Consumerist

"• Mention the lost or stolen program to get 25% off a new phone, even if you're under contract. Who's to say you didn't lose it?"

Whats that?

"• If you're on a rate plan of $59.99 or higher, you can get "a new phone (and new contract) for the discounted price after 12 months."

HOW??

@homerjay: I would imagine you get walk into the store after 12 months and say you'd like to upgrade your phone. Or, go to the website and select the upgrade feature.

@kerry: But this goes against everything that the "New Every Two" program stands for... Thats why I asked how? There must be some super secret way....

i'm suspicous about getting $100 off with a Treo data plan, then cancelling the next day. Isn't there a way to verify you have the data plan X amount of time before getting the discount, or having it charged back to your account?

I think how it works is the "New Every Two" program gives you a free phone every two years in exchange for signing a new two year contract, whereas what the rep is suggesting is sign a 1 year contract and get a discounted but not free phone every year.

Anwer me this, does Verizon love me as a customer?

About 4 months ago I signed a 2 year contract and got a K1M for my phone.

The next week I add'd the lowest texting plan which is $5, I also just recently add'd Mobile Web for $10 but im going to cancel that.

From time to time I do the daily Vcast subscription for $3.99, I also use the GPS Navigation for $3.99 every once and a while.

Ive boughten 3 games from the online store as well and I always pay my bill on time. My plan is like the $39.99 one but I do add extras and buy stuff, I never go over my mins but I have gone over my texting 3 times with a high overage price of about $17.

So as a customer...if they grade customers. How would I rate?

The insurance depends. The deductible is $50 on both low end and high end phones. I have a speakerphone model that I recently lost and they don't make anymore (but I got a refurb which works nicely) - they don't allow cameras (or cameraphones) where I work. The $50 deductible was well worth it for me. Also my second datacard (over $200) just failed but I got the 2 year warranty, so the replacement is on its way. If you get a quirky, expensive, hi-tech device, the insurance is more likely to be worth it than if you get a plain phone.

Some of these are great tips, because it seems that the Sales person wins and the Consumer wins. You guys can nod heads and wink and really stick it to Verizon.

On the other hand, I'm uncomfortable signing up with x package or y accessory, and then having to cancel or return it immediately. The less I have to deal with customer service the happier I am as an individual. God forbid somebody doesn't do their job right and doesn't cancel the "extra" packages you signed up for, creating untold billing headaches.

@something_amazing: I haven't had to deal with cancelling extra services with Verizon, but I did have to do it a couple times with Cingular and the reps were always really friendly and helpful. My guess is that any cell company is going to make canceling extra services pretty painless because it's better than losing a customer altogether. Once I signed up for a new text package online and then 3 hours later decided I wanted to get a data/messaging bundled package, instead. I called Cingular and they canceled the old package, crediting me all but the one half day I used it (it was something like $0.15 on my bill), singed me up for the new package and prorated it so I only paid part of the current month. It took about 5 minutes total phone time, including holding.

If you're on a rate plan of $59.99 or higher, you can get "a new phone (and new contract) for the discounted price after 12 months."

This is true, I am labeled as a VIP customer since I have always signed a 2 year contract. I have received several mailing stating that I can do this. I have been a customer for almost 10 years now.

Last time my contract was up (2 yrs ago) I signed up for a family plan. Unfortunately now I can get a new phone after one year on the main line but the second line must pay full price for a new phone. This is insane and stupid.

I have been told in several verizon stores as well as on the phone that if I were to take advantage of this the second line will not be eligible for the upgrade price and no new contract deal (i.e. buy one for $50 get one free). I must buy the second phone at FULL price. Yea, I am living the verizon VIP life now...

Great tips! Great post!

How about some insider love for us Sprint customers?

My contract's up next month, and I'm planning on waiting until they launch WiMax and/or the Zune phone in my area to re-up.

It would be great to know how to get the best deal when the time comes.

