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How much Fin24 users paid to cancel their phone contracts

Research from phone bill monitoring company Tariffic revealed on Thursday that South Africans can expect to possibly pay thousands to cancel their phone contracts.

As part of its contract tracker data for the second quarter of 2016, Tariffic studied how much it costs to cancel four types of packages for customers across South Africa's four major networks.

READ: How much it costs to cancel your phone contract

More specifically, these types of packages included the following: A Samsung Galaxy Note 5 with 12 months remaining, a Samsung Galaxy S7 with 18 months remaining, an iPhone 6S with 6 months remaining, and a Sony Z5 with 12 months remaining.

“It’s not cheap to terminate your cellphone contract,” said Tariffic.

“Tshepo, our user with the least months remaining on her contract, still has to pay in a minimum of R3 300 or a maximum of R4 852 to terminate her contract. Dineo, who has 18 months left on her contract will pay anywhere between R9 931 and R15 377,” added Tariffic.

View the table of the packages that Tariffic studied further below in this story.

The company said it called operators’ call centers to request termination quotes for various contracts. Tariffic then also tapped its optimisation software to analyse the costs.

Meanwhile, Fin24 users have told of how much it cost them to cancel their phone contracts - and the costs also run into thousands of rands.

Fin24 user Robert wrote:

“I lost my job at the end of last year, so I decided that to lower my monthly cost, I was going to cancel my cell phone contract with Vodacom. I had about 11 months left on an IPhone 6 which was on a 1GB and 250 Minutes bundle.

“I think I paid around R11 000 to cancel the contract, but admit I was totally shocked at the cancellation costs. I did phone them to find out why the cost was so high and they specified that they are also charging for the package they are losing and not just the phone.

“I said to the lady that if they charge for the package then can I have the minutes that I am now paying for. Obviously the answer was no. But I am still stumped as to how they can legally charge for something they are not giving you at the end of the day. I am paying for that data and minutes, so why am I not entitled to at least get them to use?”

Fin24 user Bonani has also commented on the story:

“What an interesting read on the costs associated with the cancellation of phone contracts.

“I have been paying an average of R900 per month on my MTN contract. Upon issuing a notice of termination upon the expiry of my contract, I was served with an invoice of R11 000. When I asked out of shock on how I could be billed so much, I was advised that those are data charges.

“I was and I am still in shock. My contract was for data and voice calls and I never paid so much in a month. Upon notifying MTN that I won't be renewing my contract, that's when I was billed this exorbitant amount.

“I have been advised that my account has now been handed to 'legal' seeing that I contested the invoiced amount. Reading this article has  ‎enlightened me. I feel this is daylight robbery. We can't be coerced to stay in contracts if we don't want any more.

“I was wondering if there is a body or third independent party that can handle such cases of abuse by these service providers.”

Have you also been hit with shock contract cancellation costs? Tell us by clicking here.

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