Julia and her husband are former unhappy Verizon customers who thought they had escaped by signing on with Alltel, only to be sucked back in when Verizon’s took over the company.

Now that they’re looking for a way back out, noting that service has gotten worse since they’ve been back in Verizon’s clutches:

My husband and I have a contract with Alltel that is supposed to end next year. When I heard that Verizon was buying out Alltel, both of us were extremely displeased, because we ended my husband’s contract early with Verizon a few years ago because of extremely poor customer service, among other reasons. I have since been looking for a way to end our contract with (now) Verizon without having to pay an ETF. I wouldn’t mind if they gave us an option of staying or leaving, but I am especially annoyed that it seems like we will have to get new cell phones at the end of the year, and that we’ll have to pay full price for them. Not to mention, our service has actually gotten worse since the transition — all sorts of dropped calls, text messages that never reach friends, and so on.

In any case, I wanted to contact Consumerist because I haven’t seen anything on the website about the Alltel/Verizon transition recently, or anything about being able to bail out of contracts as a result either now or at the end of the year.

Back in January, CNet posted a helpful Q&A about Alltel/Verizon changeover issues. And forums are raging. Have any of you had hands-on experience with the Alltel-Verizon switch?

(Photo: Jay Adan)

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