Cingular waiving the $150 Early Termination Fee

For those of you with a postpaid cingular cellular phone contract that want to cancel service, you can now do so for free. And you will NOT incur the $150 charge that you normally would. This is a limited time offer that will expire within 30 days.

The most recent bill from them says:

"Text & Instant Message Pay Per Use Rate Change
Effective 1/21/07, Cingular will charge $0.15 for text and
instant messages sent or received on a pay-per-use basis. If you
already subscribe to a Messaging Package or Media Bundle, there
is no change to your rate. By purchasing a Messaging Package or
MEdia Bundle, you can send and receive messages for as little as
a penny. Sign up & save at www.cingular.com/getmessaging or Dial
*NOW from your wireless phone."

Narrative of my expierence:

-I called customer service at 611
-Pressed "0" to speak to a customer service representative
-Then pressed "4" to close my account. This transferred me into the retentions department.
-I stated that I wanted to close my account
-They asked the reason for closing my account
-I stated that the text messaging cost had increased by 50% and this is unacceptable. The costs of text messaging are clearly stated at 10 cents per message in the seperate brochure that I recieved when I signed my contract.
-They then stated that I did not show any text messaging on my account for the past 6 billing cycles. So I stated that I use text messaging sporadically. And may not use it for months at a time. But when I do now use it, that portion of my bill will now be 50% higher than it was previously.
-The first represenative I spoke to refused to waive the early termination fee (ETF). So I hung up the phone, and called back again a couple minutes later. This time, the representative offered to waive the ETF after I repeated the above procedure.

Notes:
-I could not get any concessions from the retentions staff on being grandfathered into to the $0.10 per message rate structure.
-They wouldn't give me any money as a service credit on my account to cover the increased cost of the messaging
-They did suggest that I subscribe to a text messaging package. But did note that in my case, this would likely result in an increase in the total cost that I was paying for service since I don't use text messaging for months at a time.
-The rate change from $0.10 to $0.15 per text message appears to further deter users from using the pay per use (PPU) feature. And get them to sign up for an added cost text messaging bundle. Presumably they are hoping that this will raise the average revenue per user (APRU).

-Read the terms of service before you call:

http://www.cingular.com/download/Cingular%20Terms%20of%20Service.pdf

take note of:

"IF WE INCREASE THE PRICE OF ANY
OF THE SERVICES TO WHICH YOU SUBSCRIBE, BEYOND THE LIMITS SET FORTH IN
YOUR RATE PLAN BROCHURE, OR IF WE MATERIALLY DECREASE THE GEOGRAPHICAL
AREA IN WHICH YOUR AIRTIME RATE APPLIES (OTHER THAN A TEMPORARY
DECREASE FOR REPAIRS OR MAINTENANCE), WE WILL DISCLOSE THE CHANGE AT
LEAST ONE BILLING CYCLE IN ADVANCE (EITHER THROUGH A NOTICE WITH YOUR
BILL, A TEXT MESSAGE TO YOUR EQUIPMENT, OR OTHERWISE) AND YOU MAY TERMINATE
THIS AGREEMENT WITHOUT PAYING AN EARLY TERMINATION FEE OR
RETURNING OR PAYING FOR ANY PROMOTIONAL ITEMS, PROVIDED YOUR NOTICE
OF TERMINATION IS DELIVERED TO US WITHIN THIRTY (30) DAYS AFTER THE FIRST
BILL REFLECTING THE CHANGE."

YMMV

Do you loose your number when you close the account?

isjka said: How could it be a YMMV if it's clearly listed in the contract, seems like you would have a great arguement, I don't know, maybe I'm missing something but seems like anyone could cancel if they pulled this stunt.

because cingular lawwyers wrote it.. not yours

i dont think they will let you but i use ppu txt messaging and this is bull

cingular sucks. my contract ends jan 07, and I'm moving to Tmo where almost all my friends and family are now and they're all very happy.

need something like this for verizon. can anyone help?

how can we work this to keep our phones/#'s and get somethingg

oops, post twice

I just got off the phone!

The is so true!

Thanks OP!

Time for free phones!

And deal to screw T-Mobile?

were you able to keep your numbers.. i'd jump on this asap if i can keep my numbers,

himanshu16 said: I just got off the phone!

The is so true!

Thanks OP!

Time for free phones!

hilander2k2 said: Anything similar for T-Mobile?


Nope... not right now...


But you may get a chance later. Just frequent HowardForums.com and wait until someone posts there. In the mean time, you can learn A LOT about your carrier, your phone, and how to "tweak" your phone/service to best fit you. Who knows, maybe after doing this, you'll like your current carrier enough to NOT want to change!


