<p>Ok so it’s time to upgrade DH’s phone (broken). The phone we scoped out over the weekend (free) today costs $29 online. So reluctantly I go to buy it and hey presto there’s a $30 “upgrade” fee. Now that upgrade allows (cough) me to sign up for a new two year contract. So a phone that appeared to be free this weekend is now going to cost $60. Every new order from now on (as of April 22, 2012 according to the service rep I e-chatted with and according to the sales rep I phone chatted with) will have the “upgrade” fee. I’m ready to cancel a decade’s worth of business. Why does it always have to be blood pressure skyrocketing time when dealing with these cell phone companies? I think I’ll go live in a cave.</p>
<p>Does this $30 upcharge seem like false advertising (free phone but oh wait $30 charge to “upgrade”) to you? It sure does to me.</p>
<p>H’s ancient phone died and so he reluctantly came into the modern world with an iphone from AT&T…our service for 20+ years. Yep, there was a one time, $30 service fee for upgrading to an expensive phone and another 2 year commitment. sigh.</p>
<p>Gotta believe the inventor of something that makes phone companies obsolete will be very popular…</p>
<p>Ahh, so Gosmom, At&T is also using the upcharge. Fruggah. We have three of four phones ready for upgrade and I was thinking of paying the $175 cancel fee on the fourth to register outrage. Would switch perhaps to At&T but guess not. For the moment I’m voting with my not dollars by not upgrading. Will dig out an old phone and try to get it working instead. The heck with a new phone. Will poll my friends: somebody is bound to have a useable dinosaur phone in a drawer somewhere.</p>
<p>I thought I was the only one who got suckered by VZ. I’m pretty sure they didn’t have this charge a year or two ago. I feel exactly the same way as you do.</p>
<p>I am ready to get a new phone. However, the phone I am currently using with Verizon is perhaps the cheapest phone that was available over 4 or 5 years ago. I wonder if I choose not to upgrade (choose a comparable low end phone), will there still be an upgrade fee? After all, it would not be an “upgrade” if it has the same no frills features, that is, if they are even offering these low budget phones.</p>
<p>I upgraded my phone as well and got the $30 fee, but I also got $9.99/month off for each phone on our plan that has a data package, so for us, 4 phones. I’ll pay $30 to save $40/month for 12 months.</p>
<p>We are thisclose to switching to Virgin since we are paying the same amount right now for telephones without data plans as we would be to upgrade. DH is crazy about the service with Verizon.</p>
<p>SteveMA, Explain this 9.99 off each phone line with a data plan. we have a family plan with 5 phones, right now 2 have the $30 data, I might go to data for myself this fall. we have an older plan and not a lot of minutes because the kiddies, and even myself, do more texting than talking. 5 phones w/2data plans and one insurance plan runs us near $200. Are you saying I could get 9.99 off the data lines? That would be good because then if I got data it wouldn’t be much more.</p>
<p>By the way, I just read this week that Verizon is getting rid of unlimited data this summer. After some some date (July–sneaky huh, right before iphone5) anybody who upgrades phones will no longer be grandfathered into the unlimited plan. They want to offer some kind of family data plan but no details announced on that.</p>
<p>How does that work? Family buys 5GB of data and then fights over who is using more than their share? Really? Time to start tracking data usage…</p>