Terminating a Wireless Contract

OPTION 1

Believe it or not, there IS indeed a way out; unfortunately 99% of the population have no idea what it is. Since posting this we have received numerous emails of success and not one indicating that it did not work. You must remember that in order to be released from your contract, YOU MUST HAVE A LEGITMATE REASON (e.g. dropped calls, billing issues, poor service, etc.). Otherwise you are obligated to fulfill the terms that you agreed to:

Step 1. Contact a customer service rep from the company, get the name of the person with whom you are speaking and tell them your issue (billing errors, dropped calls, lack of service area coverage, etc.). If the employee refuses to give his/her name, ask for the employee number.
Step 2.When they insist that you must pay the early termination fee, tell them that it is your intention to appeal the fee.
Step 3. Tell them to enter the details of your issue in their “notes.” Every customer has an account which contains a section for notes.
Step 4. Request that they give you the contact information of the regulatory agency who oversees appeals (every state is different). If they refuse to tell you (yes, we have heard of reps doing this), then file your complaint directly with the FCC. This link will bring you to their site and take you through the process. If you are having issues with wireline services (DSL, residential service, business service, etc.), then contact the regulatory commission in your state by following this link.
Step 5. Fax Verizon a letter which describes in detail the reason you will be dropping their service and that you will not be paying the early termination fee. DO NOT SEND/FAX THE LETTER TO THE BILLING LOCATION. Instead, it must be sent to the rep or else they may have no record of it (confirm receipt of the fax by following up with a phone call in the next 48 hours).
Step 6. Contact the state regulating agency and send/fax a copy of your letter to them.

At this point you are completely protected from Verizon taking any action whatsoever against you until the regulator makes a decision regarding your appeal. It is ILLEGAL for Verizon or any other telecom company to damage your credit while this is in process.

OPTION 2

We have been informed by a very frustrated Verizon representative that you can easily have the line disconnected by simply calling and saying that the person who owned the line is now deceased. They will ask you if anyone else in your family needs the line (Verizon’s attempt to save it from being disconnected), but they will ask for no other information and that will be it.