Last year Finland took a step back by bringing back year (or two) long lock-in contracts.* I capitulated, to avoid a 4,5 cent per call surcharge.
Well, my contract is coming to an end and they were kind enough to SMS the phones on the contact the it was time to decide if I wanted to continue the contract.
I poured over the offers from my current operator, Sonera. Seems like now in addition to everyone getting the 4,5 cent surcharge per call (contract or not), we are now stuck with a 1 minute minimum per call or about 7,9 cents, which with the per call surcharge comes to about 12,5 cents for the opening minute of each call. That’s a pain, because my kids make many sub-minute calls.
Last year, I took the contract to avoid the surcharge. So I went to the store to clarify what I would get for continuing on contract. All I get is a max charge of 1euro for all calls on Sunday. Looking at my bill, we don’t make many calls on Sunday.
Ticked off with the surcharge and first minute charge, I decided to check out Elisa, a competing operator. I was thinking of moving to them, since I’ve been having some connection issues with Sonera and was a bit miffed with them.
Turns out Elisa also charges the 4,5 cent surcharge, but not for folks on contract. Oh, a two-year contract. And for a bit more, the sales guy enticed, I could get a new phone (he didn’t mention the fine print that these would be SIM-locked phones, which absolutely shocked me). And they had some talk-time packages. You know, the kind the operator gets your money whether you use up the time or not, so they don’t have to have good service.
I don’t know what I’m going to do, since both operators have irritated me. I’ve got a few days still to decide, but I must cancel or I will be placed on a contract automatically. I think I’ll just cancel and monitor the effect on my bills. I predict my bill will go up at most 10 euros, which is about 10-20% of my regular bill.
Sure, I understand that they want to maximize their money per customer. In the past year, my bill has actually gone down. But, I think their tariff structures are so convoluted that even folks who take the time to figure things out are still confused and unable to really make a decision.
My take: they don’t give a flying hoot about the customer.
*There was a positive knock-on effect, since only 3G phones could have contracts – more 3G phones can now be seen around town.
Just try to get a contract in the US. The only thing that all of the contracts have in common are that they seek to extract the maximum revenue from the subscribers.