How to get out of your cell phone contract using CellSwapper

Posted on September 17, 2007 at 10:00 am

Don’t you just hate those 2 year contracts that every cell phone company tries to force upon you? Wouldn’t it be nice if you could get rid of your contracted cell phone for one without a contract or a shorter contract? Most people assume that once they’ve signed a contract, there’s no way of getting out of it without paying high termination fees! However, that’s not really true!

CellSwapper is a service to help you get our of crappy cell phone contract. If you can find someone else who is willing to take over your cell phone contract and pay the remainder of the monthly fees, the cell phone company will not charge any termination fees since the contract is still continuing, just under a different owner.

The way it works is that you create an account, click on the Swap Out tab at the top and enter in all of the information for your current plan. This includes the monthly payments, anytime/night/weekend minutes, starting time for free nights, mobile-to-mobile minutes, etc. Most plans are already in their system, so you don’t have to enter every detail.

You can also add incentives to your plan to help find a buyer, such as cash, your old phone, and/or phone accessories. If you’re trying to Swap In, you can get a shorter term contract and avoid activation fees since the contract has already started. The only cost to the process is the fee charged by CellSwapper to perform the actual transfer. If you post your plan for free, you’ll have to pay $18.95 once you decide to transfer. Otherwise, you can pay $14.95 before posting and no additional fees. If you’re swapping INTO a plan, there are no fees.

Once the plan is transferred, you have no more financial responsibility or obligations towards the contract. If you want to retain the same number you had, you can usually have your number ported before you do the transfer. However, that is under the jurisdiction of the cell phone carrier and not CellSwapper, so you have to call and ask them if they can do it. Also, currently Verizon does not allow contract transfers for any contract with less than 12 months remaining.

The best part about using this site is the ability to get into a shorter term contract without paying activation fees and getting a free phone. Conversely, if you’re stuck in a long contract, it’s better to pay the $15 and have someone take over the rest of the contract rather than paying anywhere from $150 to $250 to terminate.

Using the advanced search on the Plans tab, you can quickly find plans by carrier, number of months remaining, by plan type, and with specific features.

This is definitely a very useful site considering the number of cell phones out there and how many times people switch between carriers! Check it out!

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One Response to “How to get out of your cell phone contract using CellSwapper”

Bryan Notens said on : May 30th, 2008 at 12:17 am

Nice concept. I have also found the Canadian version of this website: http://www.CellClients.com
I used CellClients.com and I was happy with their services