Saving Money on Our Cell Phone Purchase
Recently, I shared with you my cell phone dilemma. We live out in the boonies and the only service that works well decently is U.S. Cellular. I had issues with using U.S. Cellular, which I discussed in the article.
One of my aggravations was the activation fee on EACH phone. We were facing over $100 in activation fees alone. Then tack on the price of the phones and the higher monthly rates and we would be paying a small fortune for the cell phone switch.
I don’t know about you, but all these extra gimmicks fees really perturb me. It’s like they’re telling you the cost is $49.99 a month to make it sound good. But, oh wait. You want mobile to mobile minutes, right? You want your nights and weekends to start at 7 pm? All those things are extra. Texting? Well, that’s $5 a month. Before you know it, your cell phone bill is over $100 a month. Then if you go over your extra minutes will cost you a house payment, so you might as well get the bigger plan. Then they don’t tell you that the U.S. Cellular areas totally suck stink and that your phone will say roaming most of the time so then you have to call and get your plan changed so that you won’t be roaming. And not only that, but somehow you got conned into signing a two year contract. What?????? Someone please tell me. When did a two year contract become the norm?
My goodness! I’m ranting a bit aren’t I? What was the point of all this? Oh yes. My husband made great efforts to talk to different cell phone stores to try to save us some money and get the activation fee waved. None of the U.S. Cellular stores would budge at all on any of the fees. For a while, I thought we had to bite the bullet and pay a week’s salary to get started on our plan. Finally, we heard that if we called the U.S. Cellular number off the website they would work with us.
Hubby called and sure enough, they waved the activation fee. He saved us over $100 by calling them instead of signing up through a local store. Now getting started will only cost half a week’s pay. Ok, I’m kidding. Needless to say, all these fees really get me worked up!!!
So, tell me . . . have you been able to save money on your monthly cell phone bill or fees? Do all these fees irk you as badly as they do me?
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7 opinions for Saving Money on Our Cell Phone Purchase
Meredith
Sep 21, 2008 at 12:49 pm
You probably don’t have this option, but we got our cell plan through my husband’s employer and got about a 17.5% discount since so many employees use this provider. It used to be 15%, but more people signed up this year and we got an even better discount as a surprise this summer.
Michelle Jadaa
Sep 21, 2008 at 3:41 pm
They make it really complicated to compare different companies,you really have to read all the small print etc etc.Here in canada you have to buy the phone from the company you sign with .Right now we are making do with our old phones because we are with the best company for service and price but their current selection of phones stink.Plus why are cell phones so expensive anyway??Its at least $300 for a decent phone…crazy!
ted
Sep 22, 2008 at 2:01 am
i’d love to know which plan you’re on because ALL of the uscc plans include free incoming minutes. and most include mights & weekends or mobile-to-mobile. as for texting, that’s pretty much a luxury. relatively few folks use it, so why should they have to pay for it if they don’t use it? and as for the 2 year contract… it’s either that and get a phone for between a penny and $100 or the European/Asian model where phones are unlocked and allow freedom to move to another carrier, but cost you upwards of $500 or more.
Karen
Sep 22, 2008 at 1:35 pm
Meredith: Unfortunately, we don’t have the option of signing up through our employer. We should though, considering I’ve used my phone about 50% of the time for work related things.
Michelle: U.S. Cellular is much more complicated in their billing. With Suncom, we paid $70 a month for EVERYTHING. There were no hidden fees and nothing was foggy about it. With USC, I just felt like I was getting jipped.
Karen
Sep 22, 2008 at 1:48 pm
Ted: Yes, the plans do include free incoming calls. I believe it was a $7 fee for nights at 7 pm and I think it was a fee for mobile to mobile. Texting is a luxury. It’s one that I don’t use very often, but I do have some friends that prefer to text.
U.S. Cellular and I go way back so all of these fees are just adding more fuel to the fire.
I just moved and we previously had Suncom. Now we have USC and we’re paying almost double every month and we have a limited amount of minutes. With Suncom there were no hidden fees and I had unlimited minutes. I talked as much as I wanted and I haven’t had a home phone in years. I used to be the one amongst my family and friends that would initiate the phone calls because I had unlimited minutes. Or people would call me and say “call me back”. Now I’m the one saying “call me back” because I have limited minutes and free incoming calls.
Then there’s the issue with us roaming or having no clue when we’re roaming. We got a map for the coverage areas for NC and it was so incredibly spotted. We drove across NC and the whole time our phones said roaming, so we were afraid to use them. Then we found out that most of the times our phones will say roaming because USC doesn’t own the towers, but we’re not necessarily roaming. How the heck am I supposed to know if I’m roaming? Especially since I can’t get a rep to clarify which cities and areas are included. All I can get is, “Well, here’s a map.” It is soooo frustrating.
Then there’s the really big issue of them reporting me to a credit bureau FOUR YEARS later for a bill they said I didn’t pay, yet I never received a bill saying it was past due. I had to fight with collections for a year, whom ILLEGALLY violated the statue of limitations in NC for debt collection. This decreased my credit score from 800+ to around 700. I threatened to file a complaint with the attorney general for illegal activity and they took it off my credit, which thankfully caused my credit score to go back up. Then when I recently moved and went through all of my papers, I found proof that I had paid the stupid $63 that they were harrassing me for. To say the least, I am pretty stinking LIVID about the whole situation!!!! Then I move here and USC is all that will work. As you can imagine, I did not want to go back with them as a provider.
Sorry for the rant, but their customer service is totally uncalled for.
JayMonster
Sep 23, 2008 at 4:32 pm
Welcome to the world of deregulation. As companies like at&t and Verizon swallow up other providers and go unchecked by our currently “business friendly” FTC and FCC, choices get smaller, options less, and prices have gone through the roof.
Texting prices alone on ALL cell providers have more than doubled in the last 3 years. The hidden fees and “taxes” SHOULD be required to be listed as part of the monthly price, but that is not business friendly, so they are allowed to go along playing the same game.
The only thing you can take solace in, is that you are not getting screwed any more than any other person on any other service (well except for that whole roaming thing… I thought that was relegated to out of the country calls only now)
One tip in saving money with any cell phone provider is to ALWAYS do business with them over the Internet whenever possible. They offer discounts not available in stores on the web, and will often lower (or eliminate) things like that dreaded activation fee when you do it over the Internet rather than in person.
Karen
Sep 26, 2008 at 8:14 am
Update: We are having horrible problems with signal. Even sitting still, we are cutting in and out on our calls. My husband called them and told them he was going to cancel if something wasn’t changed. They sent him a new phone to try out. We’ll see how it goes. This cell phone issue is a real pain.
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