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Comment by ninv | Hacker News Reader

45 days before my contract expires with AT&T, i signed up a new service with T-mobile, i also ported my number to T-mobile.

With in a week, i got 150 bill for breaking the contract. I argued that i never asked to cancel the service. I want to pay my last month bill and complete my contract.

Nope!

AT&T cancelled my service because i ported my number. I ended up paying them 150$ just days before my contract expires. No prorated no discount.

Never ever going back to anything related AT&T. Never.

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Did you check the contract to see if porting your number meant canceling your contract? If it didn't mention it, then you take them to small claims court, then when they don't pay after they don't show up, you go back to court and get a writ of execution to perform a till tap at an AT&T store.

Porting your number will initiate a cancellation of your contract on all major carriers.

Just switched from Sprint to Verizon, same deal.

T-Mobile will pay early termination fees: http://www.t-mobile.com/offer/switch-carriers-no-early-termi...

I would have to side with AT&T there.

Because they wrote a contract that says you can't pay them for 'service' for a ported number?

Because they wrote a contract that says you have to pay them more than the remaining months of full-price service if you leave them?

Why would you side with that?

> Why would you side with that?

Because the letter of the contract and law is more important than reasonableness or ethics.

If the law in your jurisdiction requires more than payment of actual damages in this sort of situation, then I would argue that your law is broken. Clearly those damages can not exceed the full cost of the original plan plus any actual costs of dealing with the early transfer, so a bill for 100+ bucks is just a shakedown, pure and simple.

Not quite true. If the contract asked for a pound of the customer's flesh I'm certain it'd get thrown out in court.

Porting your number triggers a contact termination in every case, with every carrier. This is expected, documented, correct behavior.

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