vB Easy Archive - Softbank cancellation fees

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Softbank cancellation fees
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Posted by: cb0288

For those of you who were thinking of having someone in Japan to sign-up with Softbank, get the 904sh and then cancel the contract, you might want to think again.

Before when it was vodafone the calcellation fee was about $100 but now softbank changed it. It is now about $500.

Just thought i let you guys know.

Posted by: johnmoon

Omg u serious?
thats crazy... if its true
then we are pretty much done with japanese risky yet locked phones...

Posted by: cb0288

That's what i was told when my gf's friend in Japan told us.

Posted by: Jmask5

Don't worry there are other ways. Not sure what they are but apparenlty they are being used because the white/navy/pink 904sh can be had for 450 or so on ebay right now.

Posted by: shungo

you can always buy it on yahoo action tho right?

Posted by: Kevbodian

u can buy on yahoo auction if you can:

1. set up the yahoo japan account
2. can find someone who will take paypal and/or ship overseas.

its not too hard to find someone to do that. but it might be easier to by locally.

Posted by: AL9999

That's probably got to do with the new Super Bonus pricing scheme, which Softbank is forcing all new and upgrading subscribers to take up in addition to their monthly plan. I'm summarising heavily here (and personally I don't completely understand it, it's quite complicated), but it's effectively a Western-style contract payment method for phones. According to ITMedia you can choose to pay the phone off outright (for about 50,000-70,000 yen - this seems to be little publicised by the way) or you can pay in installments (you pay an upfront cost similar to current phone prices in Japan and then installments per month). With either payment method you get either a 10,500 yen discount or 10,000 yen cashback off the phone you pick, in exchange for a two year contract period. If you cancel early you have to repay whatever cost of the phone is left.

That's why phone repayments are now in the hundreds of dollars rather than being $100. This will likely stop all cheap Japanese Sharp phone imports out of Japan now.

Softbank is quite game to do this, although if it's successful I'm sure DoCoMo and KDDI will follow suit, it's costing them too much to continue to subsidise phones the way they do.

Posted by: khaltire

If anyone is interested, I can get any Japanese phone, article of clothing, shoes or anything from yahoo jp, and I accept paypal. Thanks

Posted by: samab

Quote:

Originally Posted by AL9999

That's probably got to do with the new Super Bonus pricing scheme, which Softbank is forcing all new and upgrading subscribers to take up in addition to their monthly plan. I'm summarising heavily here (and personally I don't completely understand it, it's quite complicated), but it's effectively a Western-style contract payment method for phones. According to ITMedia you can choose to pay the phone off outright (for about 50,000-70,000 yen - this seems to be little publicised by the way) or you can pay in installments (you pay an upfront cost similar to current phone prices in Japan and then installments per month). With either payment method you get either a 10,500 yen discount or 10,000 yen cashback off the phone you pick, in exchange for a two year contract period. If you cancel early you have to repay whatever cost of the phone is left.

That's how I understand the terms. If you guys read the softbank super bonus page --- go to the middle of the page (under super bonus special discount).

http://mb.softbank.jp/mb/en/price_p...unt/superbonus/

Look up 804SH or 904SH in the table under new contracts --- it will say 2280 yen discount per month. So if you buy the phone under the super bonus 2 year contract and then immediately cancel --- you have to pay 24 x 2280 yen back to Softbank for the handset discount (54720 yen = $457 US).

That's just the handset discount payback --- you still have to pay a separate contract cancellation charge (abouth $20).

Posted by: majidekeitai

i was lucky enough to get the 904T a few days before the change and cancelled 2 days ago for $100. lucky i didn't wait!

Posted by: KayJai

What　if you signed up when it was still vodafone and want to cancel now??? Is it grandfathered to still be $100??

Posted by: AL9999

If you signed up using Happy Bonus then you still get to cancel the old way.

In any case sources have revealed that Softbank has reinstated the Happy Bonus scheme after a huge amount of complaints from its subscribers, so now you can choose from Happy Bonus or Super Bonus.

Although, the Softbank website suggests that only Super Bonus exists, but you can keep all the privileges you've amassed since subscribing to the carrier (such as the yearly discount and such). Hmm...