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What’s Your Phone Bill Hiding?

Madison

Madison

 

February 26, 2018

What’s Your Phone Bill Hiding?

Surprises are an interesting concept — some people love them, others not so much. But the one thing I think everyone can agree on is surprises on your phone bill, or any bill for that matter, is never welcome.

Not all surprises are good surprises

At TextNow we want to make your phone service as simple to understand as possible and eliminate confusion when it comes to your monthly payments. With TextNow what you see is what you get — taxes and fees are all included in your monthly plan price, and no additional fees will ever be added for the lifetime of your plan.

Unfortunately the same cannot be said for other cell service providers. Almost every other carrier has a list of various fees and charges that you may be subject to while using their service.

Take T-Mobile for example. Amongst their various fees they have an Account Restoration Fee. Customers are charged an additional fee of $20+tax if they miss a bill payment and then need to restore their service. In addition to this, they also have a $5 late fee which is added to your balance if you ever miss your due date. As you can already tell, these fees have the potential to add up fast!

Cricket also has some surprising fees which are worth mentioning. Similar to T-Mobile they have a reactivation fee which can equal as much as $15, but more unusual is their $15 charge to change a number and the $25 in-store activation fee. I’m not sure what’s more shocking, $15 to change your phone number or having to pay for help activating a device that you literally just bought from that carrier.

Our thoughts exactly, Tom.

I don’t know about you, but I’m getting a bit tired hearing about these service restoration/reactivation fees. But low and behold AT&T joined the club with their Service Restoral Fee. For this particular fee the amount can vary by customer, but an open-ended fee like this could certainly cause you to receive a nasty surprise once your monthly bill comes due.

The most common fee that I was able to uncover across T-Mobile, Cricket, AT&T and Verizon was the Early Termination Fee. This is the amount that they charge you if you’re choosing to end your contract early for any reason. Sure, if you think about it it makes sense to face a consequence if trying to get out of a contract…but why are contracts necessary in the first place?

All of TextNow’s plans are contract-free. We are confident in our services and plans, and don’t want our customers to be locked in because of some contract that they’re not able to buy out of. If you’re not able to pay for your plan for a month, or perhaps you’re travelling and don’t want to pay for service while you’re away, you can put the account on hold and reactivate the plan when you’re ready for absolutely no charge.

So if you’re not already a TextNow customer stop worrying and take a peek at what TextNow has to offer!

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