Avoiding Cell Phone Bill Shock
If you have a cell phone, I'm pretty sure that it has happened to you at least once. I'm referring to the monthly bill shock. Granted, sometimes you know that you've been talking a lot and have had the opportunity to brace yourself, but most times you're caught totally off-guard. In this post, I'll try and share with you a few tips to keep your bill as low as possible. Read on.
1. Going over you allotted quota. I don't have any statistics, but I feel comfortable saying that is your bill comes to an unusually high amount, then four times out of five it's because you exceeded either your minutes, text messages, or Internet usage limit, or any combination thereof. What makes this so costly is that, compared to your "normal" rates (which are the ones within your plan), overage rates are almost crazy high. The only silver lining to this is that your bill will clearly state exactly what it is you went over on and will total your overage charges apart from your normal bill.
How to keep this under control: move up to a more generous plan in terms of minutes, text, or Internet usage. The initial reaction to this is usually "But I'm trying to SAVE money". To this I reply that consistently going over is certainly more costly than moving to a plan allows for more of your most used services. If this is not a possibility, either because you don't want to or can't afford it, your last resort will be to just keep a close eye on your usage and stop using the phone when said usage is getting too high. Not easy, but doable (and certainly economical).
2. Third Party Subscriptions. The companies behind those third party subscriptions have been around for a while and while people never stop complaining about them and suing them, they just won't let up. Such subscriptions can range from a "free ringtone of the month" club to "horoscope of the day", without forgetting the adult variety of course. As a rule, in order to subscribe, you have to send a text to a phone number they specify, or type in your phone number in a designated section of their website. The problem is, many times, those subscriptions seem to magically appear on customers' phone bills, and they're quite easy to miss because in some cases the customer doesn't have to be notified that they have subscribed. The only way to be sure is to take a good hard look at the "direct bill" portion of your bill.
AT&T recently settled a class action suit involving the way those subscriptions are handled. The company now has to notify the customer via text message every time such a subscription is about to be added to their account. If there's no reply to the notification, then the company has no grounds on which to apply the subscription, and so the customer doesn't get charged. The other mobile carriers should adopt this practice as well and avoid the class action lawsuit cost altogether.
3. One-time fees. The final cause for a higher than usual bill is those fees that typically are a one-time affair. such as activation (or re-activation) fees, upgrade fees, or non-payment fees. Cell phone companies (and utilities companies for that matter) do not miss the opportunity to charge a hefty re-activation fee in order to get service turned back on after the account has been suspended because of a past due bill that the customer failed to pay for. Those fees will rarely ever get waived or credited back to your account, but you can ask for discounts. Ask about discounts or waived fees for employees of the company you work for. You can also wing it and try and ask nicely to have the fee waived/credited back. This will be a lot easier if you've been a customer for a few years and have a good record of paying your bill on time.
Strategy. Your cell phone habits will go a long way towards determining which strategy you use to keep your cell phone bill to a manageable level. If you do most of your talking in the early evening, paying a little bit extra for early night and weekend minutes might be economical. If you're home a lot, look into the various Voice Over IP phone service providers such as you cable company, your phone company, Skype, Vonage, T-Mobile @ Home, and so on. This can save you a lot of minutes. And never be afraid to ask for a discount: employee discount, student discount, senior discount, and so on. If you own a business, you can even ask for a business discount.
In case your bill is too high for you to pay if off in one payment, make sure you call customer service and let them know, and ask whether or not you can arrange some type of payment plan. Just like the previous example, your past record will be the deciding factor to determine how flexible they will be. Bottom line is, with a bit of research and if you restrain yourself a bit, your cell phone bill will no longer cause you to get into shock.
1. Going over you allotted quota. I don't have any statistics, but I feel comfortable saying that is your bill comes to an unusually high amount, then four times out of five it's because you exceeded either your minutes, text messages, or Internet usage limit, or any combination thereof. What makes this so costly is that, compared to your "normal" rates (which are the ones within your plan), overage rates are almost crazy high. The only silver lining to this is that your bill will clearly state exactly what it is you went over on and will total your overage charges apart from your normal bill.
How to keep this under control: move up to a more generous plan in terms of minutes, text, or Internet usage. The initial reaction to this is usually "But I'm trying to SAVE money". To this I reply that consistently going over is certainly more costly than moving to a plan allows for more of your most used services. If this is not a possibility, either because you don't want to or can't afford it, your last resort will be to just keep a close eye on your usage and stop using the phone when said usage is getting too high. Not easy, but doable (and certainly economical).
2. Third Party Subscriptions. The companies behind those third party subscriptions have been around for a while and while people never stop complaining about them and suing them, they just won't let up. Such subscriptions can range from a "free ringtone of the month" club to "horoscope of the day", without forgetting the adult variety of course. As a rule, in order to subscribe, you have to send a text to a phone number they specify, or type in your phone number in a designated section of their website. The problem is, many times, those subscriptions seem to magically appear on customers' phone bills, and they're quite easy to miss because in some cases the customer doesn't have to be notified that they have subscribed. The only way to be sure is to take a good hard look at the "direct bill" portion of your bill.
AT&T recently settled a class action suit involving the way those subscriptions are handled. The company now has to notify the customer via text message every time such a subscription is about to be added to their account. If there's no reply to the notification, then the company has no grounds on which to apply the subscription, and so the customer doesn't get charged. The other mobile carriers should adopt this practice as well and avoid the class action lawsuit cost altogether.
3. One-time fees. The final cause for a higher than usual bill is those fees that typically are a one-time affair. such as activation (or re-activation) fees, upgrade fees, or non-payment fees. Cell phone companies (and utilities companies for that matter) do not miss the opportunity to charge a hefty re-activation fee in order to get service turned back on after the account has been suspended because of a past due bill that the customer failed to pay for. Those fees will rarely ever get waived or credited back to your account, but you can ask for discounts. Ask about discounts or waived fees for employees of the company you work for. You can also wing it and try and ask nicely to have the fee waived/credited back. This will be a lot easier if you've been a customer for a few years and have a good record of paying your bill on time.
Strategy. Your cell phone habits will go a long way towards determining which strategy you use to keep your cell phone bill to a manageable level. If you do most of your talking in the early evening, paying a little bit extra for early night and weekend minutes might be economical. If you're home a lot, look into the various Voice Over IP phone service providers such as you cable company, your phone company, Skype, Vonage, T-Mobile @ Home, and so on. This can save you a lot of minutes. And never be afraid to ask for a discount: employee discount, student discount, senior discount, and so on. If you own a business, you can even ask for a business discount.
In case your bill is too high for you to pay if off in one payment, make sure you call customer service and let them know, and ask whether or not you can arrange some type of payment plan. Just like the previous example, your past record will be the deciding factor to determine how flexible they will be. Bottom line is, with a bit of research and if you restrain yourself a bit, your cell phone bill will no longer cause you to get into shock.
About the Author:
There are several ways to keep both your home phone bill and your cell phone bill under control. Educate yourself about how to reduce your phone bill by visiting Reduce Phone Bill.
posted by Credit Counseling at
10:23 AM
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