T-Mobile cellular service - Terms and conditions question.

Author

Terms and conditions question.

Eddie

2006-01-25, 5:48 am

I won't deny it -- I'm looking to end my T-Mobile service agreement in
an effort to hook up with a new plan under another wireless provider.
Over the past year, the service in my area has become significantly
shoddy both indoors and outdoors as well as my place of employment --
also both indoors and outdoors. It's to the point where my cell phone
isn't usable and this is in the New York City and Long Island areas.

Regarding the terms and conditions, I never actually put my signature on
anything since signing up back in 2000. Since then though, I have
upgraded phones, upgraded my available plan minutes, etc. in which
T-Mobile asks you to verbally agree to another year on the phone each
time. I've never actually signed anything though and haven't received
any new terms and conditions on paper since joining six years ago.

Here's what I'm looking at as my out. I just received a notice with my
last bill, which states that they are increasing the text message
charges by a 100% increase -- from five cents to ten cents per text
message whether receiving or sending. Obviously this is not something
that I agreed to among my terms and conditions and they are therefore
violating the terms of this contract.

Any ideas, suggestions? Have any of you or know of anyone that has
gotten out of their agreement early by simply writing a letter stating
basically what I've mentioned above?

Thanks for any help.

Best regards.

LEM

2006-01-25, 5:48 pm

> Any ideas, suggestions? Have any of you or know of anyone that has
> gotten out of their agreement early by simply writing a letter stating
> basically what I've mentioned above?

I think you're in for a lot of trouble if you start doing it this way.
First of all your "yes" over the phone is as binding as a live signature
If it weren't, you wouldn't have been able to do a lot of things over the
phone, like opening credit card accounts with thousands of dollars in
credit lines. No serious bank would give you their money if you can just
later say, "sorry, no physical signature = no pay back".

Secondly, I'm sure there is a provision in the contract that says
something like "prices are subject to change" and "coverage is subject to
change". In addition there's lot's more in that contract that limits your
rights (like you can't sue them - must use their orbitration service
conveniently located across the street from their HQ). Thats how all
these cellular contracts are, not just T-mobile.

Think of it this way - you said it, that you have upgraded phones, etc.
Every time you do it, carrier is paying for your phone up-front. This
cost they pay is amortised over the term of your contract. If you get out
early - they make no money on you, even loose some. So they go very hard
after their contracts. And even if in your case they didn't pay upfront
(e.g. last contract was to upgrade to promo plan) they'll still go after
you, because they don't want to create any legal precidents, and avoid
situations like "if somebody else got out of their contract early, I can
too" type of reasoning (or legal argument).

Finally, even if under some local or even federal laws you are indeed
entitled to having your contract terminated without penalty, proving this
will be quite a challenge. A typical scenario is - you ask them, and they
say "no you can't". If you cancel the service anyway - they slap you with
$200 cancellation fee. Then you call them to challenge it, and they say
"sorry, no". If you have credit card on file they'll charge it directly.
Otherwise if you don't pay (or call your credit card and revert the
charge) they'll send it over to collection agency which will harass you
for a while and then report to credit bureos. If you are a lawyer or have
one available for less than $200 (otherwise it's not worth it) you may be
able to get out of all of this, but that'll cost you some time and nerve.

LEM
(remove all digits from address for correct e-mail)

JPH

2006-01-25, 11:48 pm

Eddie wrote:
> I won't deny it -- I'm looking to end my T-Mobile service agreement in
> an effort to hook up with a new plan under another wireless provider.
> Over the past year, the service in my area has become significantly
> shoddy both indoors and outdoors as well as my place of employment --
> also both indoors and outdoors. It's to the point where my cell phone
> isn't usable and this is in the New York City and Long Island areas.
>
> Regarding the terms and conditions, I never actually put my signature on
> anything since signing up back in 2000. Since then though, I have
> upgraded phones, upgraded my available plan minutes, etc. in which
> T-Mobile asks you to verbally agree to another year on the phone each
> time. I've never actually signed anything though and haven't received
> any new terms and conditions on paper since joining six years ago.
>
> Here's what I'm looking at as my out. I just received a notice with my
> last bill, which states that they are increasing the text message
> charges by a 100% increase -- from five cents to ten cents per text
> message whether receiving or sending. Obviously this is not something
> that I agreed to among my terms and conditions and they are therefore
> violating the terms of this contract.
>
> Any ideas, suggestions? Have any of you or know of anyone that has
> gotten out of their agreement early by simply writing a letter stating
> basically what I've mentioned above?
>
> Thanks for any help.
>
> Best regards.

It sounds like you might not be locked into a specific plan if they're
raising the rates. It's been my experience that if charges for a plan go
up then they don't increase your cost unless you change plans after the
increase, but keep you at the rates of the plan you signed up for.
Have you logged on to https://my.t-mobile.com/ ? If you do, there's a
page that mentions upgrades. If you click on the link it will show
whether or not you are eligible for a free phone upgrade. If you are
eligible, then it means that you have met any terms or are withing one
month of completing any terms for a one year contract. If it doesn't
allow you to go to the upgrade page, then you are still within the
contract and would be breaking it if you switched carriers.

John

John Richards

2006-01-25, 11:48 pm

"Eddie" <eg2@jf.com> wrote in message news:heFBf.2266$v81.1087@fe12.lga...
> Here's what I'm looking at as my out. I just received a notice with my
> last bill, which states that they are increasing the text message
> charges by a 100% increase -- from five cents to ten cents per text
> message whether receiving or sending. Obviously this is not something
> that I agreed to among my terms and conditions and they are therefore
> violating the terms of this contract.

I haven't read the fine print as to under what conditions T-Mobile
would waive the early termination fee (ETF), but typically one condition
is a T-mobile change which has a major adverse affect on the customer.
Some states also have consumer laws which limit the amount of the ETF.

--
John Richards

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