what happened to free?

Several months ago, my wife decided to finally go in and replace her cellphone. It was a broken fliptop model, with one side being held together by clear tape. She had been carrying it around for several years, much longer than most people, and definitely longer than most cell companies would like you to use it.

Back when we had gotten our first cellphone, you could get a rebate that made the cellphone free when you signed up with a one year contract. We were quite surprised when we went to replace it that the only phones that were available for free with a one year plan looked like Mardi Gras trinkets (and they'd probably work about as good as a trinket that had been thrown from a float in a parade). In most cases, you had to sign up for a two year contract to get anything substantial for free. With the ever changing world of cellular plans and phone features, I just couldn't see signing up for *anything* that required a two year plan. So we paid a bit for the phone. Then we returned it a few days later because the Verizon coverage was nonexistent.

Six months later, many of the celular providers are still offering the same deals. Wirefly is offering a free T-Mobile RAZR, but again is requiring a 2-year contract. on the bright side, the phones that they offer are pretty slick, and a step up from the freebies that you get with a one year plan. Even better, they are offering $50 cash back and a free bluetooth headset, in addition to the free phone. This makes signing a two year contract with them a little less intimidating. I also liked the fact that they don't try and sneak in a shipping charge at the end of the deal. When we tried to go with Verizon last year, they dropped a $9 shipping charge on us right before they went to swipe our credit card to pay for the phone and service plan. That may not sounds like a lot of extra money, but I like to know about every possible hidden charge before I sign up for any type of plan.



So although I'm still not that thrilled about what seems to be an industry standard two year contract requirement to get a nice free phone, I'll throw a few extra kudos to Wirefly for laying out the T-Mobile details in plain site (black and white) before you have to enter credit card information, and for making the deals a little sweeter than most of their competitors.