by wildcherry on Monday, January 4th, 2010 | News, Tech/Gadget

Can a change in contract terms be used as grounds for cancellation?

Contracts vary, but most changes to your contract can provide grounds to get out. Almost any new fee or new charge is your opportunity to break the contract. Why? Because they can’t change any part of the contract without your permission. But they do it all of the time because they know that you DON’T know that you can use that change as a basis for canceling your contract. Here are some recent examples:

Text message price changes (Cingular T-mobile)
Administrative charge increase (Verizon, from $0.40 to $0.70)
Increase in unpublished number fee (Might entitle a bundled AT&T customer to quit Cingular/AT&T wireless,or AT&T DSL)

• Wireless companies charge anywhere from $150-$250 PER PHONE LINE.
  • Alltel: $200 per phone line
  • CellularOne: $200 per phone line
  • Centennial: $250 per phone line
  • AT&T: $175 per phone line
  • Nextel: $200 per phone line
  • Sprint: $200 per phone line
  • T-Mobile: $200 per phone line
  • Verizon:  Prorated

• Kiosks, which may appear to be service providers, can charge even more. Kiosks are 3rd party providers, not cell phone carriers. Additional early termination penalties from kiosks can be as high as $400 PER PHONE LINE

• **Be VERY careful about buying cell phone service from a kiosk at a mall; they often add additional terms to the contract that make it even more expensive for you to get out of a contract (not including the sometimes contradictory return policies and trial periods.)

Tags: att termination fees, breaking cell phone contract, cell phone contract, cell phone fees, cell phone termination fees, tmobile termination fees, verizon termination fees