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The complete 700 page Eighth Edition is available here for a limited time AT NO CHARGE. The book is written in "plain talk" language and covers virtually all personal financial concerns. Of particular importance are the extra end-of-chapter features which explain how the economy impacts on our lives, plus how to anticipate and solve real-life financial problems, and much more. PLEASE NOTE: Give the pages a few moments to load. Some of the first few pages are blank, owing to the way the book was originally published. The "Quick Click" links and the Update Link (www.wiley...etc.)are no longer operative; they will be replaced in the website's articles. Scroll to the textbook's Table of Contents for a complete look at the subject matter.

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Thursday, March 6, 2008

BEWARE CELL PHONE SMALL PRINT





"THE BIG PRINT GIVETH, THE SMALL PRINT TAKETH AWAY." These are days when people are saying, "You mean the interest rate on my mortgage can go up? But nobody told me to read the small print." You know the rest of the story. The same "But nobody told me" dithering is also true with the cost of cell phones. Have you read the small print lately?

I have been astonished, to put it mildly, when I hear how much some people, particularly families with kids, are paying for their cell phone service. In many cases the amounts are real budget-benders. So I got out my magnifying glass to read the small print in their ads.

All of the major cell phone networks are currently promoting unlimited cell phone use, all for a base monthly fee of $99.99***** (The asterisks mean that there's a lot of small print in the ads. Don't say you weren't warned. And why don't they just call it $100 and be done with it? Who are they trying to fool with that $99.99. But that's another story.)

Verizon calls its plan "Truly Unlimited Calling." Sprint's is "The Simply Everything Plan." And T-Mobile, with a flair for the unimaginative, calls it "Unlimited Calling and Messaging." You can, if you like, consider that they are all the same. But when you read the small print you might come away having no clue as to what each plan will cost.

Here, magnified for you at absolutely no additional cost, are some bits from each of their ads, all exactly as they appeared. Before I signed a contract, I'd sure want someone to translate this gibberish for me.

From Verizon's full page ad: "Our Surcharges (incl. Fed. Univ. Svc. of 10.2% of interstate and int'l telecom charges (varies quarterly), 7c Regulatory & 70c Administrative/line/mo. & others by area) are not taxes (details 1-888-684-1888); gov't taxes & our surcharges could add 4%-33% to your bill." I know there's a telephone number in there somewhere, but to calculate how much this service would cost me? Fuggedaboudit. (Apologies for the "c"s after the "7" and the "70"---in the ad they are the cents symbol, but I couldn't get my PC to replicate them.

From Sprint: "Sprint may terminate service if a majority of minutes or a majority of kilobytes in a given month are used while roaming. Services are not available for use as modem, in connection with server devices or host computer applications, other systems that drive continuous heavy traffic or data sessions or as a substitute for frame relay connections." Honest, officer, I know the traffic was heavy but I didn't know I was speeding. I thought I was just making a phone call.

From T Mobile: "Per-line activation fee and 2 year agreement required for post-paid customers. 2 year agreement and $4.99/month control charges (unless enrolled in EasyPay) required for FlexPay customers. Regulatory Programs Fee (not a tax or a government-mandated charge) of 86c per line/month applies. Taxes approx. 6-28% of your monthly bill. Domestic only." Post-paid, EasyPay and FlexPay customers, you know who you are. Or do you? And "domestic only?" What's that all about. (Again, apologies for the "c".)

All of this is on top of the $100 per month. Sorry, I know it's only $99.99, but I can't play into their silly games.

All of these newspaper ads were full page---that's 12 inches by 22 inches, a lot of real estate in which larger type could have been used to encourage people to read the material without optical enhancement. If they really wanted you to know this information, they could have used larger type. Lots of space available. Small print is a devious way of hiding the facts. Why, you might ask, don't the newspapers' consumer reporters point all this out to you? What? And antagonize all those full page advertisers?

So, you pays your money and you takes your choice, as the con-man would say. Like the people who were shocked to learn that their monthly mortgage payments were going up, cell phone users who don't read the small print could be in for some bitter pills in their bills.



This article supplements Chapter 3, pages 75-88 of Personal Finance. Access the textbook by clicking on the box in the right column.

posted by Bob Rosefsky at 3:42 PM