them - the phone will keep making them money!
Verizon Smartphones required to get data plan (Score:2)
if you have a smartphone on verizon you are REQUIRED to have a smartphone data plan which is "unlimited" (5GB/month), so no 1MB billings.
i know. I have an Omnia on Verizon /employer discounts ftw
maybe nowyou can cancel w/o a fee (Score:2, Interesting)
ORLY? (Score:3, Interesting)
If I buy a smartphone from Verizon and sign a 2-year contract, I'm prepared to keep the phone and service for two years. That's the game and they're setting the rules - if I want to phone and service jump, sure I could prefer not to pay but I can't really find a fault in them wanting me to. Who is this hurting? If you move to a location where you don't get service, they already let you cancel without penalty. How many people actually end up paying the ETF?
Also, I don't know about the data bit either. My old k1m/krzr went to the "mobile web" or get it now if I hit the down arrow. That brought up a launch screen where I could check account settings (for free), purchase a day's worth of mobile browsing, or sign up for mobile web and have it as a recurring payment. I've never been charged for any sort of access for pulling anything down.
Sprint (Score:4, Interesting)
Cheaper than keeping it... (Score:3, Interesting)
Paying $230 to break a 2-year contract after one year is far cheaper than keeping the phone for another year at $120+ per month...just sayin'.
Re:new york times (Score:4, Insightful)
This would make me not get Verizon, if I didn't already have it without the hike tho...
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Remember, if they change data rates (and you know they'll try to hike it as soon as the phone becomes popular), you can always break terminate your plan for no fee. I suspect verizon will do that quite fast.
Re:new york times (Score:5, Informative)
The last time I was on Verizon I went to get a new phone after having one for 3 years. They told me I wasn't eligible for a new phone, because my wife got one the year before. We had a shared family plan.
I found it in writing where it stipulated where we were both eligible for new phones every two years. They insisted that if I didn't get mine at the same time she got hers, then I missed my window. I was livid. I kept going back to the Verizon store (and waiting 30 minutes to talk to a person each time) and trying to talk to different people.
Eventually I said, I'll just pay my $150 cancellation fee, which is cheaper than paying full retail on a phone, since they wouldn't give me a new phone after two years.
They then said, I'd have to pay $350. They consider family plans two seperate lines. I'd pay $175 each. Funny how it is two lines for cancellation purposes, but one plan as far as getting new phones. The weird part is that I was convinced my cancellation fee was $150 when I signed the contract.
They explained that all prices and fees can be changed at any time during the contract, and that raised my cancellation fee over the life of the contract. I was pretty livid. I ended up waiting a few months and then jumping to AT&T. Now I have a phone that doesn't get signal in half the town, but I never want to go back to Verizon's service again.
Everytime a Verizon rep talks to me and tries to get me to switch, they insist they'd never pull a stunt where they wouldn't give me a phone, and yet in talking to two store managers, and calling the 1-800 number, that is exactly what they did to me.
Re:new york times (Score:5, Insightful)
First rule of Verizon: the people in the stores know nothing and are not backed up by the home office.
This means the people in the stores will tell you things that are completely wrong. This can result in your being charged extra for things because the people in the stores have no ability to enforce their promises. The 800 number is the only "customer service" that exists for Verizon. Even at a "store manager" level, they have no power, no training and no ability to get anything done. This pretty much means they are there to dial the phone and put the customer on the phone with the 800 number customer service people.
The stores seem to exist to provide an image of local, in person support when none really exists. I have dealt with some good stores and some bad stores, but over all it doesn't make any difference - because the manager can promise you something or interpret some vague statement for you and then you get a bill that says exactly the opposite. Calling the 800 number gets responses like "they shouldn't have told you that" and worse.
End result is very simple. Verizon stores are perhaps a place to pick up a phone. They cannot do anything more than that for you. Expect nothing and you will not be disappointed.
MOD PARENT UP! (Score:3, Interesting)
I am so glad to have T-Moblie service (and Android for over a year). Not because they have great coverage (it is really good in Atlanta but bad other places), because Verizon does. I am so glad because they give the best customer service, in both the stores and on the phone.
