When money gets tight, many people look to superfluous services to cut to save a bit of dough every month. A quick and easy way to cut the fat is to reduce your monthly recurring expenses. Now, companies are penalizing consumers who downgrade their service plan. And in this tough economy, who can blame them for trying to save a buck? The consumers, that is.

As many of these companies require two year service agreements, a consumer could have signed up for a high-level plan with all the amenities during a much more prosperous time. Now that times are tough, consumers are looking to cut back in non-essential areas. What first seemed a reasonable plan is now excess, and companies are finding out ways to make money by capitalizing on its consumers' misfortunes.

For example, DISH Network, one of UCAN's Fav5s, (sarcasm is difficult to do in a blog, so I'll add a note that DISH is NOT one of our favorite companies to be 100% clear) charges a $5 fee to downgrade from one plan level to the next. It doesn't sound like a lot of money, but it is something that does not take very much time or effort on DISH's part. A consumer trying to save money needs to SPEND it to save it! 

Even further, AT&T penalizes its customers for downgrading to a less expensive plan by not allowing its customers to carry forward all of their rollover minutes. With AT&T, unused minutes from your monthly pool rollover (aha! that's why they are called rollover minutes!) for you to use in the next month. While there is no monetary penalty for downgrading plans, AT&T only allows its customers to carry forward the amount of minutes in the new monthly plan. This is best illustrated by a complaint we received. The consumer accumulated over 17,000 rollover minutes (that's just shy of 12 days of continuous talking) and wanted to downgrade to a plan with less minutes per month. Since the consumer downgraded to a 750 minute plan, the consumer could only carry forward 750 minutes of the rollover balance.

I'll let that sink in for a bit. This means that out of 17,000 minutes, the customer could only carry forward 750 minutes. The customer effectively lost almost 96% of the rollover minutes. Remember, these minutes were not some freebies or a trial period, but minutes for which the consumer already paid. I'll repeat that: MINUTES FOR WHICH THE CONSUMER ALREADY PAID. Here, I think the grade school rule of "no take backs" definitely should apply.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: companies need to take care of its current consumers, especially in this trying economic climate. The consumer DISH charged to lower her monthly service plan told me that she will never use DISH again and will never recommend the company again. All over a $5 charge.

Have you had to pay a fee or lose a benefit for downgrading a service plan? Let us know about your experience in the comments.