FCC puts Verizon under the microscope for excessive cancellation fees and “accidental data fees”
Cancelling your cellphone contract use to come with a hefty fee of anywhere from $175 up to $200+. The carriers justified this fee by highlighting how customers buying subsidized phones and then canceling their contracts was killing their checkbooks. Then a revelation happened last year — pro-rated cancellation fees starting at the same $175-$200 but decreasing by $5 each month were introduced meaning the longer you stayed in your contract, the lower the cancellation fee. It makes perfect sense. I shouldn’t have to pay for the full price of cancelling a contract that’s on month 20 out of 24. It appeared that the world was heading towards a happier place with carriers removing barriers and becoming *gasp* more consumer friendly. Then Verizon announced at the beginning of November that they were going against the trend and instead raising cancellation fees for “advanced devices” (read: all smartphones and even some “higher-end” feature phones) up to $350. This new price reduces by $10 each month instead of the old $5. Can you see the problem with this?
