I was doing a cloud score on a vendor and one of the questions we ask is around termination of the contract. Many times in the past I have had to get out of a contract for various reasons, downsizing, mergers, change of direction etc. I always make sure that a termination clause exists now.
But just asking if the contract can be terminated early isn't enough. Recently I asked the question and the answer was, "yes with 30 days notice". A very reasonable answer. This gives the vendor time to find a way to reuse the capacity and was enough time for us to switch providers if we needed to. I was very happy with that answer and gave them a "5" for that question.
A few days later though I was reading through the contract and while the contract can be cancelled with 30 days notice, there is an early termination fee. That by itself is not unusual telco's normally will charge you for their build out costs, which can be expensive. Cellular contracts often will make you pay for the phone if you cancel early to make back their money etc.
The problem was though that the early termination fee was equal to the monthly fee times the number of months left on the contract. So I can terminate the contract but it costs me the same as if I kept the contract and I had to pay it all at once...
I've changed the question to be two parts, can I cancel, and what if any is the fee to cancel.
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