I can sort of confirm most of this from why my buddy Mike tells me. He actually works for Cingular. Another trick is to find out which companies get corporate discounts with your carrier. My buddy Mike put me into the computer system as an employee of a company that gets a 50% discount on all phones/accessories with Cingular. Cingular never actually checks to see if you really are an employee, but sometimes they'll ask you who you work for (maybe they're trying to catch me slipping). My last phone was about $500 retail, but I was able to get it for $200. The corporate discount brought it down to $250 and they were having a sale for a $50 mail in rebate.

Mike also tells me that he really only makes good money off the accessories and extras he sells. He will actually tell people about signing up for the texting plan (which earns him commission) so they can get a discount, then to cancel within the first week. Another trick to try and get around that $50 insurance fee if you have a common type of phone is to ask the store if they have any throw-away phones. These are phones from customers who upgraded, but didn't want their old phone. The store keeps them around if they're in good shape to give to customers who break their phone and don't have insurance.

I agree with the part about not getting a good deal when your contract isn't upgradeable. I recently went into a cingular store to buy my wife a blackberry pearl, and after the sales guy "bobby" complained to me about having to work on a sunday, he told me we would have to pay full retail price on the phone - $420.00.

I told him that the woman we spoke with on the phone told us we could get it for $250.00 (which she had) and he said nope, no notes on your account, $420.00. So, we left emptyhanded and called Cingular and ordered it for $220.00 (price had gone down) over the phone. It arrived a day later. As far as I can tell, the people inside the retail stores are pretty much useless unless you can make them money. Just call them and you can get a better deal in my experience.

Can I ask a general question of management?

While I love the site, and check it many times daily - and I can understand that this is an interesting story...

Why do you continue to publish articles that are nothing more than "Here's how to f*ck company X?"

I love when you guys publish stuff that shows how to get a good, honest deal - including one-time offers, bargaining tricks (that don't include outright lying to a salesperson), and insider information on what will and will not fly with a customer service rep.

It seems, though, that many of these "tips" being published are things that require quite a bit of ethical embiguity to execute - for example, the above tip about losing the cell phone? That's insurance fraud, which at best is unethical as hell, but at worst is illegal.

I dunno - it just seems that when you post stuff like this, yet rip on people who return empty boxes filled with accidentally broken crap (or bricks), you're being a bit double standard. While I know you're not actively endorsing actions like this, it does appear to be at least a tacit endorsement that you even publish them.

That's my piece - you haven't lost a reader by any means, but I'd appreciate it if you'd maybe think a bit harder about posting stuff like this in the future.

@Plaid Rabbit:

Welcome to:

The Consumerist | Shoppers Bite Back

Anyone know a way to get the phone number I want from Sprint?

To Plaid Rabbit:

"It seems, though, that many of these "tips" being published are things that require quite a bit of ethical embiguity to execute - for example, the above tip about losing the cell phone? That's insurance fraud, which at best is unethical as hell, but at worst is illegal."

If you don't have the insurance, it's not fraud. It's lying, but it's not fraud.

I recently wanted to upgrade my phone and went to a Cingular (my carrier) store. The rep said that I could not upgrade my phone until I was 18 months into my 2-year contract. I had gathered as much from the web site, and I told him I was confused - I was willing to pay for a new phone, but Cingular didn't want to sell me one (I knew I could buy one elsewhere). The rep told me to call customer care and report it as lost or stolen, then go back to the store where they would sell me whatever I wanted after they had verified my report.

The system's broken - there wouldn't be so many workarounds and loopholes and "ethically ambiguous" shenanigans going on if these companies gave us what we want and compensated their employees in a sensible way.

@Rick Dobbs: Just keep asking the rep for another number. They release batches of them at a time, read them to you, and you choose. I know someone who's always gotten great numbers by keeping many options open and sitting on the phone with a patient rep.

For a coporate customer with over 120 phones, getting the insurance on the PDA devices is an absolute neccesity. My users lose a PDA on average of about once every 6 weeks to 2 months. Buying a new one each time at full price would not be cost effective and the insuance company they use generally gets us our replacements faster than warranty replacements directly from Verizon anyway.

As for the cheap-o phones they offer, yeah it's not worth it.

"Why do you continue to publish articles that are nothing more than "Here's how to f*ck company X?""

