Wednesday, August 16, 2006

Hidden Terms Of Cell Phone Plans

Having growing a little tired of my older cell phone, I decided to go in for a new one. Naturally, I opted to sign up for a Cell Phone plans in order to get a great phone at a relatively lower price. At that point, it seemed to me that I was going in for a great Cell Phone plans. However, the first few months on the Cell Phone plans opened my eyes to a whole new world of Cell Phone plans.

Contrary to popular belief, unless you read and understand the fine print in most Cell Phone plans contracts, you could find yourself at the wrong end of a long-term contract that you can very well do without. Nevertheless, most people are so enamored by the fact that they will be getting a premium phone for a fraction of the cost that they do not really delve deep into the layers of the Cell Phone plans. This is exactly what happened with me.

When I signed up for the Cell Phone plans, I was promised many free goodies. Caller ID was pre-activated on my cell phone, auto roaming was also pre activated, and my Cell Phone plans seemed to have the best outgoing call discounts. I am sure that even if you were to listen to the spiel of the sales personnel, you would have gone in for the phone. Therefore, the monthly charge for the Cell Phone plans, which extended to monthly payments over a three-year period, did not seem like much. Boy was I wrong!

The Cell Phone plans nearly did me in. Not only the monthly payments become a painful way to owning a premium phone; I found out very soon that the free goodies were for a limited period only. According to my Cell Phone plans, the called ID was only free for a three-month period. Soon after this period lapsed, I found myself paying a hefty fee to keep the caller ID activated. The same was the case with the auto roaming facility. That too was free only for a three-month period. In addition, once the free period had lapsed, I found myself paying excessively for that as well.

Initially, I was miffed. I felt that the salesperson who sold me the Cell Phone plans had cheated me. However, upon checking the fine print of the Cell Phone plans contract, I figured that all these details were mentioned there. Like most consumers, I had made the cardinal mistake of not reading and understanding the fine print. Which is why, with an expensive Cell Phone plans, I was literally paying the price. Not everyone is so unwise though.

Upon checking around, I found that most of my friends and colleagues always made it a point to check the fine print. Another colleague took a phone with the bare bones package, even waiving the need for called ID, Auto Roaming and other facilities that were provided free for the initial months of usage as he too had discovered the hidden terms on his Cell Phone plans while on an earlier contract!

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