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.

This is how it is all over the wireless world. It is a revenue
generating thing for all carriers. Unfortunately, when you first sign
up for service, the subject of ETF's is addressed. The contract you
sign also addresses the issue of extending contracts if you change
your plan and the fact that no wireless carrier guarantees coverage.

These are huge corporations with teams of lawyers who draw up these
contracts to address every issue.

I handle about 2500 cell phones for my firm. I just tried to cancel
two of them and was advised that I would incur ETF's on them. Nobody
gets cut any slack. It doesn't matter if you pay your bill on time
and it doesn't matter if your bill is $50 per month or $100K per
month.

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.

Okay, here's a general question for anyone which may have a legal
background to answer.

How can this subscriber, or anyone else for that matter, be held to a
contract or contract extension without clearing signing such an
agreement?

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.