Because Company X has no compunction about f*cking us no matter how unethical or shady/grey line in legal terms. We need the tools to defend ourselves since no one else will.

It's no wonder that this particular salesperson is only too happy to give up certain "secrets" about VZW that any moron with a standard IQ and a compunction to be a satisfied customer can come in and find out for themselves. Allow me to break down each one of the points from a different perspective of a quality employee, numbered to match the respective points made by the poster:

1. People are cheap. Period. They want their $50 and there is very little that we can do about it. I have offered a one year over a two year numerous times and have been declined about 90% of it.

2. Really? They get more money from selling data and accessories? Holy sh*t! There's no way a major retail corporation wouldn't want to squeeze every last penny they can from their customers! Wait, VZW does too! What a f*cking shock! No salesperson worth their salt would ever give a phone away for free just to capitalize on other goals because we know customers would pull the crap the poster mentions.

3. Why wouldn't I ever mention that I can give you 25% off? There aren't many restrictions on this. For most phones being about $250 that means for an extra couple of months (or more) on your contract I save you about $60. VZW makes out in the end, even if your phone isn't technically lost or stolen.

4. First off, it's $49.99 per month for the rate plan, so this person obviously doesn't know his/her job well enough to do it correctly, plus they fail to mention that you get the 2 year price for only extending your contract by a year (Assuming you come in on the exact one year anniversary of your plan).

5. Insurance isn't always a rip-off. Perhaps you'd like to tell this to the poor bastards who get the PDA phones and have to pay $500+ to replace without insurance. Let me tell you, it's an awful lot of fun. Since it's obvious that he/she doesn't care about the CSR's I bet they just love assisting the half-assed sales created by the ineptitude of you salesmanship.

6. Absolutely true. But most people do actually use these things for email.

7. Actually, they don't get paid squat. But, if their manager has high enough of a caliber salespeople will do their job no matter what the circumstances. Unfortunately, this is commission based sales and occasionally lower quality service will result.

8. Perhaps. Have never seen this situation. But from my experience it's pretty difficult to get any sort of credit.

So there you have it. Two good points out of eight. This person probably couldn't sell bricks to a masonworker; not to mention probably being so upset at being such a horrible employee and giving the rest of us a bad name. Whoever you are, do the right thing and hand in your resignation, you are a disgrace.

The price plan to get a new phone every year is $59.99/month or higher. And you DO have to sign up for a 2 year plan at that time.

2) Insurance is not a ripoff if you actually work for a living and aren't a cheapskate who settles for the free phone.

3) We are bred to give the customer as many options when they are there so our services are known. There is a slight discount on a phone when you add a data package, but not for accessories. Basically our job is to SELL things. And for you that don't understand that concept, I hope you never venture into business with the public.

Most of the people I piss off are the ones that are generally unhappy with their lives as a whole. Yes, you sign a two year contract. What these people don't realize is that two years is 24 months. Why is that so hard?

At the beginning of the contract, they give you 15 days to bring the phone back and get out with no penalty.

And for nitwits who sit around and decide how to make loopholes so you can sue and manipulate your way through life: Good. Because otherwise, given positions to deal with the public and have to sell things, YOU WOULD STARVE.

1. 2yr contracts are elgible for $100 or more off the retail price of the phone!
2. Why would you waste the time to buy the accessories and get texting when ur going to cancel it again. especially when the texting has prorates.
3. if you mention a lost or stolen phone you do not get 25% off a new phone, unless the rep is generous. (most can only give a certain amount of a % off a phone)
4. annual upgrade- gets you a new phone in 1 year provided you have a plan of 59.99 or higher. This went into effect this year!!
5. insurance is not some secret screwing you in the face package- its common sense if you figure out $5/month $50 deductible. its an optional service...
6.Treo really only has 1 data package, $100 is a rebate regardless of a data package or not.
7. Not all stores are motivated on selling depending on the customer and where they are at in thier contract....Some stores are base pay and commision and are typically nicer to customers so they will come back.
8."loyalty credit" no longer exist in most markets!

