Don’t Take Their Word for it – Read the Fine Print

A while back, I blogged about how excited I was to pick up a smart phone and data plan that didn’t cost any more than the monthly plan for my old cell phone. I have since found out that the person who sold us the phones wasn’t completely honest with us. The plan is still the same price, but she included a lot of extras we didn’t verbally agree to.

It’s been several months since we got our new smartphones, and as busy as the holiday season tends to be, I wasn’t very diligent about reading my monthly bill. I just went online and paid it. Last week, however, I spent some time organizing my online banking merchants, checking that their addresses were still correct, my account numbers were accurate, etc., I had gotten into the habit of paying bills on each company’s website, and I wanted to streamline that for the new year.

When it came time to pay my cell phone bill, I realized it was almost double what it used to be. Thinking that maybe I overlooked a payment, I went out to the cell phone provider’s website to look at my bill. I was shocked at what I found. They have been charging us $15 per phone for insurance and another $7 per phone for a warranty each month. With two phones, that’s an extra $44 a month. Why am I paying for a warranty on a phone? It should already be covered by the manufacturer. And why do I need insurance if the phone is covered under a warranty. These are questions I can’t answer yet, because I haven’t had a chance to call that company. That’s on my list to do this week.

There are two important lessons to learn here. First, don’t take a salesperson’s word as gold. I am positive that I would have turned down any extended warranties and insurance had she mentioned it. I’m sure it’s on the paperwork, but I trusted her and did not read the paperwork. That was a mistake. The second lesson is to pay attention to your bill each month. If I had been paying attention to the bill for the past few months, I would saved myself over $100. My choice to be lazy was an expensive one.

Sometimes saving money is about paying attention. When you shop at a store, you pay attention to prices, right? You know what you’re willing to spend and what you think is just too much money. It shouldn’t be any different with your monthly bills. Know what you are willing to pay and know what you are paying for. It could save you a lot of money in the long run.