I feel for you. I worked as a customer service rep for one of the big cell phone companies. There were fees that came up that I though were bs for the customers. On the other side of the coin though a lot of the fees were essentially new taxes which were not the cell phone company's fault. It was a nightmare explaining these fees which were really taxes to customers. It was even tougher when the government people kept insisting that the cellphone company had a choice in the matter. The choice they were talking about was whether the cell phone company would absorb the tax out of their profits or pass it on to customers.

Just about every cell phone provider out there has a cancellation fee, there is a difference between being got from the bogus charges you mention and the cancellation fee which is listed on every contract (even if its in small print). Check to make sure your roaming was not on, that you were using your free minutes during the time of day needed, etc. but sorry a cancellation fee is not being got, its not reading your contract proper.

My friend had a Nextel phone with two lines on the phone. The cancellation fee when she dropped her service was PER line! She was highly pissed as she thought it was a cancellation fee for the phone.