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WALNUT CREEK, Calif. — Like a lot of people, Jose Correa was fed up with his cell- phone service but knew it would be expensive to cancel his two-year contract before it expired.

Then his sister told him about a Web site that would make that procedure a whole lot less expensive by connecting him with people looking to get into a contract.

"I had a contract with Sprint," Correa, 30, a graduate student who is working on a doctorate degree in physics at the University of California-Berkeley.

"I wanted to get out of the contract. The contract was for two years, and I still had one year left. I really wanted to get better service."

Not only that, but the reception in his apartment wasn't that good, he said.

Correa was able to find a taker for his cell phone who lives in Arkansas after his contract was listed for about two weeks on www.Cellswapper.com.

The $18.95 Correa paid to Cellswapper was a lot less than the $200 early termination fee charged by Sprint.

"There will be someone out there who would benefit from having a short contract. They are looking for a deal," said Correa, who provided the cell phone that came with the Sprint contract to the new customer at no cost.

Another Web site, www.CelltradeUsa.com, also provides options for getting someone to take on a cell-phone contract you no longer want.

It doesn't cost anything for consumers wanting to get out of a contract to list the contract on either Web site.

Consumers who are looking for a contract don't have to pay to search for a contract on either Web site.

Although the first step is free to list a contract, you have to pay a fee to gain access to those who have expressed interest in taking over the contract.

Cellswapper's fee is $18.95, and the fee charged by CelltradeUSA is $19.99. Those who take over the contract have to be approved by the carrier before the transfer can happen.

In many cases, those who take over the contract get the phone thrown in for free when they use the Web sites.

The idea behind Cellswapper is to match up people who have a contract they want to get out of with "another group of people who don't potentially need a three-year contract. … We are providing a matchmaking service," Jeremy Greenberg, co-founder of Lakewood, N.J.-based Cellswapper.

"At this time, we have about 6,500 active users and 1,700 contracts that need to be swapped out," he said last month.

While his contract was listed on the Cellswapper Web site, Correa also listed his cell-phone contract at no charge on Craigslist. But nothing panned out from that effort, he said.

"It's by chance that someone will see that and be interested," said Correa, who ended up getting an iPhone from Apple after he transferred his Sprint contract last month.

Correa got his new phone from a retail outlet since there weren't any listed on the Cellswapper Web site at the time he was looking for a new contract.

People have always been able to transfer a cell-phone contract, provided they could find someone to take it over, said Eric Wurtenberg, co-founder of www.CelltradeUSA.com, based in Kearny, N.J.

"That was the problem," said Wurtenberg, adding that without the reach of the Internet, people who wanted to get out of a cell-phone contract pretty much had to know someone personally who was looking to take over a contract.

The number of cell-phone contracts listed on the CelltradeUSA Web site at any one time ranges from 1,200 to 3,000 nationwide, he said.

People who are looking to try out a cell-phone carrier can find a short-term contract before committing to a long-term contract while avoiding having to pay a activation fee to start service, Wurtenberg said.

"Say they just moved to a new place and don't know who the best provider is," said Wurtenberg.

"They could get a contract for five or six months instead of getting into a two-year contract."