Hi, i have a new contract for about 5 month now, but i recognize that i actually don’t make a lot of calls at all.
The real calls i make international every two weeks with the cell. In the end i have a lot of unused minutes that roll over.
Now i am thinking of switching to prepaid, since it cost me less. But the thing is, i would have to cancel my contract and pay perhaps the penalty.
My question would be, if there is a moderate way out of contract. Not looking for cheating out of the contract, but i just never did an early termination. So a little info from someone who did it, would be great.
On Fri, 2010-08-06 at 02:06 +0000, yester64 wrote:
> Hi, i have a new contract for about 5 month now, but i recognize that i
> actually don’t make a lot of calls at all.
> The real calls i make international every two weeks with the cell. In
> the end i have a lot of unused minutes that roll over.
> Now i am thinking of switching to prepaid, since it cost me less. But
> the thing is, i would have to cancel my contract and pay perhaps the
> penalty.
> My question would be, if there is a moderate way out of contract. Not
> looking for cheating out of the contract, but i just never did an early
> termination. So a little info from someone who did it, would be great.
>
> Thanks.
Well… I really don’t know… but logic would dictate that if your
“contract” meant you got a free or discounted phone in the deal, you can
understand where a termination fee would be necessary. Some of those
smart phones cost $500-600+ USD, even a cheap one might cost $200-300.
No, its not that sophisticated. Its only a refurbed messaging phone.
Not sure if they take it back, well probably not.
Have to calculate if it makes sense or not.
The thing is, i pay right now around $54 Dollars per month and i hardly use it. I could have a prepaid for half the money.
I checked out Virgin which has relatively inexpensive plans. Have to check. But thanks anyway.
What I have done is change bill contract. I was on a €30 a month contract and found I wasn’t making use of the included minutes/text/internet but always ended up adding to the €30 by sending international texts and doing other non-included things. Phonebill was usually around the €45 mark. So I dropped to a lower package that was €19 a month with obviously less minutes but ended up actually using them. Together with the added extra’s I always had my bills are now €35 a month. That’s €120 a year less.
Of course what I should have done is really look at my phone habbits before tying myself to a contract.
same here. I assumed i would use facebook or the internet, but it popped out that i didn’t.
Problem is, that the plan i have with AT&T is the lowest you can get. All the fees making it more expensive. Either way, i will go with pre paid since i don’t think i will be using any smartphones really and even then you get blackberry from pretty much every pre paid provider.
That’s a bummer. I like my phone provider since they offer unlimited $kype and M$N Messenger. They’re really handy to have on my phone to keep in touch with my parents since I live abroad. Also, current phone (Nokia 5230) had free offline sat nav with voice navigation and free downloadable maps. Really handy to have… specially on holiday!
Over here the price of canceling a contract prematurely is the remaining month’s bill price. I.E. is the contract is $10 a month and 12 moths in duration cancelling after month 5 would cost $70. It’s pretty costly to want out of a contract. I would make the most of what you have for now.
I think you’re stuck.
Small print states you’ll have to pay some percentage of the unfilled contract price, 24 - 6 = 18 months left on contract X some % of monthly right?
There’s 2 types of prepaid, #1 you buy a phone and card and use up what’s on the card until you need more on the card, #2 you buy phone and card worth a specified amount of usage every month and add time when you’ve exhausted usage before month’s end.
I have the first type, every month I have to make sure I have $6 for the basic services and I buy additional $10-25 cards to cover my usage as I need it.
I don’t make many calls on the cell and mostly text at $0.10/text or talk $0.10/minute. MagicJackfor my home phone, unlimited calls including international, with all the bells and whistles for a one time fee of $39USD.
When you should calculate out how much your early out penalty will be, the type of prepaid and its costs to see if you’ll save by cancelling.
In your case, you need to make sure you can call internationally.
My ex recently dropped her plan in favor of a the #2 type prepaid though she only had about 6months left on her contract.
She loves her new phone, even scaled back on her prepaid plan cards $25 down from $30 because she still wasn’t using all the time.
Can’t remember if she’s on Common Sense or Straight Talk services but she went by the better phone.
Contracts are the very reason I don’t have a smartphone.
I use Tracphone, the minuets are good, but where they get you is you have to buy minutes to extend your service date.
Honestly, i don’t need a smartphone right now. Maybe in the future, but for me a regular phone is suffice.
I accepted the fact, that i have to stick with my contract till i drop death or it runs out.
A friend of mine told me about Virgin and i checked the plans and phones. Looks good to me and its not overly expansive. Boost was an option too, but then you have to pay again around $40 or $60 Dollars a month.
Not sold on that.
Smartphones are nice, but i think the market is still moving quickly right now, so there will be a lot of changes to come. Right now i have a Samsung message phone called Soltice. Its good and works for me. I like the big screen and its great for messaging. Thats really all i need.
The only thing that would increase cost for a phone, will be international calling. With my ATT i pay a $3.99 fee for the service and then $0.10 dollars for the minute. With Virgin it will be $0.20 Dollar a minute. So somewhat higher, but no other fee.
I did the mistake to subscribe as i was out of contract for a long time. Dumb mistake.
