You can change carriers while under contract, and it is your right as a consumer! There is one dilemma with switching though, termination fees. When you signed your cell phone contract you may have neglected to notice that if you end the contract early there will be a termination fee, and that can be pretty expensive for a lot of us.

If you want to change carriers just do it. Contact your new carrier first, and get them to set you up. As soon as that account is activated, your old contract will be terminated. You will also be able to keep your old number this way! You will also have a costly termination fee. Make sure you let the new carrier you want to port your old number. Even if you owe the old carrier money, they cannot hold your number hostage. Under law you are allowed to have your same number with the new carrier.

If you can’t afford a termination fee there are ways to get out of cell phone contracts!

If they already broke the contract

If something has changed, such as higher fees, in your contract there is a chance you may be able to get out of the contract. You will have to be firm and ask repeatedly to terminate due to your quibble, but they will usually need to grant you a free contract termination if any fees have been hiked dramatically. Make sure if a rate that changes it is part of your contract. For example, if the carrier increases the charge for minutes, and you have unlimited minutes, you really have nothing to fight with them over.

Get Someone to Buy Your Contract

There are websites that sell people’s used contracts. The website will charge you a fee, but after that you are free of the contract. Make sure that your current carrier allows this process before pursuing it.

Cut Your Loss and Pay the Fee

Sometimes we just can’t win in certain situations in life, especially when we have signed a contract. You can sell your phone after the contract is terminated and put this towards the termination fee. Lots of websites will buy or recycle phones for you and pay you for it. They either need the old parts or will resell the phone to a new user.

Contact Higher Level Ups than Customer Service

These people are hard to get a hold of, and if you do get a hold of them you better have a legitimate reason why you want to end the contract. Usually if you have been wronged they will end the contract.

Article by Mateusz, the founder of LookupExpert providing a top notch cell phone lookup service.