I've purchased numerous times from wirefly and have not been confronted with any gimmicks as you call them. If you mean that there is a separate early termination fee in addition to the carrier's etf then yes that is true; but its also true of any other third party reseller out there such as amazon and best buy etc so I'd hardly call it a gimmick. . . . And at any rate if you plan to keep your phone 180 days then there's no penalty so no biggie there.