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AT&T to Raise Early Termination Fee for iPhone and Other Smartphones to $325
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Netiher do I.
All carriers around the globe are the same thing: extremely arrogant, and ambicius to charge you for everything. They seem to agree between them on what kind of customer policies they have to enforce so the end users are forced to feel the same type of 'wonderful' service so you end up experiencing the same type of service.
For me there is no differnece, they are all the same.
Probably the only advantage of AT&T vs Verizon is that everywhere else in the world GSM is what you need when you are out of the USA roaming, despite that the roaming charges are insane either GSM, CDMA, etc...
In some countries the carriers charge you only for dialed calls, and never charge you for received calls. Any US carrier doing this?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2w1g-idt-8U
No, he's doubling the ETF so that, when customers do occasionally drop them, AT&T will still be able to recover the full amount of their subsid... actually, scratch that, it's a LOAN that they paid on your behalf back when you bought the phone.
With their current ETF of $175, they don't even recover HALF the cost of a typical iPhone loan.
The way I see it, the carriers biggest mistake right now, is not being transparent enough in explaining how the loan is paid off. Ideally, there would be a separate line item on your phone bill, listing the exact amount of your monthly bill that was going towards repaying your equipment loan, as well as the total amount of equipment loan remaining to be repaid.
After your equipment loan is fully repaid, that line item would disappear, thereby automatically triggering your monthly phone bill to decrease by that amount, and you would be free to discontinue service without additional penalty. This last part of it, at least, some carriers (such as Verizon) are finally starting to get right.
I'm wondering how this affects me as someone who was looking to do an early upgrade. I have a launch day 3GS and planned to pay the ETF and get the next iPhone.
I checked my eligibility and it says 2/20/11.
If I want to upgrade am I right in thinking (assuming prices are same as last year for the iPhone itself) I would be looking at $299 (iPhone) + $325(ETF)? So that would be $624? Isnt the cost of the phone about $699 itself?
Or does this $10 a month things apply? Does that mean $624-$110 so $514?
Still seems massively steep if I understand it correctly.
I checked my eligibility and it says 2/20/11.
If I want to upgrade am I right in thinking (assuming prices are same as last year for the iPhone itself) I would be looking at $299 (iPhone) + $325(ETF)? So that would be $624? Isnt the cost of the phone about $699 itself?
Or does this $10 a month things apply? Does that mean $624-$110 so $514?
Still seems massively steep if I understand it correctly.
If you are paying the ETF on your current contract, you only pay 175 dollars (but if you signed up wiht a new contract with them if you broke it it would be 325). But, from what people have said here, AT&T won't let you sign up again for three months if you break contract anyways.
And honestly, your plan is probably one of hte reasons they are upping the ETF.
Anyways, I think if you've been with them a year, you can probably still get a reduced fee phone (just not *that* reduced. But I think it's still cheaper than paying current ETF and re-signing on, I think it's 100 dollars more, not 175).
Well I don't really have to use the ETF if that's not the easiest way. If it comes out cheaper to just do a reduced fee upgrade I'd rather do that. I guess we wont know until launch day? Or a few days before if it's not available the day it's announced at WWDC.
It's just Apple put's a phone out each year and I'd rather just have the newest one, AT&T really needs to address those who want the latest each year in a better way. I'm not leaving AT&T I just want the newest phone each year.
ETFs
Honestly, if cell phone companies wanted to charge the ETF but didn't want to screw the customers out so much - they could phase out the ETFs over time throughout the length of the contract. Because paying back on the contract is the way they make their money back on the phones right?
However, the contract provisions they have are preposterous, saying they'll charge you the full amount at anytime you end the contract, and people keep paying them like fools. It's not an ethical business practice.
The business I work for just got screwed by AT&T by switching to Verizon one day before our contract expired. They're charging us 1K in ETFs and they're not letting up. They have pretty much gotten their money for those phones throughout the length of the contract - now at the end it feels like they're double billing these phones.
