iPhone Users Should Nix 2 Year Verizon Contract
If you enter into a 2-year Verizon contract you are going to get screwed. Here’s the math:
- When you buy an iPhone in a 2-year contract you get a $450 discount off the retail price. If you immediately terminate that contract you pay a $350 penalty, saving $100. But that isn’t really why you should terminate the contract.
- When you add an in-contract phone to their most popular plans you will pay $40 a month. Over the next 24 months this will be $960.
- When you bring a full-paid phone to Verizon you will pay $15 per month to add the line. Over the next 24 months this will be $360, or a savings of $600.
So even if you are not comfortable with signing a 2-year contract and then immediately canceling it if you just pay the full-price for your iPhone you will save the $360 in monthly fees.
In case you decide to go under a 2-year contract you should beware that they get you once again in the “end-game”. If you cancel in month 23 of a 24 month contract you still owe $120, or over 1/3 of the entire contract! Apparently, Verizon doesn’t consider a grossly distorted pro-rata program to be fraudulent business practices.
Verizon has one more “gotcha” up their sleeves: If you UPGRADE an existing line under a 2-year contract they will not allow you to terminate your contract unless you terminate and give up your phone number. They know how to play a good game of hardball. Their heart must be carved from cold stone.
So here is how to do it:
- Buy your new iPhone as a new line of service under your existing Share Everything account.
- Within three days of activating the phone call Verizon and cancel the new line of service. Offer politely to pay the full $350 termination charge, and tell them politely that it is your intention to move your SIM card over to your old line of service. DO pay the $350 termination fee when it shows up on your next bill. Play fair; play by the rules of the contract.
- Now, move your SIM card over from your old (out of contract) phone to your new (now not in contract phone.)
- Call Verizon back and ask that they apply a “Bring Your Own Phone” discount (usually $25 per month) to your line. (It’s only $15 if you choose a data plan under 10 GB, so consider applying some of the savings to upping your plan to 10 GB!)
Enjoy the savings, smart-you!
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I am a Verizon customer. I admittedly understand the logic of all of this.
It just shouldn’t be this hard Verizon.
But here’s the problem: every line in the account has to be out of contract to get the BYO discount, if I’m not mistaken. I have six devices (including a MiFi), and four are still under contract. I would have to pay the ETFs on the remaining four devices, which have between 9 months and 21 months left on their contracts.
Plus, you can’t take the micro-SIM out of an iPhone 4S and put it in an iPhone 6, as the latter only takes nano-SIMs.
I have an out-of-contract iPhone 4S, and went into my local VzW store to enquire about the recently advertised free iPhone 6 trade-in program, in reality a $200 trade-in, only to be informed that it was no longer available.
So I asked about discounts for BYOD instead. It turns out that if you have a Share Everything plan, then you can indeed get a $15 per line discount for out of contract devices. The catch is you have to ask, and they don’t backdate it.
Maybe Verizon has been reading your blog!