TO ALL: I found that NO OTHER CELL PHONE COMPANY can compete with the CRICKETT phones I bought recently. They do not have minute "plans/bundles" or anything like that, as they have a HUGE margin over everyone else by simply offering a TRUE FLAT RATE UNLIMITED EVERYTHING, including long distance, text,internet, and all the other bells & whistles of your capable phone. I pay only $52.00 a month for unlimited everything, ALL the time 24.7 !!! And, recently they just included the NATION WIDE coverage, which once they did this,,,which used to be the only restriction about crickett, they are the GOD !!!

joneutah21

Hey Keanu! Sounds like your inability to read also makes you sound like another rep from Verizon that it too retarded to help out anyone except yourself. If you didn't read the title he has already resigned. And as far as your company I have been stuck in the 2 year contract and felt like crap about it because my phone would not work at all. Reps from your company said too bad for you buy it at full price because your contract isn't up for a couple of months. Whjy would I want top buy a new phone with a company that I want to leave as soon as the contract is up anyway. Or why pay the $175 cancellation when you could buy a new phone for it anyway. What a catch 22. This is why the previuos rep from your company it posting this information. He's probably tired of getting treated like crap from the customers that at getting treated bad by their service provider. And he's compassionate enough to forgive all of us yellers and screamers and still do something about it.

Hope to God that I never try to buy a phone of service plan from you.

maybe this is just a one time thing because i have never had any problems with wamu. im almost certain that there are people that have had problems with their banks(excluding wamu) and have also felt the same way we all do in this article. i feel really bad for this guy who probably works his butt off to take a vacation and all of a sudden who has to go through this? that sucks! everytime anybody wants to seel you something or get you to ding up for something, they are always the nicest people in the world but when you need help to fix a problem , they always give you the runaround. i guess it is true; wamu thinks that thiefs only work on weekdays and we wont need wamus help in the weekends.

Is there anything about Altell? if so how about a few tip there

Alltel likes to be in competaton with its-self.
So they have licensed? Russell Cellular as a sales agent.. Russell Cellular talks a razzle dazzle but its customer service is horrible. Now, your telephone service and billing is still tru Alltel and if you complain enough to Alltel about the difficulties you are having with Russell Cellular they will comp you a month. Why Alltel lets Russell Cellular abuse the public is another chapter, but they know it is happening and will compensate you for it..

I am a Verizon Employee and I am sad to see that this article was even posted. It's like saying that if you go on a yahoo page, by clicking on a site is how yahoo gets paid, even if the site is crappy as heck, and you get no information out of it. Just because of this article, i will be switching my website to someone else. Verizon IS my bread and butter, and trying to damage my job and my income is not right. Giving suggestions on how to rip my company off is not right. How would YAHOo feel if we got information on how to rip YAHOO off, and this resulting in loss of your company? Not so good is it.
And of course, it's always the FORMER employees who have a chip on their shoulder and try to distroy the one who paid for their living.
I am a sales rep. ay VERIZON, and don't appriciate this article at all.
YEAH, go ahead and cancel the DATA plan on the Treo, after we give you $100.00 off for getting it and see what happens. No wonder he is former.....he must have done such a shitty job at the stores, upset his customers, and riped them off, is why we fired him. VERIZONS PHILOSOPHY IS "INTEGRITY" FIRST AND FOREMOST. WE TAKE CARE OF OUR CUSTOMERS. But yes, some people are greedy and cheap. They want and want from us all the time.
So you buy a new car, drive it for 3 days, reck it, and have no insurance. Do you 1. take it back to the car dealership and ask for a new one, for FREE? Please don't make me laugh. Of course you put insurance on your car, that if something was to happen, you pay your deductible, and the INSURANCE company fixes it f or you. That's how it works.
As far as free phones all the time: biggest excuse is that a customer has been with us a long time, and demands a free phone. I have been shopping at walmart for years and years, and they have NEVER given me a free anything. Why should we be different. We are a reputable bussiness, and do what's right for the customer, but giving away the house will break us, and with breaking us as a company, will go away your wonderful coverage we spend billions of dollars on yearly. So go ahaed.
Maybe in the future, you guys should not post stuff on the internet without doing you homework first.

