Keeping Your Cell Phone Bill Under Control
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. You've probably seen their commercials on TV. These subscription providers are known for their shady business practices, but they never seem to go away no matter how many complaints and lawsuits are filed against them. Their offerings can range from a "free ringtone of the month" club to "horoscope of the day", to a "naughty picture of the day". Theoretically, you can only subscribe by sending a text message to an advertised number or by visiting their website and entering your information there. Yet, they seem to have this knack for appearing on people's bills out of nowhere, which is made easier by the fact that they're not always required to inform you of the new subscription. So be sure to analyze the "direct bill" portion of your bill, because that's where their charges will be listed.
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. 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. 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 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. You've probably seen their commercials on TV. These subscription providers are known for their shady business practices, but they never seem to go away no matter how many complaints and lawsuits are filed against them. Their offerings can range from a "free ringtone of the month" club to "horoscope of the day", to a "naughty picture of the day". Theoretically, you can only subscribe by sending a text message to an advertised number or by visiting their website and entering your information there. Yet, they seem to have this knack for appearing on people's bills out of nowhere, which is made easier by the fact that they're not always required to inform you of the new subscription. So be sure to analyze the "direct bill" portion of your bill, because that's where their charges will be listed.
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. 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. 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:
There are several ways to keep both your residentialphone bill and your cell phone bill under control. Learn more about how to reduce your phone bill by dropping by Reduce Phone Bill.
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