Abuse of ETF

I received another call yesterday from customer service. T-Mobile has
now owned up to the fact that their computers should NOT have renewed
this contract and that I was correct all along. This is unfortunately
too little / too late, as I was already forced to cancel the account
and lose the phone number.

The language in their TOS might elude to the fact that they can renew
your contract whenever a change of service is made, however there are
certainly conflicting views and results on this.

They have different promotional plans that are clearly marked as
requiring a contract, with less attractive plans that do not require a
contract.

Again, make changes over the phone and keep documentation on who you
spoke with, and you should be OK in making changes to an account
without extending or renewing a contract!

All:

Thanks for all the feedback. My advice for anyone who wants to remain
out of contract but would like to alter their plan, is to only do it
over the phone, through a representative, with thorough explanations
of what ramifications will occur by altering the plan. Take good
notes (date, rep name, #)

I am happy to report that as a result of this letter, T-Mobile swiftly
refunded the $200 ETF (my second positive result from planet
feedback).

The gentleman who contacted me would not remove the contract from the
account. The "compromise" was to cancel the account on the spot (thus
losing the second phone number) and avoid an additional $200 fee.

I accepted this offer rather than stay with T-Mobile. While I am
content to have been given a rebate, I will always take the position
that I was completely swindled into a contract that I never agreed to,
and that I should never have had to compromise on this.

It would have been a much better gesture for them to have simply
removed the contract from the account as I had asked.

I pulled up a copy of a personal Verizon contract I have on my work
computer that people must sign when they leave the firm and transfer
their phone to private billing.

Here's how they address the extension of the contract issue.

"If at anytime you change your service you'll be subject to any
requirement, such as a new minimum term, we set for that change"

I'm sure every carrier has similar wording on their initial contracts.
This pretty much solves the issue of contract extension and as to
whether people are told or not told they are extending the contract.
They don't have to tell you because it's already been addressed.

So, even though they waived the extension in November 2006, when the
OP changed his plan again in December 2006, the carrier chose to
exercise that clause of the contract and extended the minimum term.

Wow! Sounds like cacellation the fee is t-mobile's secondary revenue
stream...too bad I always considered them a good company until the
same thing happened to me.

Time to revolt...

The best thing I could suggest would be to call customer care, and ask
the representative to check the notes on your account. Agreeing to
change a rate plan without requiring a contract extension is unusual,
so the rep that did that should have put notes in to that effect. In
general, however, a rate plan change to certain plans will result in
an automatic contract extension, and there is a whole script which the
rep reads to that effect.

Whether in person or on line, you are given their terms and
conditions. Although I haven't read them, from my dealings with
wireless carriers at work, some of those terms and conditions address
contract extensions. More than likely they state something like, if
at anytime you change your rate plan or upgrade your phone a contract
extension may apply.

You sign the form or click "I agree" online and you don't have a leg
to stand on to dispute the ETF. You are dealing with large
corporations with teams of legal advisors whose only job is to cover
these issues. So just saying "no one told me" is not enough to get
the fees waived.

Agreed. Saying "no one told me" is absolutely not an excuse. But, if
they cannot show they informed the client of the extension, that
becomes entirely different.

In order for the contract to be enforceable, the contract really does
have to be documented. If this is over the phone, a record should be
kept of the conversation. After all, isn't that why you are notified
they "are recording the conversation for customer service reasons"?

The next stage of the process would be having any negative information
removed from your credit report. Assuming the cell phone provider
could not provide this agreement. This is really the area I'm not sure
of. I would think that whatever the credit reporting agency it is,
they would have the responsibility to verify the validity of this
agreement. If I can show that I've request proof of this agreement,
to no avail, and the credit reporting agency is also not supplied with
such supporting documentation, WHAT IS DONE? IS THE CREDIT REPORTING
AGENCY REQUIRED TO REMOVE THE NEGATIVE INFORMATION FROM YOUR REPORT?
HOW LONG DO THEY HAVE TO DO SO?

ANY change to an existing plan, expired or not, will result in the
renewal and/or extension of the contract. The new plan doesn't have
to be "better" to trigger a new contract nor does the customer have to
purchase any "subsidized phones". Even if you call T-Mobile and tell
them to move you to a less expensive plan - - bingo - - your contract
is automatically extended. So you may not think you agreed to a new
contract but your actions say otherwise.