Shouldn't cell phone contracts be binding to both parties?

Zardon · May 20, 2002, 11:28 PM

When you got your last cell phone, you probably agreed to keep that account active for a year. Maybe even two. And you probably thought that the services provided by the company would stay the same for the full length of the contract. Guess again.

If you read the fine print, you'll notice that nearly every cellular provider has built the perfect escape hatch into their contracts. Basically, they give themselves the right to change any aspect of the service at any time. They generally give you 30 days to object and cancel the contract without penalty but what good is that? Are they also going to reimburse you for the cost of your fancy phone accessories? Are they going to contact everyone in your life to give them your new number. Not a chance.

Even worse, they don't need to get your approval to make the change or even verify that you're aware that a change has been made. Their 30 day notice gets tucked into your snail-mail bill. I, for one, don't pay my bill that way. Heck, I paid for a phone with wireless web access so I use it. My account balance and payment options are just a few buttons away. I check the balance and authorize payment. No check, no envelope, no stamp, no nothin'. Just electrical impulses. I've only found out about Nextel's changes by reading rants on the internet. It's been brought to my attention that Nextel sent out a postcard for their last change. I found it in the trash. Looked like an advertisement to me until I started reading it. (On the postcard, they didn't bother to mention that customers can close their accounts without penalty if they don't accept the changes.)
In the last few months, Nextel has made two very significant changes to their service. First they moved the beginning of evening/off-peak hours from 8pm to 9pm. This pretty much makes evening minutes worthless. What's the point of having unlimited evening/weekend minutes if I can only make calls for an hour a night during the week? I don't know about y'all but I don't make many calls after 10pm. More recently, they've changed the way they count air time. They used to round up to the next second. Now they are going to round up to the next minute. That's a very important distinction to people who make a lot of calls. 300 calls at an average of 2.5 minutes = 750 minutes the old way and 900 minutes the new way. Cha-Ching! First they take away an hour then they revise the way they calculate airtime just in case anyone slipped past without getting gouged.

These changes were made across the board for the most part. Even people who are only days into their one or two year contracts suddenly have to decide if they can live with the new rules. What if you just bought a $200 phone, a couple of extra batteries, the car charger, a carrying case, data cable, etc.? You're screwed. Signing up with Nextel could make for the most expensive month of phone service you've ever seen unless you "voluntarily" accept the new contract.

There are a couple of calling plans that are still billed by the second and business contracts are generally exempt from such changes but individual consumers are getting shafted. It's almost as if Nextel is trying to drive away the individuals who use their service.

How long will it be before Nextel decides that my "roaming home area" service should be altered? Right now, wherever I happen to be becomes my home area and local calls are local calls. If I go visit the family in Oregon, I can use my phone to make all the local calls I want. If I go back east, same thing. Go to Los Angeles, same thing. Wherever I am, that's my home area. This fits my calling patterns perfectly.

When I signed up with Nextel, I looked at all of their unique services and billing methods and decided that I was willing to pay the higher base price because the service seemed to warrant it. If I were to compare Nextel to other cellular providers today, I'd be hard pressed to see much difference. About the only thing they have left is that "radio" feature. I never used it. Don't have a need for it and it never figured into my decision to go with Nextel. Nextel no longer has better evening hours and now they bill airtime the same as any other carrier. What's left to justify their high price? Not much.

The changes seem to be having an effect. I've received numerous "bonus offers" from Nextel which have all turned out to have the same fine print. Taking them up on any of those offers would have required accepting another year long contract. Nextel must be pretty desperate to get me to commit to another year. I've received email offers, snail-mail, and even got a telemarketer (on the cell phone, no less). I'm sure every snail-mail bill also has these things tucked in there. I fail to see any advantage to a contract. It obviously doesn't lock Nextel into any kind of service agreement. They can still change whatever they want whenever they want while I get nothing but a discount at the Nextel store or a free month of service.

BTW, between the time I started typing this (Thursday) and today (Sunday), I received another "special offer" from Nextel. It went straight to voicemail. By that, I mean nobody ever really called. If they had, there would have been an entry in my Recent Calls log if they didn't have callerID blocked and "missed call" message on the display whether callerID was blocked or not. I just happened to notice that the voicemail icon was on the display with the standard "keypad lock" text in its normal place. Think about that. They don't have to bother paying a phone farm to call people. Just record a single message and squirt it into every box in the system. It was bad enough when I got junk text-messages for a few days (not from Nextel). Now I'm getting junk voicemail. I wonder if that was a test for future revenue streams. I can see it now. In the not-to-distant future, Nextel customers will probably have to wade thru as many junk voicemails as junk emails.

Watch for a change in the contract that says you're obligated to receive messages from "Nextel partners" via text message and/or voicemail. Or maybe they'll use DirectConnect. During your next meeting, how would you like your phone to pipe up with, "Hey, sexy. I've been waiting for you to call. I'm dripping wet and waiting for you at 1-555-WET-LICK. Call now. Only $2.99 per minute. Discreet billing."

By jtown@punk.net

Necrosis · May 21, 2002, 08:58 AM

Quaint...

Nextel is my cell carrier, and the guy is right about them. Though I haven't been getting any junk messages or voicemail. I've been checking with different carriers. It looks like I might be going with Cingular soon. Where I work at both places are large customers, and I'll leave it at that.

