Charged a $100 early termination fee for cancelling 2 days prior to 2-year date?

What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? MN

Hi all,

Our contract with T-Mobile expired on July 19th and we ended up cancelling July 17th as we didn't realize our 2-year date was two days later. We switched to another carrier. Unfortunately, T-Mobile wants to nitpick us for $100 as an early termination fee, even though we would have been glad to pay the full 2-year amount (and intended to do so). Do we have any options other than be your general sucker and pay anyway? It's unfortunate companies are so unscrupulous. I thought the intent of a 2-year agreement was to secure payment for a full 2 years to offset other carrier costs such as the phone price. We're more than happy to pay for 2 years worth rather than being cherry-picked.

Thoughts?

Thanks,
- Matt

If it was 2 minutes before the 2 years was up they are legally within their rights to charge you. Why didnt you just pay the final bill it surely would have been cheaper?

Would have loved to had I realized my contract expired on the 19th instead. Offered to pay it on the phone, but they would rather ding me.

Mateo1041 said:

Would have loved to had I realized my contract expired on the 19th instead. Offered to pay it on the phone, but they would rather ding me.

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You could have asked.

Wish I would have. Not playing the victim here (I'm sure this forum is used to that). Just wondering what other options may exist. If none, then I guess wasting their time by phone makes me feel best.

Legalese aside, it's pathetic on their part. But I guess that's the way large companies now in days work.

We called and talked to people, sent the request through email channels, wrote the federal communication commission, and got our fee eliminated, so keep at it.

csi7 said:

We called and talked to people, sent the request through email channels, wrote the federal communication commission, and got our fee eliminated, so keep at it.

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Thanks for the input. Mind if I ask how long it took and how early you cancelled? Did they take you to collections first? We were taken to collections once by Cingular/AT&T and won due to calls from a city we never made.

It took less than a month, no collections involved. Good luck!

csi7 said:

It took less than a month, no collections involved. Good luck!

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Thanks! We'll keep taking action and see how it goes.

I sent you a pm as well. Good Luck with it!

were your payments paid in arrears or ahead? If ahead, then you had already paid for the complete 2 years. If they did not refund you those 2 days, they accepted the fact you had completed your contract.

next, Substantial completion. The fact that you had substantially completed the contract, I would argue they were not allowed to charge you the termination fee. Your termination, even it 2 days shy of the actual anniversary, caused them no harm so it would be improper to apply a termination fee, especially since the termination fee is specifically intended to prevent a pre-term cancellation from causing the carrier harm.

Questions about your bill? Please call 1-800-937-8997 or 611 from your T-Mobile phone. You may also write to T-Mobile Customer Relations, P.O. Box 37380, Albuquerque, NM 87176-7380 or send an email via our website at Unsupported Browser.

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If you haven't done so, contact their customer relations department. If that does no good, start hunting up officers of the corporation and pleading your case with them.

While you are doing that, I would also contact your states attorney's general office, any public utility agency or such in your state as well as contact the FCC.

I agree that you probably have completed your contract and a fee should not be charged. Another theory is that, if such an amount is charged at 2 days, it seems more of a penalty than liquidated damages. Penalties in contract breach are not favored at law and, with two days left, would not likely be enforced by a court in equity.

Hope you switched to a carrier that has you pay month-to-month rather than a 2 year contract. T-Mobile does have m2m now, and no canx fees because it's m2m. We have T-Mobile on a m2m plan for the last 6 months (AZ) and it's worked out well.

Good luck!

Thanks again, everyone. You've been tremendously helpful. Yes, our payments were ahead. Thus, we were already paid in full prior to canceling two days earlier than intended. They've verbally agreed to eliminate any ETFs by phone. We now just hope they stick to it.