Honestly, if cell phone companies wanted to charge the ETF but didn't want to screw the customers out so much - they could phase out the ETFs over time throughout the length of the contract. Because paying back on the contract is the way they make their money back on the phones right?
However, the contract provisions they have are preposterous, saying they'll charge you the full amount at anytime you end the contract, and people keep paying them like fools. It's not an ethical business practice.
The business I work for just got screwed by AT&T by switching to Verizon one day before our contract expired. They're charging us 1K in ETFs and they're not letting up. They have pretty much gotten their money for those phones throughout the length of the contract - now at the end it feels like they're double billing these phones.
Heh, no, it's not nice. Yeah, maybe they shouldn't be so literal on the contract.
On the other hand, your job could not wait one more day to break contract? Seriously?! Your job left it wide open for AT&T to do that. And, well, from AT&T's standpoint they can legally get money from your company that way and on top of that, your company already decided to leave them anyway, what real incentive does AT&T have to want to not piss you off? It's not like you can threaten to leave, you already are so they aren't losing much by pissing you off (it reminds me of a customer at my job one time that was ranting that she wasn't going to shop here anymore but she wanted us to waive a return policy... look woman, if you aren't going to shop here anyways, why should we care about doing somethign that won't keep your business anyways? Be smart and don't threaten that til after you get what you want).
Seriously, I would have thought that a company would think about these things and either decide the cost of paying hte ETF was worth it some how, or that maybe waiting one day would save them a ton of money as they really shouldn't have just expected AT&T to decide to just waive the fee (cynical yes, but a business should be cynical and consider these kind of things).
Just because we signed a contract doesn't mean what they are doing is an ethical business practice. What they're doing is unjust enrichment - and seriously, if their service was better we would have stayed. We've paid through the end of our contract with AT&T, what is the difference of one day? They're ruining chances for us to come back with their horrid customer service. That would be their incentive to not act like *******s and piss us off. You don't want to burn bridges with customers even if they switched services because they can always come back. Or is customer service dead in the cell phone industry? I'm starting to think it is.
Where's the fed to come down on these unjust business practices?
Where's the fed to come down on these unjust business practices?
Point to the part of the contract that entitles you to not pay a fee to break the contract if you think it is unjust. Seriously, I've never heard so many moaners and whiners in all my life than on an Apple forum. What is wrong with you people?! If it's not Hulu because they aren't making an HTML5 compliant player, it's AT&T because they raised their ETF, moan, moan, whinge, whinge. It's funny that the constant in all this complaining is Apple. Perhaps you should consider that it is Apple who needs to change, not EVERYONE else? Jeez!
Eligibility only refers to subsidy. ETF applies to breaking a contract to leave the carrier. Renewing a contract before you have to doesn't incur one, it just means you get a lesser subsidy or don't get one at all.
Look it's like having the option to marry Roseanne Barr With the option to divorce within 2 years for $325 vs. marrying Megan Fox with a divorce option for $350. Me, I'd pay the extra $25
Spoken like someone who's never actually dealt with Verizon.
1) Their customer service is awful.
2) Their 3G is barely any faster than EDGE (in real experienced speeds).
I'm not here to say AT&T is flawless, but I'd certainly give them my money over VZN any day of the week.
Then you didn't exactly read the thread. I posted my reasoning back on page 22. Feel free to refute..
Interesting... AT&T currently does have a policy of gradually phasing out the ETF by $5 for each month you serve on your contract -- after you've served 23 months, the original $175 ETF has fallen to $60.
Under the new regime, they will phase out the smartphone ETF by $10 per month for each month you serve. After 23 months, the original $325 ETF will have fallen to $95.
Unfortunately, your employer was a victim of bad timing. Contracts that had been started prior to May 27, 2008 did not have this phase-out clause -- you paid the full ETF no matter when you cancelled within the contract period.
As of yesterday, the last of the existing contracts subject to the non-prorated ETF regime have all expired, so such cases will never happen with AT&T again.