By Carolyn Y. Johnson, Globe Staff | January 1, 2007
The pesky termination fees that kick in when unhappy cellphone customers decide to cancel service early have spurred an Internet cottage industry of companies that help liberate people from their contracts.
The websites,
"You really tap into this emotional thing. When they find out they can't get service at their job, or maybe they had service in their apartment and one day all of a sudden it stopped working," customers get mad, said Eric Wurtenberg , cofounder of
Hefty termination fees are a frequent gripe among cellphone customers. State Senator Michael W. Morrissey , a Democrat from Quincy, drafted legislation late last year that would allow customers who experienced five or more dropped calls in a month to cancel their service without paying a fee.
A 2005 survey by the Massachusetts Public Interest Research Group found that 36 percent of cellphone customers surveyed said that the early termination fee stopped them from switching providers, and 47 percent of respondents said they would switch or consider switching providers to get a lower rate or better service if they didn't have to pay the fee.
Each service works in a slightly different way, but the idea is the same: Customers post an online advertisement with the details of their contract, and any benefits they're willing to throw in -- such as a free Blackberry, a Bluetooth headset, or money toward the contract. The services charge $19.99 at
Once a person who wants to get out of a contract is matched with a person who wants to get in, the transfer must be made through the wireless provider.
That type of transfer is already available to customers who call their providers and have a relative or friend willing to go through a credit check and legally take over the rest of the contract. But these Internet services allow people to look beyond their immediate friends and connect with a nationwide network of people.