Cingular Wireless (as well as all other wireless carriers) have been ripping off thier customers for a long, long time. It's called the so called "phone insurance"
You have two options at the point of sale, you can buy the insurance - or not.
If you opt not to buy it, and you are not in an "upgrade" period of your contract, you will have to pay full retail (and by the way, sign a new contract) for even minor damage to your phone that makes it inoperable. It used to be that if you cracked your display screen, you could take it to a service center and get it replaced for about $30. Broken antennas were even less. Not anymore - They won't repair ANYTHING anymore! Now it's a new phone!
The salesperson may, or may not (as in my case) reveal this "insignificant" bit of information.
Or, on the other hand, you can buy the insurance.
You will pay $5 per month per phone for this, and as an added bonus, you will be charged a $50 deductible if the need should arise that you actually need to use it. Think about this. If you have two phones (as many do), and have insurance on both, and 15 months into your contract you break a display screen on one of them, it will have costed you $200 ($10 x 15mo. $50 ded) to replace a phone that you probably could have payed much less for retail (after factoring in the new contract discount.)
And just a few years ago that same screen would have cost you $30 to get fixed.
Yea, I know. All insurance is this way. The differnce is that with your auto, home, health etc.insurance you are talking about numbers that can be huge. Numbers that could conceivably ruin you. With this insurance you are talking about a small consumer electronic device.
I'd rather just pay the $30 and get my cracked screen replaced thank you very much.
Nice little scam they got going here - they get your money either way
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