The Customer is Uniquely Stupid

[Spyder]

You have to pay the full price for a cell phone? Even if you just signed the contract? No subsidized cell phones for 1$ or the like from the cell phone company?

I'm more shocked that there are cell-phones for 500$

And whats with the contracts anyway? Don't you just buy the phone you want and then put the chip you get from your cell-phone company of choice into it?

With PrePay cards - yes, with business and personal plans - no, contracted plans give you so many free minutes that you can use and you get a bill at the end of the month. Basically if it's going to involve getting a bill at the end of a month you're going to have to sign something. Otherwise you just go on to prepay which involves just buying a card and sliding it into the phone as you said and all your air-time is bought in advance so you don't need to sign a contract. The trade off is that you don't get any free minutes on prepay which can work out more expensive in the long run if you end up making a lot of calls.