4 Strategies to Change Cell Phone Carriers Without Paying a Penalty, Despite a Contract

4 Strategies to Change Cell Phone Carriers Without Paying a Penalty, Despite a Contract The cell phone industry is one of the industries with a lot of angry customers. In the US alone about 3 million people change phone services yearly. People are dissatisfied with the service they receive and are always complaining. However, on the side of phone carriers when they sign up a customer they already are operating at a negative balance due to the fact that they give away the handsets due to the stiff competition in the industry. On the average, it takes about 12 months for a phone company to break even and start earning a profit from the phone subscriber. In order to make sure that they protect themselves and at least recoup their investment, some Cell phone service providers bind their customers with a one to two year contract, to ensure that they do not go anywhere so fast without paying penalty at least for the first 12 months. However, there are certain circumstances that would work in your favor and give you the opportunity to change carriers before your contract runs out without paying the penalty which in some cases are up to $200. oTransfer Your Phone oMilitary Deployment oMove To An Area With No Service oCarrier Agreement Modification Transferred Your Phone Sometimes a new phone comes out and you want to get it and you still have about one years left in your old contract, what do you do? This was a dilemma that faced a lot of people when the iPhone came out initially, everybody wanted it but you risked paying penalties if you just jumped ship because you are bound to a contract. So what most people did was sell or transfer the contract of their old phone to someone else and they can then work away and get the iPhone. The same applies for most carriers. Deployed In The Military If you are in the military and you get deployed to a part of the country or a foreign country where you do not have any phone signal from your carrier you can drop the carrier and pick up service from one that has coverage in the area. For some carriers all you need is a verbal confirmation and the contact information of your commanding officer in case they need to obtain confirmation from him or her. Move To An Area With No Service When you move to an area with no service or you have a technical problem and the technician for some reason cannot get it right, most phone companies can release you from the contract to go find another service provider. This is possible because most phone companies handle complaints on a case by case basis and if they cannot sort your problem out, they have no choice but to let you go. Carrier Agreement Modification By law your phone service provider is required to inform you if they are going to make any changes to the agreement that would concern you. It is known as the material adverse change clause, and it was thrown in to protect consumers from unethical conducts from phone service providers. For example making changes to the contract agreement without giving you a 14 day notice. If such a situation occurs, you can walk away from your contract.