Fed up with dropped calls and a string of defective cell phones, Corey Taylor said he became irate when he learned he'd have to pay $175 to get out of his long-term contract with Verizon Wireless. So he resorted to a rather extreme measure. He faked his own death.

After reading on a blog that wireless companies would cancel the contracts of deceased customers, "I thought, 'What have I got to lose, besides a cell phone I despise?' " Taylor said. The Chicago consultant fashioned a fake death certificate and had a friend fax it to Verizon, his carrier. He thought he was in the clear — until the company caught on.

"In the end, I forked over the money," Taylor said. "But I bet I sent a definite message about how much people hate being strapped to a cell phone that doesn't work."

Most cell phone owners find themselves committed to two-year service contracts with wireless companies, facing hefty fees for an early escape. But as customer satisfaction with these firms continues to slide, consumers are taking more drastic actions to shed their contracts.

Such desperate attempts are "compelling evidence that the wireless carriers have failed to address the desires of the market," said Phil Doriot, a partner with consulting firm CFI Group of Ann Arbor, Mich., which has studied customer satisfaction for major cellular service providers. "No other industry could get away with being so inflexible."

Cellular companies charge up to $250 to release customers from a contract, a stipulation protested by an increasing number of cell phone users. Consumers filed more complaints about cell phones than any other industry for the past three years, according to the Council of Better Business Bureaus. Contract issues consistently rank among the top three gripes, along with billing and service problems.

The number of contract-related complaints received by the Federal Communications Commission more than doubled from 2003 to 2005. And thousands of customers were expected to pay to cancel their cell phone contracts with other service providers this summer after the iPhone was released exclusively with AT&T service, according to mobile communications research firm M:Metrics of Seattle.

Most carriers offer deep discounts on expensive cell phones to attract customers. Cancellation fees, they say, help offset those costs.