Are you an AT&T or T-Mobile small business customer? Sprint wants your business, and it’s offering some pretty compelling discounts to woo you. A leaked internal document says “Come on over to Sprint and see how we can be a great partner,” and it offers AT&T and T-Mobile enterprise customers a 12% discount, 2 handset offers, and $175 CL port-in credit. It’s not as nasty as the carrier’s earlier smear campaign, which asked “Do you have the feeling the AT&T/T-Mobi...

A California appeals court has ruled that Verizon Wireless is to pay some 175,000 customers current and former customers $21 million as a settlement in a class action lawsuit over early termination fees. The class action suit was filed in California on the behalf of customers who were upset that Verizon asked they pay a flat ETF of $175 regardless of how many months were left on their contract. Each customer is expected to receive $87.50 as a result of the ruling. Too bad history is bound to repeat itself now...

Guess this is Sprint’s big announcement. Effective tomorrow, Sprint will offer a”Sprint Free Guarantee” on all contracts. Anyone who inks a deal with the Now Network will be able to walk away from it within 30 days and not have to pay any sort of fine. All you have to do is hit them up and let ‘em know you don’t want to continue the relationship and return your handset. For being such an upstanding person, Sprint will do so much more than just give you your money back for the ph...

Everyone and their mothers were up in arms when Verizon announced its new early termination fee policies last year. For a select group of smartphones and “advanced devices,” canceling one’s contract would incur a hefty $350 fee. Customers fumed, the FCC got involved and Verizon said they were just doing everyone a favor because it allowed them to provide favorable subsidies on handsets. Verizon decided to chop the advanced devices list down a bit by removing 10 handsets, but to be honest, th...

Here’s a bit of interesting news on the purchasing and cancellation process for the Nexus One. If you buy the device subsidized, and you decide to cancel your contract after the 14-day period (30 days for California) but before 120 days into your contract, Google can charge a termination fee of its own — on top of the carrier ETF. Shocking? Yeah, a little bit. You’d imagine that if you’re paying for a subsidized device and you cancel your contract, you’d just be paying the remain...

On Friday afternoon, Verizon Wireless issued its response to the FCC complaint which investigated the carrier’s increased early termination fees for advanced devices and the spurious charges some customers incur when accidentally accessing the Mobile Web. As expected, Verizon defended the increased ETF and dismissed the accusation that it charges customers $1.99 for accidentally connecting to the Mobile Web. Verizon justifies its increased ETF by claiming that the fee is not limited to the recovery of t...

The FCC has taken notice of Verizon Wireless’ new $350 early termination fee that applies to all advanced devices purchased after November 15th, 2009. The governmental agency sent an inquiry letter to Verizon Wireless asking them answer several questions regarding this increased fee. The questionnaire focuses on Verizon Wireless’ disclosure of the ETF to customers and the rationale behind the increase. The FCC also does the math and calculates that a customer with a $350 ETF will still have $120 ...

Here’s what Big Red is working with: they’ve offered up a BOGO sale on all new BlackBerrys for the holiday buying season, and where some see a great deal, others see a great opportunity. Why not play a game of Flip My BlackBerry? Why not open a second line, get a brand new Tour or Storm 2, pay the cancellation fee on the new line of $175, and sell the device on eBay for $300 or more? Well it looks like Verizon has finally caught onto our the little game. A new connect has emerged with a few docume...

They say when the cell phone gods close a door, they open a window. Such is the case this morning for T-Mobile subscribers who aren’t enjoying their time with the carrier. As of today, T-Mobile is raising its overage rates to 45¢ per minute on individual plans under $59.99 and family plans under $89.99, and 40¢ per minute for plans above those price points. Since this rate increase is carrier-invoked and it constitutes a “materially adverse change of contract,” subscribers will be able to ...

Ahhhh class action lawsuits; where would we be without them? Joking aside, it seems like every carrier in the US has to deal with a few subscriber-initiated lawsuits every so often and next in line for the ever-popular Early Termination Fee (ETF) class action treatment is T-Mobile. You know the drill: the carrier was charging a flat ETF, the carrier gets sued, the carrier settles and has to refund a bunch of money to a bunch of people after making the lawyers involved a whole lot richer. The proposed refund f...

We’ve received a flurry of emails over the past few weeks questioning whether or not AT&T will let people out of contracts ETF-free due to substantial changes to its terms and conditions. First it was a series of changes to permissable data service usage and more recently AT&T has amended its arbitration clause to limit a customer’s right to sue, in theory at least. Common sense might suggest that changes these drastic would result in a window of opportunity, during which time customers ma...

Sprint just refuses to shut that door… Customers still looking for a way out of their contracts without having to drop some serious cash on an Early Termination Fee (ETF) have been given yet another opportunity to do so. Last month we told you about an extension through the end of January due to another increase the company made to its administrative fee (increase from $0.75 to $0.99). We’re not sure what the reasoning behind this latest extension is, but we have indeed confirmed with Sprint that ...

If you’re a Sprint customer right now without any major service issues, leaving the carrier so close to Pre-Day seems crazy. The most anticipated handset in recent history is on its way to your carrier, as an exclusive for the time being, and it’s coming along with an exciting new OS that will be embraced by developers around the globe. At the same time, there are a variety of reasons for wanting to part ways with your mobile service provider and if the Pre isn’t enough to keep you on board ...

Have you been itching for a way to escape the shackles of your Sprint Wireless contract, but aren’t willing to pony up the cash to pay off the Early Termination Fee? While Sprint’s impending doom may be a foregone conclusion, you can expedite your exit by exploiting yet another material breach in contract from the carrier. Subscribers are free to exit based on Sprint’s decision to raise their non-government mandated administrative fee from $.50-.$75. The change goes into effect on the 1st of...