T-Mobile says "me too," gives in to prorated ETFs -- next year

by Chris Ziegler posted Nov 7th 2007 at 4:27PM

Yep, sure enough, the prorated ETF craze is sweeping the nation. T-Mobile is the latest national US carrier to announce that customers will see their early termination fees decline over the length of their contracts, an obvious effort to stem a groundswell of hate getting launched in carriers' directions lately regarding contracts, ETF policies, and other miscellany regarded as unfair in consumer advocacy circles. One little snag, though: T-Mobile's just announcing its intention to move to prorated ETFs here; they're still crossing their T's and dotting their I's on the new legalese, it seems, and it's expected to take effect in the first half of next year.

Filed under: T-Mobile

Tags: contract, early termination fee, EarlyTerminationFee, etf, prorate, prorated, t-mobile

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Neutral

JAmerican @ Nov 7th 2007 6:02PM

OMG Thanks T-Mobile. Now I can cancel early :). We had to pay $200 straight before.

Neutral

Elias C. @ Nov 7th 2007 6:29PM

Oh suck it up...we still have 3 year contracts and $400 ETF's here in Canada.

Highly Ranked

BrettB @ Nov 7th 2007 8:17PM

Sure, but that's 400 Canadian. Oh, wait...

Neutral

Roger Alford @ Nov 7th 2007 6:47PM

This new ETF Prorate will only take effect for NEW customers signing on to T-Mobile, or those wishing to RESIGN a 1 or 2 year contract, provided the original contract is completed.

Phone upgrade and rate plan changes that restart a contract will not be part of the new ETF fee, unless the original contract deadline is passed. Then your fee is $200, and lowers by $9 each month on a 2 year or $17 per month on a 1 year, there after.

Those currently in contract will not be able to get out of contract sooner.

This information I have is coming from TWO managers from T-Mobile, who work near the Bellevue HQ.

Neutral

mingkee @ Nov 7th 2007 6:59PM

T-Mobile is forced to do that
if not, about 100,000 of lawsuits for fixed rate ETF will follow

Neutral

JAmerican @ Nov 7th 2007 8:17PM

So they can remove the $5 internet from my plan even though they said it worked with my plan but I can't get the prortaed ETFs. EFF That.

JAmerican

Highly Ranked

derX @ Nov 7th 2007 9:13PM

Dear TMobile,

Here's a heads-up: Launch your 3G network before doing this. Something tells me this won't end too peachily for you.

Urgently,
Guy on a 3G network
(which is literally anyone's but yours)

--------
Yo, Grammar Nazis, I have a question for you all:
Is the adverbial form of 'peachy' really peachily? I know its an informal word, but, I mean, is this the adverb? Yes, I realize I could look this up somewhere, but, c'mon, what beats a tech-lovin' grammarian? Oh, yeah, please don't shoot me for this post.

Kindly,

derX