I had huge problems with Verizon refurbished phones not working properly (went through 5 phones in 8 weeks). Three of the five didn't work properly out of the store. The other two had either the speaker or LCD mess up
Re:new york times (Score:5, Insightful)
I was on Verizon for several years. After a phone went bad (dropped in a stream), I went back to get a new one and they required me to change my cell plan to a new plan where nights and weekends moved an hour later. Well, that was somewhat annoying having it move to 8:00 because most of the people I call are two time zones over. Unfortunately, that phone was an utter piece of excrement and after a few months, it started dropping calls very frequently. I called Verizon to complain, and they said there was a tower down that might be affecting things. A few months later, I moved to a different area where there was no such problem and still dropped calls. After a few months of this, I decided to get another new phone that actually worked.
Now they wanted me to move my nights and weekends to 9:00 P.M. I basically said "No way in hell. Can I get a phone without changing contracts if I pay full price?" They said no, and their only suggestion was to buy a phone on eBay. I looked at my options, priced out what I would get from other carriers, and switched to AT&T the next day. I even kept my old phone number. Even though AT&T's nights and weekends started at 9:00 just like Verizon's, I got so many more minutes than with my Verizon plan that it more than covered the difference. And when Cingular took them over and I changed to a plan with roll-over minutes, the difference became even more dramatic. Now, I'm on an iPhone plan. Every so often, I think about the friends and family who are still stuck on that nickel-and-dime-you-to-death Verizon network, and I feel sorry for them. AT&T sucks, too, of course, but not like Verizon does. It's good to see this news and know that they still haven't changed.
As for me, I can't wait for LTE rollouts to become widespread. At that point, AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon will all be using compatible networks and people will be able to switch without changing phones. Then, these companies will have to start actually competing with each other instead of paying lip service to competing. You'll also see massive screaming to put an end to early termination fees if you provide your own equipment. Life will be better. Here's hoping, anyway. The only question is how long it will take before Sprint joins in and makes us a single-standard country as we should be....
Re:new york times (Score:4, Informative)
So this change is a change to the contract. If they change your contract, you can get out of it for free.
Re:new york times (Score:5, Informative)
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Murdock owns the Daily News, not the Times; the Times has been subscription for at least 7+ years; subscribing is free.
Re:Seems reasonable... (Score:4, Informative)
Problem is, you hit the web button by mistake, kill it before the browser is even open on your phone, but still get charged $2. 0.02 KB (according to the article) goes across the wire, but you're charged for 1024.
And, they place the "Bill me $2" button on an arrow key. Or, on or near some other commonly-hit button.
I hate cellphone companies for reasons just like this, so I got a terrorist cellphone (OK, a Tracfone) for just that reason. But, they too have an all-too-large "Bill me .3 minutes" next to your arrow and "OK" keys.
Re:Seems reasonable... (Score:4, Informative)
OK, this might be mean of me to say, but here in Oz I called my monopoly 3.5G telco (Telstra) and asked them to disable my phone's data service. I left SMS and MMS active, because they're not accident prone. It took 5 minutes which included hold time and a friendly chat with the operator.
The base model Chinese-made Telstra-branded rubbish phone has a custom firmware and the browser button cannot be re-programmed, but many of the other phones they offer like my Nokia E51 can be. The easy-to-accidently-press BigPond button now launches the camera app.
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Simple. Tell Verizon to disable all data service on your phone if you don't want it at all. That way you don't get billed, you just get an error if you hit the wrong button. I did that on my Treo 650 and never once received an errant data charge.
Or get a 5GB data plan.
Also, AT&T is also basically the same.
BTW, you have to *seriously* fight with your provider if you want a data-capable phone without either fully disabling the data plan OR a "practically unlimited" plan for just the reasons the article
And it is a trap... (Score:5, Informative)
What could be worse? They seem deliberately design the interface to trap users into triggering this extra usages. I have a Samsung SGH-T509 from T-mobile. Once you take a picture with this phone, it will display "Send to : My Album" with the right (yah, most people are right-handed too) button conveniently displaying "Yes". Every person that ever used my phone, including myself, would almost automatically click Yes; saving to the album sounds like the right thing to do after taking a picture. It turns out My Album is an online service, saving to there initiates a data transmission which is costly if you don't have a data plan. If you want to save locally, you need to click the left button (now labeled "Options",) scroll down to select and click"Send to", scroll down to and click "My photos". I figured this trick out after the first time I hit the Yes button, but still making mistakes from time to time. My wife never seems to remember this trick until it is too late.