Cell phones are a luxury. Your all getting exactly what you deserve. Cell phones and the dial tone providers are all rip-offs and con artists. And what idiot pays $50 a month for a dial tone? Oooo! Oh! Look at me, I gotta phone that takes pictures, plays music, grooms my dog, and makes me look impotant (No not important, impotant). Obviuosly you all have too much money. Why don't you send me sum and I'll get you 2 empty cans and a string. Jesus.

I just want to thank Plaid Rabbit and johneutah21 for being ethical and reasonable.

I am by no means a frickin Sunday school teacher and I am the first one to look for the best deal possible, but this article made me sick to my stomache.

These are people's jobs. Why don't you take a look at our gov't a litle closer, ya know the ones you hired to look after your rights and livelyhood? Or who do you work for? How would you feel if someone was risking your employment. You don't care you say? Then you're in the wrong job, so let's look at it this way. You start this great co. and soon you must hire people to help you be even more successful and now your employees starting stabbing you in the back and taking your hard earned money? Hmmm. I have a feeling your tune would change.

Verizon donates tons of money to Hope Line also. And since you are paying for a service they spend millions of dollars every year to try their best to give you the best service. That's more than some service providers do for you and you give them money every month without even blinking an eye. I don't even f'in donate to anyone, but my own cause.

I have had very good experience with the place I bought my phones. They are a local retailer that sells Verizon Wireless but they are not actually Verizon owned. The place is called Wireless Zone and they seem to work harder at trying to satisfy the customers. I think they work on a different kind of commission. I only sign one year contracts and think that it's a good idea. The phones change so often and I can get a new one every year and have the oppertunity to try another company if I am not satisfied. Thanks for the info!

@magicube: When I last checked, "Lying" and "fraud" were synonymous. And to emjsea: remember, everybody works for some type of "Company X". That's why they have all the legalities of their services posted on their literature. How many people (including yourself) actually take the time to read it. I bet if they/you did, then maybe you would make better decisions about signing contracts in the future.

The thing that gets me about Verizon is that there are some things they could do away with... like the 0.99 charge a day for their InPulse pre pay service. They even charge you on the days you DON'T use it. And their VCast, albeit a great service is way to pricey. Not only is it $15 but you have to pay for songs and music videos on top of it. But I have freinds who works for Verizon so I would like to say this to Verizon Steve.

You can upgrade to new phone at promotional pricing after one year if you are on a plan $49.99 or higher...NOT $59.99. That's why secondary lines on a Family Share plan don't get that perk. They are only $9.99 lines.

Yes, a one year contract allows you to upgrade after 10 months but again, at promotional pricing, NOT the New Every Credit (of up to $100).

Buy accessories and a text package and then cancel both the next day? Yeah, that makes sense. More than likey you'll need a car charger and case, and most states don't allow you to talk on the cell phone while driving so the headset (wired or wireless) make a lot of sense. You believe the number of people who return days later buying these things. If a sales person sells it to them they will still get paid from it. I won't even get started on the text messaging thing. If you are just doing even a moderate amount of texting, the $5 package makes sense.

Treos and other PDAs have office apps, a web browser, email sync capabilities and other high tech properties on them... so what idiot whould purchase that and not get the data package? Hell, you might as well get a regular cell phone.

Let's do the math on the insurance: It's at least $5 a month. The lowest price for a phone at full retail is $159.99 plus tax. Even at 25% off that it's around $115 plus tax. You pay insurance for a year...that's $70 and with the $50 deductible, that's $120. Hmmmmm. Now imagine you phone is an LGVX8300 which retails for $269 plus tax. Does insurance still sound like a rip off? By the way, anybody who has had their phone for three months, wnats to sign a new contract, and doesn't have insurance can get 25% off of a "Lost / Stolen" phone.

