Buying out Contracts...
If a major carrier (i.e. Cingular, T-mobile, Alltell, etc.) offered to buy out your contract to go with their service, (by buying out means paying the ETF to get you over to their service) would you switch and who would you want to buy out your contract?
I ask because there is a rumor that AMP'd and T-mobile may be working on doing just that in the coming year.
I ask because there is a rumor that AMP'd and T-mobile may be working on doing just that in the coming year.
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I'd think that'd cost the companies a ton of money. Why wouldn't they just offer no ETFs on their own contracts instead of buying other peoples?
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That's not the point, the point is that with new services being offered by companies like AMP'd they can't break into the market if their potential customers are stuck in 2 year contracts, so the point would be to buy out contracts to get those customers over to their service.
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True, but again my point was the overall cost of "buying" your customers doesn't make a lot of sense. I guess you'd be spending money to make money, but who gets to pay the bill for all the ETFs then? My guess, the customers will find their bills higher than previously expected. Would you like to be paying for phone service and for the new customers ETFs as well? I guess it depends on how you look at it. My perception is that when a company is giving something away, they tend to be taking something from another place. They might pay your ETF fee to get your business, but you'll be paying higher bills to get them more customers. I'm sure that'll be a post on Amp'd forums if they start buying ETFs for business.
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Well, I understand that, the real question I guess is then how much does it really cost to run a cell phone service per month? And how much on a regular monthly basis does a cell company make in profits, cause they loss could be made up there. I doubt the costs for a cell company are the same no matter which company, mostly cause I think they work like an oligopoly, and just say it costs so much, but in reality I think that may not be true, however that is for another topic.
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True, it'd be cool to see though! Wouldn't that be just nuts if every provider just dropped ETFs for a 3 month period. I'd love to see how many companies would tank. Alas, I don't think that'll happen...ever.
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well it is something that happens in Europe...I don't think they would tank, instead I think they would have to be smarter about how they keep their customers happy
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Europe is just a wee bit different though. Their entire working economy is freaky! I do love siestas (sp?) though, take a few hours off for lunch everyday, boo yaa! 😁
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it's funny cause their workers are actually move productive per hour than workers in the US. No one thinks about that and why that is so, siestas definately are a part of it.
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I don't think to many people would settle for T-Mobile or Amp'd unless they were high.
I highly highly doubt sprint or cingular or verizon would ever do this. UNless Verizon kills cingular on adds again this quarter, then cingular might get deparate enough to try something like this for a promotion.
i just hope that any one that considers going to another company because they will buy out their contract realize two things.
1. I hope they are prepared to pay more for a phone or more for service, because no company wouold do this unless they had a plan to get an extra $175 out of there customers some how.
2. I hope people would realize that this is a last ditch effort to make as many adds as possible. This would only be don...
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I highly highly doubt sprint or cingular or verizon would ever do this. UNless Verizon kills cingular on adds again this quarter, then cingular might get deparate enough to try something like this for a promotion.
i just hope that any one that considers going to another company because they will buy out their contract realize two things.
1. I hope they are prepared to pay more for a phone or more for service, because no company wouold do this unless they had a plan to get an extra $175 out of there customers some how.
2. I hope people would realize that this is a last ditch effort to make as many adds as possible. This would only be don...
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i can here me now said:
I highly highly doubt sprint or cingular or verizon would ever do this. UNless Verizon kills cingular on adds again this quarter, then cingular might get deparate enough to try something like this for a promotion.
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Its pretty much a given that Verizon is gonna kill Cingular on adds yet again this quarter.
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thats an interesting idea, i bet many folks would bite. I would not do that myself I'm going to complete the contract I signed no matter. I will be curious to see if this comes to light 🙂
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How's the day going gunny? I'm sure folks would bite, but who actually pays the bill for all the ETFs would be my question.
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good, Thanks 🙂 I'm sure the wireless companies make much more money off us then one would suspect, maybe it would be very easy to defray the cost of buying out contracts..whonos
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That's a good point and unfortunately I think the VZW executives are the only ones that hold that info...to bad there is no way to find that out in order to see if we are paying the correct price or not.
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If another carrier is offering to pay the ETF to your current provider to get you to sign a contract with them, there is probably a reason for it....For example, T-Mobile's incredibly poor coverage. 🙄
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This seems like an excellent marketing approach since it opens up access to a whole group of people who, at any particular instant in time, are ticked off at their current carrier and would like to run for the hills but can't bring themselves to fork over the early termination penalty for all their lines. Most people seem to be pissed at some time during their contract - fortunately for the carriers, people have short memories so are inclined to do the easy thing if they are not pissed off when their contract is up and they want a new phone.
I don't know what the acquisition cost for an add is relative to the typical ETF, but one way for carrier offering this to cover themselves a bit would be to require paying back the ETF (as well as t...
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I don't know what the acquisition cost for an add is relative to the typical ETF, but one way for carrier offering this to cover themselves a bit would be to require paying back the ETF (as well as t...
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I was under the impression that such practices have been attempted and are now illegal to buy out contracts
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that's a good point if it is true...but I have not been able to find any law about that nor have I read any part of the terms of service that states it is illegal. I would imagine it would be very hard to enforce such a law, take for instance...a competing carrier could just use the first 3-4 months of a new contract to pay out the ETF
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I am an independent agent and I buyout contracts all the time. I bet I do it 50-75 times per month..
Usually cingular and sprint customers - Those products sucks and the customers knows it.
Usually cingular and sprint customers - Those products sucks and the customers knows it.
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But as an independent agent, that's your call. If it didn't make any business sense to you, you probably wouldn't do it. Obviously, you turn a profit (I would assume) so it makes for a good business strategy for you. Most major carriers probably don't feel the need to offer such a nice service but it's nice of you to do so for your customers. BTW, I'd assume you have a pretty good retention rate with your customers if you're offering these services.
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I Get their CC info and if they terminate on me I charge the card. If the card doesnt go through I send them to collections.....
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December was amazing - January has been tough... overall is very good though.
Thanks for asking.....
Thanks for asking.....
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