[sc:mobile-category ]Welcome to a milestone here at JumbleCat, my 100th post!
Here in Canada, most cell phone contracts are 3 years long to get the best price on a phone. This is just the way things are and my three year lock in is just about up.
When I started the contract in 2009, the phone I bought was the Samsung Omnia II, a fine little Windows Mobile 6.5 device that now seems incredibly antiquated by todays standards. I replace that phone with my current HD7 back in March of 2011. And in March of 2012 I started to receive texts from Bell along the lines of “Your eligible for an upgrade! Visit your Bell store for details!”.
Now that’s a full 8 months before the end of my contract and I’ve been receiving similar texts every month and I have two issues with it:
- 8 months early, really?
- I have to go to the store to get details… what is this the 80’s?
Now I know Bell REALLY wants to keep me as a customer and lock me in for another 3 years, but in the next 8 months the number of new phones that will be coming out, it would seems silly to get locked in now, let alone the fact that they don’t have a new Windows Phone device for me to upgrade to anyway 😉
Let’s recap what’s coming before November:
- Windows Phone 8
- Blackberry 10
- iPhone 5
- Probably at least one new major Android version
Now as for having to go to the store, they do realize that the Internet has been around for a while now, right?
Even if I go to my Bell homepage they don’t provide any details on what I’m eligible for, instead all I get is:
To learn if you are eligible for a credit towards a new phone, please contact us.
In this day and age, that’s pretty much a detour that no one is looking to take.
My current thoughts are that I’ll be moving to a different provide in November, one of the new entrants in the mobile market here in Canada, like Wind.
In general, every time bell contacts me they seem more and more desperate to either get or retain my business. Perhaps if they started providing a good product at a reasonable price they might even do it.