You bet the marketing people figured out most people wouldn't want a data plan and need to trick you into sending data. trick or treat.
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Is this some kind of hit piece to try and convince people not to use Verizon instead of AT&T? If you use data, it seems reasonable to me to charge a fee even if you just made "a mistake". It's not like international roaming is any more lenient.
Except that it's far easier to do this even when you know the consequences. I have a Motorola Krave on Verizon for example (which BTW just might qualify as shittiest phone in existence) - the touch screen is INCREDIBLY fickle. When typing a text message even when I'm sitting there doing my best to hit 1 letter sometimes it'll register the one next to it - making me backspace 3-4 times to fix it (and it then occasionally not registering the backspace but instead a key next to THAT key - further frustrating
Re:Seems reasonable... (Score:5, Insightful)
If you use data, it seems reasonable to me to charge a fee even if you just made "a mistake".
Agreed...but the issue is not about paying for the 0.2kb HTTP request you just made, but rather paying for an entire MB worth of data. It's not like billing per kilobyte or even per BYTE is technically infeasible, so why can't you pay for a fractional MB if that's what you use? In fact, there is absolutely no justifiable technical reason for this -- it's pure asshat accounting. This is like plugging in a desk lamp into your wall outlet for 5 minutes and ComEd charging you for an entire kWh.
You know it's asshat-ish when even AT&T has a better policy.
Re:Seems reasonable... (Score:5, Interesting)
Is this some kind of hit piece to try and convince people not to use Verizon instead of AT&T? If you use data, it seems reasonable to me to charge a fee even if you just made "a mistake". It's not like international roaming is any more lenient.
I don't have a problem actually paying for data use. If I fire up a web browser and surf around a bit, go ahead and bill me.
The problem I have is that on my phone the web browser is bound to the up direction on the circular directional wheel... With the OK button in the middle. I have frequently hit the up direction accidentally when I meant to press OK. And that launches the web browser. It doesn't ask for confirmation... Just pops up the web browser and immediately starts loading a page.
Obviously I hit another button to cancel the web browser and go back to what I'm doing... But Verizon rounds pretty much any data transfer up to the nearest MB. So I'm billed for at least 1 MB even though I only actually transferred a couple K of data.
This was enough of a nuisance, not just for me but also my wife and son, that I had to block data entirely on our account. It would be nice to have it available if I needed it, but that just isn't possible. It's entirely too easy to wind up with a pile of little charges.
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The point is that they don't disable the data, but rather let you use it and set a fairly huge and costly (without a plan) minimum, so when you accidentally hit the wrong button they make pretty good money (esp. when added across all their subscribers). According to a friend on Verizon, this is fairly standard fare.
As far as the termination penalty is concerned, I couldn't agree more. When a contract offers a concession upfront, early termination almost invariably involves a penalty on the order of that c
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As for early termination fees increasing, that's what gets you nice phones for cheap. I don't really see a problem with these fees since they are making phones more affordable given that you would have a phone plan anyway.
The pisser is that I want to BUY the phone by itself...and then be able to go to whatever provider I wanted. "Cheap phones" be damned! They should be clear about how much the phone is subsidized...and for how long...and make that as an "adder" to the normal monthly charge. You can either BUY a Droid for $550 outright and have a $40/mo bill...or get it for "Free" and pay an addl $28/month for 24 months (threw in some interest to boot). If you cancel after 12 months, then you owe 12*28, or $336.
But that
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Also, even if you disable data services on your phone, they charge you $1.99 because it took bandwidth to send you the "You do not have this service" message.
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That's gotta be a troll but what the hell. The problem is not that they are charging you for something you used even by mistake, the issue is they are charging you for much more then you are actually using and apparently they don't allow you to use what you've been charged for. So lets say you accidentally push a button that opens up a browser or what ever and you load a page that is about 50KB you get charged f
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Re:Blame, shifted back (Score:3, Insightful)
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Do they just throw that away? What a waste.
That gets piped to /dev/null. The same place I put all my files.
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Have you tried to find a pay phone lately? A couple of decades ago, there used to be phone booths practically every other block. There are virtually none in the city where I live any more. I think the mall has a few pay phones, but I honestly don't know of any others. So if you ever have an emergency, or simply want to call home to tell your wife, husband, parents, etc., that you'll be a bit late as you're stopping to get groceries, you pretty much need a cell phone these days.
Personally, I would much p