Actually they can stop a port! If you owe to much or they find that they are going to be defrauded they can prevent the port! They are any number of conditions that they could prevent a port and in fact there are some numbers that just can't be ported!

Don't know of any carrier that will pay this fee! Why would they you are showing that you aren't willing to own up to your committment and this also adds to the high cost of gaining one as a customer! It takes almost 18 months for the average use to be profitable for a carrier!

Me either. I think it would be illegal for them to overtly do so. WOuldn't it be considered "tampering" or something like that since they are in essence paying you to break a binding contract?

Now you might be able to get a new carrier to offer you a 1 or 2 month service credit to soften the blow of leaving early, but that would just be based upon luck more than anything I think.

Dude-I agree with JSanders. I know the military life and moving around. But man, those are Federal Documents. I am sure you were just "kidding" right? And the military would grab you first, then the civilian courts. Plus, it makes this Forum a medium for enabling stuff like that. Come on, we all know you were kidding and didn't mean it. Right?

Agree, they will send the account to a collection agency. Cingular did that to me when AT&T merged with them. For some still unknown reason after the merge I dropped calls all day long in my home...out in the middle of the street, no problem. So I left and went to Verizon while still trying to convince Cingular that in fact they had not held up THEIR end of the contract because they were not giving me service...I guess they got tired of the back and forth and next thing I knew I got a letter saying they were (or had?) sent the outstanding fee for breaking the contract (175) to a lawyer or collection agency..something. So, I got REALLY REALLY mad ... while I wrote out the check to Cingular.... .... they won.

If you or someone else pays the fee, you are NOT breaking the contract. What you're doing is following one of it's stipulations: "pay an extra fee if you don't want to pay for the service."

These threads really make me mad, because it's people like the creator of this thread that raise the cost of service for everyone else. By spending your time looking for ways to defraud a wireless carrier, and either succeeding or taking up the time of a customer service representative, you are making it that much more expensive for the rest of us to get wireless service.

Not to mention the moral issues that you should have with trying to weasel out of a contract; you entered into a contract knowing that if you wanted to terminate your service early, you would have to pay a fee. Later, you want to terminate your service but don't want to have to pay a fee. Is that fair to anyone?

But if a company is giving you money with the express purpose of "stealing" your business from another company to whom you are contractually obligated, I think there could be legal issues involved.

Why else hasn't a single company ever had a "we'll pay your ETF" sale?

That's why I said you might be able to convince your new carrier to apply a one-time $150 credit to your bill (though likely only if you spend big $$ each month) to help you off-set the costs of the switch, but the ETF money will still need to come out of your own pocket.

Even the method I describe could probably be considered collusion.

It's not collusion. It's expensive. Land-line carriers do it all the time by promising to pay your switch fee or whatever they call it. And wireless carriers do it also, for preferred clients they are trying to attract. However, it is more rare for wireless carriers because the ETF is more expensive.

A switch fee for a landline carrier is different. There is no contract involved there, just a fee.

Legally, isn't collusion just an agreement between 2 parties that results in harm to a 3rd party?

Sorry

No there isn't. First of all the contact states you can validly walk away by paying that fee. So you are following the terms of the contract. There is no bad faith act here.



Why would you? First off the ETF fees are huge. You would have to be with the new carrier for years, and not be given an equipment discount for them to make that back on their razor thin profit margins.



I think you mean a conspiring. Collusion would be when two companies with the same product/service agree to not compete and sell at an inflated price.

It states that I may pay the fee. It does not state that the competition may do so on my behalf.




So why not have a "we pay your ETF fee" sale instead of handset subsidies? Just the name alone would get interested people into the store. Yet it does not happen.





From Law.com:

collusion
n. where two persons (or business entities through their officers or other employees) enter into a deceitful agreement, usually secret, to defraud and/or gain an unfair advantage over a third party, competitors, consumers or those with whom they are negotiating. Collusion can include secret price or wage fixing, secret rebates, or pretending to be independent of each other when actually conspiring together for their joint ends. It can range from small-town shopkeepers or heirs to a grandma's estate, to gigantic electronics companies or big league baseball team owners.
See also: fraud

If you do pay the fee, and the new provider credits your account with an amount equal to (or not exactly equal to) the ETF, would they really be paying the fee?

It does not say that cant and that is all that matters. Contracts are binding based on what they say not on what they dont say. Companies paying off a contract or lease to pick up their business is not an uncommon practice. There is nothing illegal about someone else meeting the terms of a contract for you, unless the contract specifically forbids it.




Why would they nothing about it makes since.

1. It costs a lot of real money up front. Unlike the phones where the carries buy in bulk and can get discounts, and play with there inventory numbers, this requires paying actual cash up front. Paying a $175 up front fee per customer would kill a companies balance sheet.

2. Not only does it cost you a lot of cash, you are giving that cash to a competitor.

3. Last but not lest you are paying all that cash to get a customer that is likely to drop you at the first chance they can get. Which complicates the fact that you need them to stay under contract to make that money back.


Which tends to validate that it is not financially viable.

Thanks for proving my point. Collusion being something that generally takes place between two sellers, and requires a "deceitful agreement". There is nothing deceitful about what you describe. It would only be a crime if say Cingular tried to get you to break your contact with Verizon and not pay the termination fee. Even then it would more likely be a case of tortious interference not collusion.

Technically, no. But this does happen on rare occasions (if you bring enough $$$ to your new provider each month).

I don't claim to be a legal authority, but I fail to see how that definition proves your point. You say yourself it "generally" takes place between two sellers. In the real world, I agree with you on that point. But the definition I posted says nothing to that effect. It says (in essence) that collusion is an agreement between two parties that is meant to harm a third.

Now it wouldn't be secret if it were an advertised deal, right? This is not collusion in any form of the law. Before you quote the law, you need to know it.

Come on people! Please tell me that you guys did not seriously do the illeagal things that you said you did (especially forging military documents!!!!) Be mature, as said in the other posts, and pay the ETF. You should do some research about the carrier first before you sign a contract so that you don't have to do this sort of thing!

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