Keeping Your Cell Phone Bill Low
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 your allotted quota. This is by far the biggest reason people end up with a larger bill than they should. Going over your minutes, or your text messages, or your Internet usage limit carries a prohibitive cost because cell phone service carriers charge exorbitant fees for this. But don't worry, you won't have to guess what caused the bill to go up, it will be prominently displayed, separately from your "regular" bill.
How to keep your bill low: sign up for a plan that gives you more minutes or text messages or Internet usage. This might sound odd to be advised to move to a higher plan when we're talking about keeping the phone bill low, but it's pretty much a given that the higher plan will cost you less than you would be paying if you constantly went over. If a more generous plan isn't an option, then all you need to do is monitor your cell phone use and stop using any service that you risk going over your limit on. We never said this was going to be easy!
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.
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 your allotted quota. This is by far the biggest reason people end up with a larger bill than they should. Going over your minutes, or your text messages, or your Internet usage limit carries a prohibitive cost because cell phone service carriers charge exorbitant fees for this. But don't worry, you won't have to guess what caused the bill to go up, it will be prominently displayed, separately from your "regular" bill.
How to keep your bill low: sign up for a plan that gives you more minutes or text messages or Internet usage. This might sound odd to be advised to move to a higher plan when we're talking about keeping the phone bill low, but it's pretty much a given that the higher plan will cost you less than you would be paying if you constantly went over. If a more generous plan isn't an option, then all you need to do is monitor your cell phone use and stop using any service that you risk going over your limit on. We never said this was going to be easy!
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.
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.
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There are plenty of ways you can keep both your residentialphone bill and your mobile phone bill under control. Educate yourself about how to reduce your phone bill by dropping by Reduce Phone Bill.
posted by Credit Counseling at
11:13 AM
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