Verizon vs Cingular... And How To Get Out Of Your Contract Without Penalties

Our Experiences With Cingular

For nearly a decade now, we've had Cingular cellphone service (...or some derivative thereof, based on whoever owned the Cingular at the time -- currently it's AT&T).

In all those years, we have been more than satisfied with Cingular's cellphone service.

But I'm wondering... Is this a fluke? Because I've also heard horror stories about Cingular phones and Cingular cell phone service.

Our Cingular Phones

We currently use a Motorola Razr phone and a Cingular 8125 PDA phone, while being subscribed to Cingular's cell phone service.

We love both phones!

We're Thinking About Switching To Verizon

Coincidentally, we recently thought about making the switch to Verizon for 2 reasons:

#1 If/when we ever get this log home built, we'd need to switch to Verizon, because Swan Ridge is a fairly remote area, and everyone there tells us that Verizon is the only cellphone service that works. (And their coverage is quite good, so they say.)

#2 Verizon's Canada plan is much better than Cingular's Canada plan. Since Jim travels quite frequently to Canada for his racing gig, the roaming fees in Canada are important to us.

Cingular vs Verizon's Customer Service

I'm sure you can find good and bad customer service from reps at both Verizon and Cingular (we certainly have!).

Fortunately, on the day we were going to pull-out of Cingular, we happened upon a very knowledgeable Cingular rep who pointed out a lot of great things about Cingular that we didn't even know! (And, for some reason, all the other Cingular reps we've talked to never felt compelled to share these things with us.)

On that same day, we also met with a Verizon rep who was very knowledgeable, very friendly, but also very "pressuring" in an easy-going kind of way. I wasn't buying it, but he managed to convince Jim to fill out the paperwork to "pre-qualify" him and and make it a faster process when/if Jim decided to actually make the switch from Cingular to Verizon. (We were "this" close to making the switch!)

Why Are We Sticking With Cingular?

A couple of reasons:

1 - Rollover minutes. We've had rollover minutes for so long with Cingular that we were actually shocked to learn that all cellphone companies aren't offering rollover minutes at this point.

And yes, those rollover minutes have saved our butt on several occasions! (We don't have a land line for our home phone... we use our cellphone as our phone at home and on the go.)

2 - Ability to change your plan on the fly. With Cingular, you can make changes month-to-month like "add the Canada plan this month, then take it off next month" -- on a whim, whenever you need something different. (In our case, whenever Jim has another business trip in Canada.) There are no fees or penalties to make these changes with Cingular, and they don't "renew" or "extend" your contract each time you do it. (This may be only because we are just longtime customers, I'm not sure.)

But with Verizon, your contract gets "renewed" or "extended" automatically whenever you make such a change. In effect, this makes it harder and harder to get out of a Verizon contract. If you don't want/need to make changes like this month-to-month, then Verizon vs Cingular are probably very similar.

Which leads me to Randy's great tip for those who want to get out of a Verizon wireless contract -- without any fees or penalties!...

How To Cancel Verizon Without Penalty

Randy writes:

I read on The Consumerist about a way to get out of Verizon's two-year contract and we're gonna give it a shot because Sandy's phone is awful and so is the coverage in our area. We don't live in the boonies so we feel the need to sceedaddle on over to Cingular where we have our daughter's plan already and she has no reception problems whatsoever. I'll let you know how it goes."

Here's a link to the Consumerist article: Cancel Verizon Without Penalty Over Admin Fee Increase

Thanks for the link, Randy! I've heard about The Consumerist before, but I've never paid much attention to their site until now. I think I've found a new favorite... I've added it to my RSS feeds.

And I like their tag line.

"The Consumerist: Shoppers Bite Back"

Listen to Bud Light's "Mr. Cell Phone Holster Wearer": [Thanks, Christian!]