There are few things that piss me off more than anti-consumer contracts, especially of the cell phone variety. But getting out of that contractual noose has been the Holy Grail of techies for years, with most people being forced to either run out the clock or gulp down a ridiculous fee.
Well, relief is here, at least for Cingular customers. Consumerist’s got a must-read step-by-step (including a pretty amazing script for when you get those retention folk on the phone) for ditching your Cingular contract. Basically, they keep on upping charges to contract holders, creating legal loopholes for you to slip through. Totally boss.
In short it’s like this:
Step 1: Call customer service
Step 2: Totally confound undertrained overseas rep by citing obscure legal cases and by following a catchy script that includes lines such as: “Losing my ability to be part of a class action lawsuit removes a legal right. Therefore, preventing me from being part of a class is an adverse effect. My bill says *This revision is effective immediately*. I was not provided a 14 day or greater period of time before this modification goes into effect. Therefore, the CTIA policy permits me to terminate service without an ETF due to the implementation of these changes.”
Step 3: Switch to T-Mobile.
Script For Escaping Cingular Contracts Without Fee, Based On New Arbitration Clause [Consumerist]
HAHAHA! I love it! I only wish I could cancel my contract and start a new one so I can get a new phone. I can’t get my free upgrade for another year. :(
Although that is a decent write up, good luck trying to cancel your account like that.
Hahahaha! I don’t know who is funnier, the person who wrote the ’script’ or the site that actually publishes this as a ’sure out’ from contracts. I’m sure tha there are times when the law does allow for those unforseen changes and lets you slip free. But not this time. The provision for Arbitration only affects the charges and amounts that you may be held accountable for if the provision changes. The advance notice and changes to prices allows for an out if it is a subscribed service – remember the SMS “sure out” that was once touted too. So alas, I’m sure tomorrow we’ll be reading about a recant of this call up method. Course the script says to confuse an untrained rep. If you get an untrained rep, do you really need all this legal junk to skip out?
After years of horrible Cingular service, and contract changes that would have prevented me from exercising my right to be part of a class action against the company, I have canceled my contract. After the supervisor asserted that there was no change to the arbitration / class action part of my contract, I accused him of – essentially – committing consumer fraud. My contract was canceled on the spot. No ETF.