Mobile Phones
Our society is becoming more complex, yet simpler at the same time. This may seem like a conflicting statement, yet in many ways it is very accurate. The communication systems that we have available to us today have made staying in touch with others extremely easy. Making sure that we are getting good deals on these systems can be complicated. Some companies hide costs that we have to pay in the extremely small print of the service agreements. Buyers need to be informed when signing up for many of the offers that are available.
The communication industry has geared most of their advertising dollar towards the young consumer. Younger people are more used to having cell phones and internet communications and are more opened and trusting to the features than older people. My children are in college and so they are bombarded with mobile phone offers through the mail and e-mail. My youngest son has recently had to borrow money from us to pay for the mobile phone offers that he signed up with. Getting involved with this particular deal has taught him the valuable lesson of checking all the small print of an agreement.
He was sent many mobile phone offers in the mail. This offer included several free minutes as well as a free telephone. He opted to upgrade to a phone with additional features. He thought this upgrade was going to be twenty dollars; however he did not read the small print of the agreement that stated the number of free minutes would decrease and the cost of the paid minutes would increase when he took the upgrade. He used his phone often thinking that the minutes were covered, however when his first bill came he was shocked to find that it was a great deal higher than he thought it would be because the majority of his minutes were roaming as well as outside of the calling time of the free minutes. His mobile phone offer was now going to cost well over a hundred dollars instead of the twenty dollars he had budgeted for. Our youngest son has always been more impulsive than our other children. We decided that we would help him with the bill and have him do some work around the family home to pay it off. We also made it very clear that he needed to become a better consumer when looking into mobile phone offers as well as other agreements. He took the mobile phone back and ended his agreement with that company. He found other mobile phone offers that he researched thoroughly before purchasing another phone. I think he will be a better consumer since having this experience. He also goes out of his way to warn friends about using the particular company that hooked him into the high price deal.