May 20, 2002, 11:28 PM	#1
Zardon DriverHeaven Founder Join Date: May 2002 Posts: 32,480 Rep Power: 177	Shouldn't cell phone contracts be binding to both parties? When you got your last cell phone, you probably agreed to keep that account active for a year. Maybe even two. And you probably thought that the services provided by the company would stay the same for the full length of the contract. Guess again. If you read the fine print, you'll notice that nearly every cellular provider has built the perfect escape hatch into their contracts. Basically, they give themselves the right to change any aspect of the service at any time. They generally give you 30 days to object and cancel the contract without penalty but what good is that? Are they also going to reimburse you for the cost of your fancy phone accessories? Are they going to contact everyone in your life to give them your new number. Not a chance. Even worse, they don't need to get your approval to make the change or even verify that you're aware that a change has been made. Their 30 day notice gets tucked into your snail-mail bill. I, for one, don't pay my bill that way. Heck, I paid for a phone with wireless web access so I use it. My account balance and payment options are just a few buttons away. I check the balance and authorize payment. No check, no envelope, no stamp, no nothin'. Just electrical impulses. I've only found out about Nextel's changes by reading rants on the internet. It's been brought to my attention that Nextel sent out a postcard for their last change. I found it in the trash. Looked like an advertisement to me until I started reading it. (On the postcard, they didn't bother to mention that customers can close their accounts without penalty if they don't accept the changes.) In the last few months, Nextel has made two very significant changes to their service. First they moved the beginning of evening/off-peak hours from 8pm to 9pm. This pretty much makes evening minutes worthless. What's the point of having unlimited evening/weekend minutes if I can only make calls for an hour a night during the week? I don't know about y'all but I don't make many calls after 10pm. More recently, they've changed the way they count air time. They used to round up to the next second. Now they are going to round up to the next minute. That's a very important distinction to people who make a lot of calls. 300 calls at an average of 2.5 minutes = 750 minutes the old way and 900 minutes the new way. Cha-Ching! First they take away an hour then they revise the way they calculate airtime just in case anyone slipped past without getting gouged. These changes were made across the board for the most part. Even people who are only days into their one or two year contracts suddenly have to decide if they can live with the new rules. What if you just bought a $200 phone, a couple of extra batteries, the car charger, a carrying case, data cable, etc.? You're screwed. Signing up with Nextel could make for the most expensive month of phone service you've ever seen unless you "voluntarily" accept the new contract. There are a couple of calling plans that are still billed by the second and business contracts are generally exempt from such changes but individual consumers are getting shafted. It's almost as if Nextel is trying to drive away the individuals who use their service. How long will it be before Nextel decides that my "roaming home area" service should be altered? Right now, wherever I happen to be becomes my home area and local calls are local calls. If I go visit the family in Oregon, I can use my phone to make all the local calls I want. If I go back east, same thing. Go to Los Angeles, same thing. Wherever I am, that's my home area. This fits my calling patterns perfectly. When I signed up with Nextel, I looked at all of their unique services and billing methods and decided that I was willing to pay the higher base price because the service seemed to warrant it. If I were to compare Nextel to other cellular providers today, I'd be hard pressed to see much difference. About the only thing they have left is that "radio" feature. I never used it. Don't have a need for it and it never figured into my decision to go with Nextel. Nextel no longer has better evening hours and now they bill airtime the same as any other carrier. What's left to justify their high price? Not much. The changes seem to be having an effect. I've received numerous "bonus offers" from Nextel which have all turned out to have the same fine print. Taking them up on any of those offers would have required accepting another year long contract. Nextel must be pretty desperate to get me to commit to another year. I've received email offers, snail-mail, and even got a telemarketer (on the cell phone, no less). I'm sure every snail-mail bill also has these things tucked in there. I fail to see any advantage to a contract. It obviously doesn't lock Nextel into any kind of service agreement. They can still change whatever they want whenever they want while I get nothing but a discount at the Nextel store or a free month of service. BTW, between the time I started typing this (Thursday) and today (Sunday), I received another "special offer" from Nextel. It went straight to voicemail. By that, I mean nobody ever really called. If they had, there would have been an entry in my Recent Calls log if they didn't have callerID blocked and "missed call" message on the display whether callerID was blocked or not. I just happened to notice that the voicemail icon was on the display with the standard "keypad lock" text in its normal place. Think about that. They don't have to bother paying a phone farm to call people. Just record a single message and squirt it into every box in the system. It was bad enough when I got junk text-messages for a few days (not from Nextel). Now I'm getting junk voicemail. I wonder if that was a test for future revenue streams. I can see it now. In the not-to-distant future, Nextel customers will probably have to wade thru as many junk voicemails as junk emails. Watch for a change in the contract that says you're obligated to receive messages from "Nextel partners" via text message and/or voicemail. Or maybe they'll use DirectConnect. During your next meeting, how would you like your phone to pipe up with, "Hey, sexy. I've been waiting for you to call. I'm dripping wet and waiting for you at 1-555-WET-LICK. Call now. Only $2.99 per minute. Discreet billing." By jtown@punk.net

May 21, 2002, 08:58 AM	#2
Necrosis HardwareHeaven Extreme Member Join Date: May 2002 Location: Ohio Posts: 8,838 Rep Power: 129 System Specs	Quaint... Nextel is my cell carrier, and the guy is right about them. Though I haven't been getting any junk messages or voicemail. I've been checking with different carriers. It looks like I might be going with Cingular soon. Where I work at both places are large customers, and I'll leave it at that.