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Before You Buy a Cell Phone

Today's wireless phones? Cool. Shopping for them? Complicated. Here's what you need to know about carriers, plans, data networks, contracts, and more. Grace Aquino, PC World

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Sweetening the Deal

With Sprint, you don't even have to be at a store or on the phone to request activation credit. Just ask one of the online consultants via live chat. Mention a competing carrier's offer if it's a good one; this might get you out of paying an activation fee, or gain you a freebie phone offer. But you might not get a carrier's stores to match its Web prices.

If you are going shopping in person, check out the series of "Confessions" that purport to be from current and former cell phone sales reps on The Consumerist. For example, "11 Confessions of a T-Mobile Sales Rep" says that stores are more likely to grant concessions at the end of the month in order to meet sales goals. We can't vouch for all of the tips (be sure to read the updates challenging some), but several sounded reasonable.

Do what you can to get your deal in writing. Then, if there's a problem later on, it won't just be your word against the sales rep's (or the standard contract).

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