Look, cell service like all services has its good and bad. Sounds to me like "Steve" didn't meet his quota and got the AXE.

to comment on some of the comments and the original post, since i work for vzw.

the upgrade every year is called an "early upgrade." anyone can do it, it is nothing special and nothing we are hiding. if you are on a $59.99 rate plan the $20 EU fee is waived.

the ins is worth it if the phone is expensive, plus the cheapest phone full retail is around $150, so even the 5 a month and the 50 deductable is cheaper.

yes we get paid only on new adds and out of contract renewals, but guess what, it ranges from $.75 to $12.....WOW! big deal, people think that a sales job means we're snakes, but we are doing our job, and we do it honestly.

as far as the lost stolen program, i offer that to customers even if there phone they dropped in the toilet is right in front of me. OUR NUMBER ONE GOAL IS CUSTOMER SERVICE, WE WANT TO MAKE YOU HAPPY.

about making a ton of money and get txt and accessories to get a deal on the phone, wrong. again i said we make nothing on lines and 5% on accessories, not a big deal. guess what people its a low paying job, and without commission b/c of people like this guy "trying" to screw us over we would make about $15,000 a year. but anyway, we would never discount a phone for pkgs or accoriess added, they are already discounted to the max and if you dont get "metrics." its not a big deal, so they arent barganing tools like this guy makes them sound.

the last two are my favorites, dont get a 2yr contract. ok so on a 1yr you pay $50 bucks on a phone, BUT can upgrade it every year, for $50 more. BUT GUESS WHAT! on a two year its $50 less, you can still upgrade every year for $50 less AND if you make it 22 months, you get $100 off. also like the last guy said most people would rather save the $50.

someone said they cant get a 1 yr upgrade on a share line....wanna know why? b/c vzw pays around the full reatail price for the phones, we can discount them for your commitment of 2 or 1 yr and X rate plan. so at 59.99 or higher, we can afford to discount the phone again at 1 yr. but on a 9.99 share line, there is not much revenue on them, so they have to wait 22 months.

this guy thinks he is giving away secrets, but they are either common knowledge, or wrong. the things verizon does is not to harm the customer, quite the contrary, customer satifaction is our number one priority. but we are a FOR profit company, if we didnt make money, we could offer the best network available hands down, and we could reinvest $6 BILLION, MINIMUM a YEAR in the network alone keeping it the best.

finally the PDA data plan $100 credit. there is actuall a 90 day period that if the plan is removed you WILL be charged the $100 on your bill. THIS IS ABOUT TO INCREASE TO 1 YEAR.

also, and this is very important: you do not have to get the unlimited data, but keep in mind that without it the pda devises are always on to get email, the only way to turn it off is to block national access, which also stops you from doing ANYTHING on the phone except calling. so w/o the unlimited plan it is $.15 a kilobite, the home page of CNN will cost you $90. you might say i dont use the internet on it, recieving a picture message would be $7, and finally EVEN IF YOU ONLY TALKED, B/C OF THE ALWAYS ON FEATURE WILL TRICKLE IN FROM 500K TO 1000K A MONTH. we sell the plan so you dont have a crazy high bill. if you dont want the data plan...dont get the phone, that is what it is for!

thank you for reading, but now maybe you wont think we are nazi's.

Getting a free phone to replace other phones in a shared plan at Verizon does happen. I asked if we could get the free phone for a non-primary phone (mine).

At first, they said it was only for the primary phone but when I told them the primary phone wouldnt be traded in, they said yes, they could do it for the other phone. Then when we were ready to trade in the non-primary phone, the rep gave us a deal where my husband (the primary phone holder) also got a free phone since we wanted 2 of the same, with us paying for his phone up front and then sending in for a rebate ($50).

We also bought bluetooth headsets at the same time and signed another 2 yr contract, so that may have played a part, but the point is, we got 2 brand new phones for free (okay, we did have to pay the tax though).

johneutah21 says:

"Whoever you are, do the right thing and hand in your resignation, you are a disgrace."

GG homes, it says right at the very top of the article in bold letters:
8 Confessions Of A Former Verizon Sales Rep

He doesn't work for you anymore, so stop being so bitter about it.

