With all the "incredible" deals for the new fancy-schmancy cellphones these days, it seems inevitable that many subscribers will want to switch from one provider to another. Of course, as we all know, it's easier said than done.
The "Red Tape Chronicles" from MSNBC offers advice on how to make the switch without it being too painful, but some of their suggestions are questionable in terms of practicality. One of them is to "sublease" your phone. Basically, you would rent your phone to someone else. Somehow, I don't think they'll a lot of buy-in on that one. Another is to set up an account with CellTradeUSA.com where you can pawn your service to someone else, otherwise konwn as "get in people" who come in and buy the phone and the remaining service from "get out people." Again, this might be considered risky because you never know who you're dealing with on the other end of this type of transaction.
There probably are better ways to get out of your cellphone contract, and if you have any suggestions, feel free to comment. If worst comes to absolute worst and you really need that new and cool phone, you may very well have to bite the bullet and pay a terminate fee and be done with it.
1. Some companies like Sprint offer whats called a transfer of liability to another persons account. The two individual account holders go into a Sprint store and sign a transfer of liability form. This allows the person who wants to leave the ability to tranfer their phone # and services over to the other without a cancelation fee. You just loose your # to the other persons account.
Posted at 5:32AM on Dec 19th 2005 by Rich