New deals... new plans... my cellular phone plan is a rip off now!
May 23 '01
The Bottom Line You are never completely trapped into the cellular plan you started with... you can change within a provider throughout the life of your plan!
You just got a cellular phone and plan... got that nice 400 minute local plan covers the areas you need it to, even came with 1000 minutes free nights and weekends. You turn on the TV to relax... watch one of your favorite shows... and then BAM!
You see the provider you signed up with giving a better deal. You curse and spit fire your mouth. Now... it's a bad day!
Well, it shouldn't be. What cellular companies don't tell you is that your plan is changable even when you're a new customer. You don't have to wait for your first contract year to finish. You have to call your cellular phone company to see what you can play with.
Let me give you first hand examples with two companies.
AT&T story
I used to be a long standing AT&T customer and suspended service a couple of days ago. Why? AT&T is one of the worse cellular companies in Metro NY/NJ area as per most reviewers. The service was decent but not great... there definitely was better service around. Prices in general were not as competitive during the last year and a half against the competition. So... why did I stay with AT&T so long?
I mentioned most of this story in a few of my cellular reviews so if you read them, you're not going to find any real surprises here... just a shorter version of it.
When I started with AT&T, I had a 60 minute plan covering Northern and Central NJ and all of Metro NY and Long Island. I got free voice mail and text messaging and completely free nights and weekends for one year. That plan started Dec. 1998. Sometime in March, AT&T ran a new promotion that would double your minutes. I decided to give my AT&T representative a call. After a few minutes, I got the AT&T representative to give me the double your minutes and kept all my other promotions without changing the price... but I did have to agree to something. I had to sign a new one year contract with AT&T. Now my contract expired in March 2000 instead of December 1999.
When December 1999 came along, my free nights and weekends was done but I had the option of keeping unlimited nights and weekends for $4.99 extra a month. I agreed and kept using AT&T service. In February 2000, the double your plan minutes promotion came back, so I renewed my cellular plan for an additional year one month prior to my last contract expiring. Again, this promotion for doubling your minutes repeated 7 months later and again I signed up for a new 1 year contract before my prior contract expired.
By May 2000, I was in a new 1 year contact that started in March 2000. I got free nights and weekends for $4.99, a 60 minute plan for Northern and Central NJ/Metro NY/LI, an additional 60 minutes of peak calling time (since I had free nights and weekends already), and free text messaging and voice mail (which was still an option for most AT&T plans at that time!). In May 2000, my friends had been changing around their cellular phone plans with AT&T. They told me they had gotten an additional 200 minutes of peak calling time, free nights and weekends, free voice mail, and 20% off the cost of their calling plan.
Guess what, I called AT&T again. The NY customer service was starting to get quite crabby however (at least when I called last year, they have been nice this year). I got nowhere with them. Then I called AT&T Wireless Customer Service in Ohio (you can't do this anymore... I have tried recently) who were much nicer. They reviewed a plan with all of NJ and Metro NY with Long Island containing 200 minutes with 200 extra minutes and unlimited nights and weekends for $4.99 extra. I would also receive all the benefits of call waiting, three way calling, caller ID, text messaging, voice mail, and 20% off the cost of the cellular plan. All this would cost $29.99 a month plus tax. I hit one snag however... my current cellular phone couldn't handle signals in Southern NJ. I wasn't eligible for the plan. The representative and I went through options... I found that I could add the extra 200 minutes and 20% off to my current plan! Excellent!!! I did find out a month later that I had made two sacrifices. I resigned for a new 1 year contract (which I knew about) but I lost my free voice mail and text messaging (which my old cellular plan didn't grant me). Why??? My cellular plan was dated back to 1998... I never changed the actual cellular plan in all of these cellular transactions which allowed me to keep my unlimited nights and weekends (which is not offered anymore for any of AT&T currently offered plans!). Regardless, I had paid $32 after taxes were added for a AT&T plan that covered Northern and Central NJ, Metro NY, and LI, with 320 minutes of peak calling time, 5 cents per minute long distance calling, unlimited nights and weekends, and 20% off my cellular plan.
When my plan with AT&T expired (since there were no particular promotions that would improve my current plan), I had already switched to Cingular wireless with a plan that covered all of NJ and Metro NY with LI, free nights and weekends, free long distance, free voice mail, free wireless web services, free text messaging, and all the current standard cell phone features... heck, I even got the cell phone for free with a case and a hands free kit.
Cellular One... now a part of Cingular Wireless
Both my father and my brother are part of this cellular provider (which caused me to switch over to Cingular after seeing their current promotions). With all my experience with AT&T and their cellular services, it was time to see what I could do with their plans. I couldn't do anything with my brother's plan. He got 30 minutes free with free nights and weekends for $20 a month. I couldn't argue with that plan (the company was still Cellular One at that time). My father has been with Cellular One since 1995. He had one of their best plans at that time for $49.95 that covered most of the eastern coast and gave him 60 minutes of free time. However, he didn't keep up with the cellular trends... at all. I started reviewing his plan with Cellular One around 1998. I renewed his contract for a year and changed the plan to a $19.99 30 minutes for free plan. The new 1 year contract added an additional 30 minutes of peak time and 60 minutes of off peak time on top of the 30 minutes included with the plan.
About 6 months into the contract, I would make a call to Cellular One customer service to see what deals would come with resigning a new 1 year contract. When a good deal came along, I would have my father resign a new contract... I just had Cellular One send the contracts to my dad's home, I didn't need to be around to sign the contracts! So I would maintain the $19.99 plan with 30 free minutes (covering all of NJ and Metro NY with Long Island) but added as much as 180 minutes of calling time per month with renewing the 1 year contract before the prior one was finished. All of this stopped with the changing of Cellular One to Cingular Wireless... I resigned him to a new contract with $29.99 for 225 minutes within NJ/Metro NY/LI, free nights and weekends for the life of the plan, and free voice mail/text messaging with all the features that other cellular plans make standard.
So what is the point?
I've tried this with all the cellular providers like Verizon and MCI for my friends and successing in improving their cellular plans. If you like your current cellular phone company, keep your eyes open on their TV commericials and check your cellular providers web pages about once a month. When a promotion comes along for your cellular provider that makes your plan better, call your cellular provider. Get that promotion added in. The only thing that it will definitely cost you is a resigning of a new one year contract! Never ever think that you are stuck with your current cellular plan until your contract is up. The cellular providers want to retain you in their cellular service and will do many, many things to make it so!
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Epinions.com ID:
yusakugo
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Member: Rich Go
Location: Somewhere in the NorthEast
Reviews written: 399
Trusted by: 498 members
About Me:
Losing Sleep and Lacking Time... sigh...
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