Jim writes:

"The point that was made by the former Verizon Wireless Sales person about buying a Treo and receiving the 100.00 off because of purchasing a data plan was interesting however; I would be careful encouraging the consumer to take the data package and then deleting it the following day in order to receive the discount. While it is true there are no contracts for the additional data plan, if the sales person or their management are tenacious in terms of their sales results they will be monitoring this sort of activity.

Most sales groups receive a "charge back" when a feature, rate plan or service is adjusted, decreasing the original revenue generated. As a Director, I had my administrative staff review these reports monthly and then mandated the sales person contact the customer and re- sell the service.

If a customer took the equipment discount because of adding the data plan and then discontinued the data plan within the charge back period we would charge the customer the equipment difference on their bill."

Joe writes:

"Hi,

I seen this blog about the 8 tips of buying a cell phone. Lets say my name is Joe, and i work for verizon wireless.

There are some things you need to be made aware of before you start putting things on your website that might not be entirely true.

Yes 1 year contracts are the best. Upgrade in 10 months as opposed to 22 months. Only authorized retailers can haggle. Corporate locations pay there reps an hourly plus a small commission. Most people hate corporate stores. But in a corporate store the price is the price there is no negotiations involved.

The only place that there is negotiationis is at authorized retailers. Like the location that i work at. We are alowd to price the phones how we like. Alot of times i can beat coporate prices then sometimes i cant. Verizon is the only company that i have seen that competes against itself.

The thing where you can upgrade after 1 year of services not 2 is bogus. This is only true if A: your a merits customer. B: If you have had the phone for more than 1 year C: if it is the primary line on the plan (excludeds secondary lines) D: your phone is broke, lost, stolen and you dont have insurance. and finally if you have the new every 2 feature you will loose this. You also must do this at a corporate store or online.

It is pretty much an early upgrade to help someone out. Not everyone can get this less than half of people are merits customers. And they can not enroll in merits it has to be given via verizon.

Yes here i will haggle with customers on phone pricing if i have to. No data packages are not the root cause for negotiations. The plan is. We get paid on the plan and a combination of the phone cost. The bigger the plan the more the commision. If you want to get cheaper get a big plan then drop it down the next month. The rep will be happy and the customer will have saved a little of money.

Also insurance is definatly not a rip off. Some of the costs on these phone are rediculous. If say you bought and lg 9900 the cost alone is almost 360 here at my store (this is cost not 2 year activation price) If you loose or break it, and if you dont have insurance you will pay 460 dollars to replace it. Full retail price is a 100 dollars over cost in most cases. On an expensive phone i suggest insurance. Now there are some tips to insurance that most dont know about. You can request that you get a new phone not a refurb phone. You can also ask for a list of phones that are in your spectrum. Meaning another that is comparable to what you have. No less features but more than likely more features than you already have. Take for example the samsung 970, cool dude phone. If you had one of these and you broke it the phone got stolen vice versa they will more than likley send you the new version the samsung 990 which is 10 times better phone than the 970 and is way more expensive and you just got a 400 dollar phone for 50 bucks.

Phone models are constantly getting updated and discountinued. I would say if you bought a new phone today 6 months from now it will be discountiued and another will have taken its place. A newer model so to speak. Now of course you dont want to cheat wpp lockline. But in legit cases this is how it works.

I love verizon. I have had every other cell phone carrier under the sun and i prefer verizon over everything. The have great customer service and great coverage. We have been consumer reports number rated cell phone carrier for the last 5 years in a row. I dislike people taking stabs at how to cheat the company. Name any other cell phone company where the sales rep gives out there cellphone number to every customer he or she comes in contact with so the customer can call them on their day off to ask them how to put contacts in their phone. We do that. We provide excellent customer service and is excellent customer service worth paying 10 dollars more for? I think so. The internet cant help you program your phone or drive to your house to see what is wrong with your phone, But I can. And i do and that is why i am a great asset to this company and there are thousands more just like me.

But understand different markets work differently. There not all the same. Different locations work differently. If i were a buyer I would be aware of what the price should be and then find a agent that I can buy from again and again, that will take care of me on a sunday night when he is at home watching TV. If you cant find one call me and I will take care of you."