A month and a half ago I added four lines to my cell phone account, and upgraded my phone. It’s a Sony Ericsson W580i, and it’s very nice. It plays mp3 and m4a music, has a slot for a Memory Stick Micro card (I got a 4GB card for $30), and comes with really good headphones that double as a handsfree set. I can set whatever ringtone I want (up to 30 seconds) and whatever “text message received” sound I want. It has real bluetooth for connecting to computers as well as headsets. You can load whatever mobile Java app you want onto the phone. In all, it’s a sweet phone. All five phone lines are W580is.
But that’s not what I’m writing about now. My purpose is to aid in convincing the phone company not to charge a fee for upgrading your phone. You see, the W580i was $30 for a new line or $90 for an upgrade when I got them. I already paid $60 more for my phone than for new lines, why should AT&T charge me an upgrade fee on top of it?
Well here’s what I did. I asked an AT&T rep (dial 611 on your AT&T cell phone, or *611 on Verizon; you won’t get charged minutes). She said something along the lines of needing to activate the new phone in their system.
This, of course, is ridiculous – the only thing that needs activation is the SIM card, and that was already activated. You can quite easily obtain whatever phone you want (assuming it’s AT&T-compatible) and stick your SIM card in, and it will work. AT&T doesn’t even need to know about it. I explained this to the salesperson, and then said that if that is the only reason for the fee, I want a refund because the reason is “blatantly false” (I believe those were the words I used). She paused, and then said “Just give me a moment to refund that for you.”
This technique will likely work for other phone companies. Along with upgrade fees, I would also advise you to insist on getting activation fees waived when you get a new line. If we can get enough people to demand these fees be waived or refunded, then phone companies will have to realize we don’t want them, and then if we get lucky they’ll stop charging these fees altogether.