EDIT: FYI, to avoid having to "wait it out" with a sub-par carrier in your area, you may want to take this suggestion... Every carrier has a Trial Period in which you can cancel your service with them and not be charged an ETF. This takes place the FIRST 14-30 days of your new service (number of days differ according to carrier and location). It's best to use this period and try out ALL AVAILABLE CARRIERS in your area that you WOULD consider joining, and find out which one(s) have the BEST service/coverage in your area. Then cancel the ones you don't want within their Trial Period, and you'll then be left with the best cell carrier(s) in your area (for the time being)!

EDIT2: DO NOT COMPLETELY BELIEVE CARRIER COVERAGE MAPS!!! They will never be 100% accurate! DO NOT COMPLETELY BELIEVE CELL CARRIER SALES PEOPLE!!! They want to sell you a phone, service, and add-ons! DO NOT COMPLETELY BELIEVE CARRIER REVIEWS!!! Cell service differs from area to area, and is dependant on many factors including: brand/model of phone, distance to closest cell tower, terrain, structure building materials, environmental conditions, etc. (For example, Cingular does NOT have the "fewest dropped calls" in every area in the U.S.A.) Also, remember different things are important to different people. (For example, customer service may be very important to some people, but not others.)

intgrrcr said: were you able to keep your numbers.. i'd jump on this asap if i can keep my numbers,

himanshu16 said: I just got off the phone!

The is so true!

Thanks OP!

Time for free phones!

Guys my best friend has a phone store! So I know this!

DO NOT CANCEL STRAIGHT AWAY! Talk to the customer rep and ask him/her to put a not on the account that you can cancel without a termination fee! If there is a problem please ask them to refer to page 6 of the PDF file (terms of service) that OP has sent us a link to.

If the customer rep wants to see the file here is how to get there: www.cingular.com >>> click on support >>> at the right side there is a "Terms of Servic" link (this is the PDF file).

There will be no problems in accomplising this!

Then go to the new service provider and port the numbers. Porting means getting your phone numbers from old service to new service.

This is pretty simple!

I'm on a month-to-month with cingular now. I've been looking at getting the 8125, but I'd have to extend my contract by 2 years to get the discount price. Do you think I could go ahead and extend it now and then call them up in a week to terminate the contract without any ETF?

Thanks OP. Good to know this clause for future reference. I hate having contract requirements and Cingular has been very unpleasant to deal with for me so far. I would love to have ways toget out of it.

I was not able to go month-to-month. However, my CSR said he wrote a note in my account so that if I port my number elsewhere my ETF will be waived.

When was this change made? I signed my contract Nov. 9th 2006. I know I still have one day to cancel, but I don't want to. I was wondering if I could call, let's say, Sunday and ask for them to put me on a month-to-month plan. Is this possible? I would rather do that then have a two year contract. Any help would be appriciated.

deallover said: I just did this. Very easy. Thanks OP.
(Page 6 of TOS does the trick with rep.)
You can ask to terminate the contract but stay on month-2-month basis. This will allow you to later get phone upgrades if you choose to stay with Cingular OR it will give you time to look for better deals with maybe Tmobile/Verizon etc. without losing your number.

DO NOT do this:
I just realized that my phone went dead. I called and apparently the other rep. cancelled my line (Dohh!!).
I had to call 800 number to reactivate.
I asked them to put a note that I can cancle if I want to in next 30 days without any fees (all my 4 lines).

Just tell them that you've been diployed to go to Iraq. It worked with Tmobile and Sprint, no proof required...

i don't know if this will help anyone but i was on howardforums and people there were talking about how their cingular service all of a sudden stopped working. like, they stopped being able to connect to towers close to them. one day they had 4 bars at home, the next day, nothing. this happened because cingular and tmobile have long had roaming agreements in california and nevada and this year these agreements seem to be terminating. meaning, as well-covered as cingular is right now, it will be a lot more spotty by the end of the year because cingular users at some point will not be allowed to use tmobile towers.

now, this will most likely not affect anyone in major cities for awhile, but at some point they will pull the plug everywhere. it just seems to have started in the boonies (the reports were somewhere in lake tahoe area in northern california i believe). those people who had the plug pulled without notification successfully called and cancelled their cingular service without ETF. i'm wondering if possibly someone can call and cancel without ETF with the knowledge that this will happen... like, call in and say 'hey i heard that i won't be able to roam on tmobile towers anymore, and that is the tower closest to my home, blah blah'... i doubt that will work but i guess i'm reporting this as a heads up for all cingular users. if your service all of a sudden gets worse, maybe it's because they've stopped roaming in your area, and maybe you could then call and cancel.

just an fyi i guess... doesn't affect me much (or at least, doesn't help) because 1.i have tmobile and 2.the closest tower to my home is a cingular tower... haha. still. spread the word.