Is there anyone who can confidently say that not once have they received a cell phone bill and said to themselves "What? I didn't sign for THIS!"? I do believe most of us have been in this situation at least once. What's worse, while sometimes you can sort of see it coming, other times you're totally blindsided. The goal of this article is to help you keep your bill in check. Here's what to look out for.
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 take control of this: move to a higher tier minutes plan and/or sign up for unlimited text/Internet. At first this piece of advice might sound counter-intuitive, but there's no doubt that, unless you move to a plan that's considerably higher than what you currently have, going over will cost you more than the new plan. If you don't want to (or can't afford to) move to a more expensive plan, then track how much you're using your included cell phone services. If you realize there's a risk of you going over, exercise some self-control and stop using that service. It's not easy, but it's not complicated.
2. Third Party Subscriptions. There seems to be no way of getting rid of the companies that sell those subscriptions, no matter how many complaints and lawsuits are filed against them. Their subscriptions services offer anything from a "free ringtone of the month" to a "horoscope of the day" to a "sexy wallpaper picture of the day". In theory, the only ways to subscribe to those services is to send them a text to a number they give you, or to log on to their website and enter your cell phone number there. Of course, if it were always like that, things would be simple; the problem is that they have a tendency to appear out of nowhere on customers' bills. In the end, pay close attention to the "direct bill" portion of your bill because that's where you'll be able to eventually spot them.
Not too long ago, AT&T settled a class action suit about this business practice. From then on, they've agreed to notify their customers (by text message) every time there's a new subscription that's being added to their account. Actually, technically it's not a notification, but more of a call to action: if the customer doesn't reply to the text, the mentioned subscription can't be added to his/her account. The other carriers should definitely follow suit.
3. One-time fees. Finally, you may be facing a higher bill because of one-time fees: activation fees, re-activation fees, upgrade fees, or non-payment fees, just to name a few. If an account gets suspended because of an unpaid past due bill, most companies will assess you a re-activation fee and nine times out of ten will not waive it. As a general rule, these fees rarely are waived or credited back to your account. But since it never hurts to try, you can ask for discounts, for example as an employee of X company (you never know). Otherwise, you can always try to be nice and courteously ask customre service if there's any possibility of crediting your account. Being a longtime customer with a good record of paying your bills on time will certainly not hurt your chances.
Strategy. Depending on your habits, there are a lot of options you can use to curb your use of cell phone services. If you talk a lot in the early evening, it might be worth it to pay a little extra for early night and weekend minutes. Skype, Vonage, MagicJack, T-Mobile, and so many others offer phone service that uses your existing Internet broadband connection, saving you minutes when you're at home. Also, you should always ask for discounts. We're talked about employee discounts, but if you are a student, ask if the university that you go to gets a discount. If you are retired, ask if the company you retired from gets one. If you're self-employed, put the account under your business's name. As long as you can prove that you use it for business purposes, you'll be eligible for a business discount.
In case the bill is really high or you're really in a bind, there's always the option of calling customer service and making payment arrangements with the company. Just like I mentioned earlier, if you're a good customer, they will try and work out something with you. As you can see, with a little research, and with some discipline thrown in for good measure, you can definitely find more than one way to lower your phone bill.
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 take control of this: move to a higher tier minutes plan and/or sign up for unlimited text/Internet. At first this piece of advice might sound counter-intuitive, but there's no doubt that, unless you move to a plan that's considerably higher than what you currently have, going over will cost you more than the new plan. If you don't want to (or can't afford to) move to a more expensive plan, then track how much you're using your included cell phone services. If you realize there's a risk of you going over, exercise some self-control and stop using that service. It's not easy, but it's not complicated.
2. Third Party Subscriptions. There seems to be no way of getting rid of the companies that sell those subscriptions, no matter how many complaints and lawsuits are filed against them. Their subscriptions services offer anything from a "free ringtone of the month" to a "horoscope of the day" to a "sexy wallpaper picture of the day". In theory, the only ways to subscribe to those services is to send them a text to a number they give you, or to log on to their website and enter your cell phone number there. Of course, if it were always like that, things would be simple; the problem is that they have a tendency to appear out of nowhere on customers' bills. In the end, pay close attention to the "direct bill" portion of your bill because that's where you'll be able to eventually spot them.
Not too long ago, AT&T settled a class action suit about this business practice. From then on, they've agreed to notify their customers (by text message) every time there's a new subscription that's being added to their account. Actually, technically it's not a notification, but more of a call to action: if the customer doesn't reply to the text, the mentioned subscription can't be added to his/her account. The other carriers should definitely follow suit.
3. One-time fees. Finally, you may be facing a higher bill because of one-time fees: activation fees, re-activation fees, upgrade fees, or non-payment fees, just to name a few. If an account gets suspended because of an unpaid past due bill, most companies will assess you a re-activation fee and nine times out of ten will not waive it. As a general rule, these fees rarely are waived or credited back to your account. But since it never hurts to try, you can ask for discounts, for example as an employee of X company (you never know). Otherwise, you can always try to be nice and courteously ask customre service if there's any possibility of crediting your account. Being a longtime customer with a good record of paying your bills on time will certainly not hurt your chances.
Strategy. Depending on your habits, there are a lot of options you can use to curb your use of cell phone services. If you talk a lot in the early evening, it might be worth it to pay a little extra for early night and weekend minutes. Skype, Vonage, MagicJack, T-Mobile, and so many others offer phone service that uses your existing Internet broadband connection, saving you minutes when you're at home. Also, you should always ask for discounts. We're talked about employee discounts, but if you are a student, ask if the university that you go to gets a discount. If you are retired, ask if the company you retired from gets one. If you're self-employed, put the account under your business's name. As long as you can prove that you use it for business purposes, you'll be eligible for a business discount.
In case the bill is really high or you're really in a bind, there's always the option of calling customer service and making payment arrangements with the company. Just like I mentioned earlier, if you're a good customer, they will try and work out something with you. As you can see, with a little research, and with some discipline thrown in for good measure, you can definitely find more than one way to lower your phone bill.
About the Author:
You can find plenty of ways to keep both your residentialphone bill and your cell phone bill under control. Learn more about ways to reduce your phone bill by dropping by Reduce Phone Bill.
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