Here is my deal: I changed over to Cingular with 9 months left on a T-Mobile contract last month. In lieu of paying the ETF to T-Mobile, I dropped my plan down to $20 per month and was going to ride out the contract. Because of this, I was going to be paying the $200 to them, just over 9 months instead all in one lump sum, make sense? So I started looking around to try to find a way to get out of the contract without paying the ETF or the monthly service until the contract expired. What I found was that you can do a change of responsibility on your account and have someone take it over and you wash your hands of the entire thing. I found someone on HoFo that was looking for a T-Mobile plan, and didn't want to buy a new phone or the activation fee. I called up T-Mobile and told them I wanted to have someone take over my account and change the responsibility. They read me a statement and did the whole legal thing. Then I called the buyer back, and he called them and they ran his credit over the phone and moved my account information over to him in about 15 minutes. He called me back and I verified with T-Mobile that the change was done. He was even able to do a phone number change over the phone and so he has a local number when the phone arrives! I shipped the phone out to him this morning and he is all set to go. His name was Phaticon on HoFo and I just wanted to pass on this great story about him and the wonderful transaction that we had. Hopefully at least one person will learn from our experience and be able to do it as well if they are looking to change carriers!
That's great to hear- Someone else on here posted something about T-Mo's business account change of responsibility being long and tedious...was it Zaphood maybe?? Anyway, great to hear that you didn't have any problems, time to change your profile??
Thanks for reminding me, I thought about that as I was writing that post, but then I walked away from the computer before I changed it!
az--I didn't know you were going to Cingular. You've had TMobile for a while if I'm not mistaken. Weren't they working out for you in the Phoenix area? Or were you just wanting something new? Just curious....
I had been with T-Mobile since Feb. of 2004. They were working great here in Phoenix and I had zero problems with them. The reason I switched was because every person in our families is on AT&T/Cingular. We used so many anytime minutes talking to people in our family that it made sense to switch over to take advantage of the mobile to mobile minutes. Other than that, T-Mobile had been great for me. The nice thing is that I have both networks now that I am on Cingular. My V600 is capable of choosing the T-Mobile network if I choose, so I get the benefits of both networks here!
Cool....you are actually in an area that has TMobile towers opened up to you. It's like that for me here too on Cingular (although not at home....it's beyone TMobile's reach) Now all I have to do is convince my friends and family to get off Sprint, Nextel, TMobile and USCC so I can use more M2M instead of anytime minutes....like you and the fiance were doing. I haven't had much luck so far
LOL, we were the first and the only ones who had AT&T Wireless, and over the passed year, I've been switching my T-Mobile family members to AT&T Wireless, and one who will leave Sprint in March and port over to Cingular. All I need is 2 more family members, one has Sprint, but barely began his contract, and another one with T-Mobile who's porting to Nextel because he swears up and down that they're the best when he's never had them
Up until about November, TM required a COR to be done in person at a TM store, filling out the paperwork. Now it can be done over the phone, as AZ has reported.
Wow thats great... i am going to attempt this method and then port to Cingular. All of my friends and family are on Cingular. GREAT FOR FREE M2M. The only that aren't are 2 of my friends who have T-Mobile and my Aunt who has Sprint PCS (and ISN'T goin to switch anytime soon, maybe though cuase her sister has Cingular) and then my Uncle, Aunt. 2 Cousins and Mother have Verizon. I have had Bellsouth DCS (now Cingular) since they were TDMA (joined in 1997). Then switched signed my wife up for VoiceStream. Then they charged her LD, Roaming and all those other fees and crap. We had a talk with VS and when they became T-Mobile allowed my wife to get the 3,000 minute regoin plan. I have the nationwide 8,000 plan. But w/ T-Mobile really there is NO roaming and NO coverage so it is pointless to have them if you travel. So we are switching to Cingular Wireless. My mother-in-law has had Cingular Wireless since they were CellularOne. She first started out with CellularOne AMPS then went CellularOne TDMA. After CellularOne's network got bought by US Cellular she still had TDMA then ATTWS bought US Cellular's TDMA network in our area. She has now just (a month or two ago) switched to GSM and very pleased with the M2M, Nights and weekedns as well as the great coverage and call quality she gets.
Depending on where you are, Cingular should do you right. I have been very impressed with them thus far, and am very happy with my switch...
I'm surprised that you were able to do a CIR over the phone. I was under the impression that T-Mobile didn't do CIR's over the phone but I guess I was mistaken. I saw your posts about trying to get rid of your T-Mobile line. Too bad you didn't try to do that in November otherwise I could have taken over the service since I activated two new lines with T-Mobile in Nov. Oh well, either way I'm happy with the service I've got now.
I was surprised as well, but glad that I was able to do it. The person that took over my account was in Virginia, and so we would have had to meet in a store in Dallas or somewhere
Obviously not. Reguardless, I was able to do it all over the phone, and now my account is closed with T-Mobile, no ETF to boot!
That's pretty sweet. It works out both for you and for the person who activated in Virginia. I'll bet that could save a lot of people the early termination fee if they were aware that CIRs can be done. I've always considered it a good deal. Maybe this post should be sticky somewhere so other people can read your story and know that they have another option open to them... I just don't know what forum (other than this one) it could be stickied in.
I second the sticky, but feel that I was lucky on getting someone so fast. I was able to post my situation and had someone who wanted the phone within 5 days! At this time last week, I was still looking to pay the ETF and was going to be OK with it! It's one of those things that if you are educated about your options, then you can make an informed decision about what you are going to do.