Verizon doubling early termination fees

It's called lock-in, folks: The tactic that works by ensuring that once you sign on with a product or a company, you have virtually no way to escape. You're stuck for life. Apple does this with the iPod by locking iTunes to its music player. Online e-mail providers do this regularly by making it impossible to get your email out of their system and onto another.

But perhaps the most notorious example of electronics lock-in is the good-old cell phone contract early termination fee. Every carrier has one: If you want to get out of your contract early, you'll pay at least a hundred bucks for the privilege. The carriers justify it by saying you get a better deal on your cell phone when you make the initial purchase, but for many, hanging on to a crummy phone for two years just isn't worth it, and many people find that after the first year has passed, they want out of the deal (usually so they can get an iPhone).

And that termination fee is always painful.

Well, if you sign up for new service with Verizon beginning November 15 or later, that early termination fee is about to start hurting much worse. According to Boy Genius Report, Verizon is preparing to double its ETF to a whopping $350 if you cancel your service before your contract is up. For users with a simple calling plan, that amount of money can be close to the fees for a year's worth of service.

Oh, there's a little bone thrown in there for you: For every month of your contract fulfilled, the company knocks $10 off the ETF. Great deal? Hardly: Cancel your 24-month contract in the 23rd month and you're still on the hook for a $120 termination fee. Ouch.

It's unclear if the new fee will apply to all devices or just mysterious "advanced" ones (see the link for further speculation), but either way this is a bad omen for all cell phone users, as all the carriers tend to raise prices and fees in lockstep with each other whenever they think they can get away with it. (See also: Text messaging fees.) And they usually do.

Get ready for some outrage, folks. Be mad!

Just a word of caution to anyone out there with an itchy credit card finger: signing up for a contract with Verizon just became a considerably more binding affair thanks to a big boost of its contract early termination fee from $175 to $350. Rumored for a few days now, the change became official as of yesterday, which means that anyone who bought an "advanced device" prior to the 14th is in the clear. The advanced device list can be found on Verizon's site, and as you might expect, it's a little broad and ridiculous -- winners like the Versa, Exilim, and Glyde are on there, so they're obviously not just referring to smartphones. They throw you a bone by reducing the ETF by a stout $10 for every month of the contract you successfully hurdle, but that still leaves you with a $120 ETF 23 months into a 24-month deal... so yeah, just be careful out there and don't do anything rash, alright?

Don't shop drunk: Verizon's $350 ETF is now live

Originally Posted by Venom

Verizon doubling early termination fees : Christopher Null : Yahoo! Tech





@ this bulls**t. not only they got the most expensive plans, now they pullin this s**t. this s**t alone make the droid not worth it

Originally Posted by hockeythug

Gsm>cdma

Originally Posted by VictoryThagr8

The reason they are doing this because the whole blackberry buy 1 get 1 free thing and people canceling the line for 175 and resale the storm for 500 on ebay.

Also Verizon network>>Sprint>>>>>>>>>>ATT>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>T-mobile.

Really the real rip off carrier is ATT. Not only they charge you the same price as Verizon, their network is nowhere as big as verizon. s**t verizon is planning to have LTE coverage that will surpass ATT and T-mobile 3g coverage in 2010.

Originally Posted by VictoryThagr8

The reason they are doing this because the whole blackberry buy 1 get 1 free thing and people canceling the line for 175 and resale the storm for 500 on ebay.

Also Verizon network>>Sprint>>>>>>>>>>ATT>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>T-mobile.

Really the real rip off carrier is ATT. Not only they charge you the same price as Verizon, their network is nowhere as big as verizon. s**t verizon is planning to have LTE coverage that will surpass ATT and T-mobile 3g coverage in 2010.

Originally Posted by Sheeed

chillll bruh...AT&T isnt as bad as you claim...on the east coast this s**t works damn near everywhere...from massachusetts, to jersey, to maryland to NC, and down to MIA never had any problems....

Originally Posted by Venom

i cant really agree with that. tmobile will be pushin out HSPA+ 21Mbps soon and that should be equal or greater than LTE in terms of speed. Tmobile just started pushin out HSPA+ 7.2Mbps now and thats greater than sprints 4g network. Tmobile is rapidly spreadin 3g across the nation. check how many cities they gave 3g in this year alone and they are still goin.

Originally Posted by Zab_JudahX

gaaaaaaat damn @ the ETF

im stuck with my tp2 till 2011

at&t is dope if u live in a big city/metro. i live in the Triad(greensboro,winston-salem, high point) and my iphone 3gs was killin the web. even when i tethered with my lg incite i could download files @ 275 kb/s. i get near the same with verizon here too tho so i didnt miss a beat by switching....if u travel the usa its better to have verizon