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Beware of the new cell phone insurance deductibles!Some carriers are using third party insurance companies with an even more ridiculous deductible structure. You now may have to pay anywhere from $50 minimum to $150 maximum depending on the value of the phone you purchased. It’s actually amazing what you find out when you read the fine print of those insurance brochures.
Did you know? Not only are the insurance companies not required to send you the same phone you purchased, but they can now send you a “refurbished” one! That is completely unacceptable if you ask me. I prefer to create my own insurance plan. After I get my phone I immediately put the $50 I would have to pay for the deductible in my desk drawer. Then I simply add the $5.00 a month the insurance company would have charged me to the kitty. This way if I am able to keep my phone in good shape for at least 9 months, I will have saved myself a total of $45 in monthly fees, combine that with my original $50, I would easily be able to purchase the latest version of my phone instead of relying on the insurance company sending me a 4-6 month old (possible refurbished) phone. Another bonus to creating your own insurance program is that if you are able to keep your phone until you qualify for an upgrade you will probably have an extra $140 to $170 to go towards the phone that has all of the bells and whistles you can’t live without. Maybe the new Treo 700? ;) Closely Related StuffTuesday, March 11, 2008Wow EZ Protect is a joke i have had insurance for day 1 and now they are telling me that i never paid a dime for the insurance so i am having a hard time getting another cell phone this will be 13 days for me now the company suck big time. Friday, April 13, 2007I need to insure my Cingular Black Jack. Can anyone direct me in the right direction?? please email danny@mychm.com Thursday, February 08, 2007I got ripped off too! The Signal insurance is a joke. I too had to return 2 phones. They sent me the same model but not the same extended life battery, like what came with my cell phone, so in turn my speed talk plan is useless because my battery is always dead?!!! Buyer beware. P.s. Where are the watchdogs for us consumers getting ripped off??????????? Lou Tuesday, November 21, 2006Scam Alert! Beware of the so called "protection" plan offered by NCOA (National Cellular Owners Association). Their services usually being offered when you purchase online through "Wirefly", "Inphonic, Inc.", "Cellular Chioces" and probably some other major online retailers. They lure you by relatively low cost of $49 a year and "no deductible". Here is what happens in reality. I have purchase 2 brand new cell phones Motorola E815 through Wirefly in June 2005 along with the "protection subscription" from NCOA. In year 2005 everything went all right with the phones and in June 2006 I have renewed my protection with NCOA for another year. When 1 of my phones suddenly stopped working properly (the main screen went blank. After obtaining approval from the NCOA I have sent it to their repair facility in MI. Needless to say that few weeks later I was notified that my phone has a "water damage" (wonder where that came from?) and therefore can not be repaired or replaced under the existing protection plan. Since I needed a replacement phone from some other source that the insurance company I went to the website of the retailer who sold me the phones. On their website they have a Q&A page specifically about how NCOA coverage works, and one of the questions specifically answeres: WHAT IF I CHANGE MY WIRELESS DEVICE? The answer is that I simply have to notify NCOA and they will extend the coverage onto the new cellular phone. Keeping that in mind I then purchased a brand new LG-VX8300 from the same service provider as the previous one (Verizon Wireless) and in a couple of weeks after the activation I sent an e-mail to NCOA (by the way, e-mail is the only way you can communicate with them. Isn't that nice?!) just to formally let them know about the changes and requesting the extention of the coverage onto new cell phone. In a week!!! after my couple of e-mails to them I finally was informed that transfer of the coverage is not possible. When I referred them to the abovementioned Q&A from the online retailer they told me that they have nothing to do with it and bear no responsibility for their website. And now here I am with my new phone without any protection. Verizon can only offer one through Assurion that can only be purchased within 15 days from the activation, which I missed while exchanging e-mails with NCOA. I also found out that NCOA doesn't want to have anything to do with me after collecting my money for practically nothing. I hope this posting will prevent others from repeating my mistake and allow everybody to understand that NCOA=SCAM. By the way, those who promote their services are their accomplices since they give you false information. Tuesday, October 31, 2006Hi, I started a blog on myspace to help folks understand the "cell phone insurance" scam. I have been blogging there. Actually I found a cool site that offers a "cell phone insurance alternate" They products are call CellYos. Check out myspace.com/CellPhoneHell, or go to CellYos.com The devices are really kewl, and cost about the same as one month of "Cell Phone Insurance" Wednesday, September 20, 2006I purchased my sony s710a last year around the same time. It was at the time and still is a 400+ dollar phone. Well today a year later I decided this ones had enough and I called cingular to get it replaced. I expected it to be either replaced or something of similar monetary value be substituted in its place. Well to my suprise they told me they would replace it only with something with similar features. My option with the customer service representative was one phone the samsung d807. Though a nice phone its less than half of the price I paid for mine, and its not nearly as cool. I found this unacceptable so I asked to speak to a manager. The manager on hand after a brief but cool rebutall that this wasnt comparable told me that she would give me a one time offer of a moto sliver. She also went as far as to say that if I didnt take it today that I wouldnt get that deal aga in. This is clearly another example of the big company running over the little guy. I wouldnt have paid the 4.99 for 12 months and then the 50 deductable if I knew they were going to give me something half the price. Thats just outrageous. I wasnt to know if anyone here has had a similar problem and what they did about it. Im the aggressive type that just wont take stuff like this. There is no way in the world I will be keeping cingular when my contract ends if they dont make good and fix this problem. Sunday, March 05, 2006AMEN on the charges for cell phones. I recently went thru that with Cingular and had to fight to keep from paying the 50.00 charge for a refurbished phone that was of poor quality and had to send three back to them. I finally cancelled all of it including my account with cingular as the customer service was terrible. The first phone was dead on arrival the second was left on my door so they say and living in an apartment I didn't receive it or sign for it. Then they told me I couldn't receive anymore as my address was invalid so I had to have it shipped from Fedex to a UPS store and pay 5.00 to receive it. Then the phone would turn off after about 40 minutes of use. I sent that one back as well and just bought a new Motorola Razor and started over again. I will never use Cingulars insurance company again. Good idea on the putting money aside, besidesI went without a cell period from Dec. 22 to Jan. 12th. Glad to see others besides myself tired of things like this. |
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