dtsm

So when I upgraded to 6s this time, got whacked for a $45 activation/set up fee. Not happy but at least my wife happy to get new toy.

Fast forward to next statement: now two other charges. $40 upgrade fee and $11.00/month asurion mobile protection program! ...?

Dialed 611 to complain to Verizon, spoke with supervisor and given I have been a "loyal customer", they first cancelled the asurion monthly charge and then 'waived' the $40 upgrade fee.

Totally a non-TMO moment!

WIRunner

The sales rep needed to hit their device protection/insurance numbers so they added it on for your convenience.

Letitride3c

Good catch - DW dislike automatic bill pay for reasons like this, especially when traveling. So, the $45 upgrade fee remained on the balance due - is this on a personal plan or corporate discount plan ?

We used to get those 22% discount & upgrade was free ... no more.

Just in case those of you on grandfathered VZW unlimited plans haven't heard or been advised, the plan is going up $20 a month - Google it for details.

So glad we bailed out 2 years ago - nowadays, we can get a decent mid-range priced smartphone, without contract & unlocked for around $300 to $400 flat, with no pro-rated ETF, etc.

Of course, they knew we ported our family lines over to T-Mo but since given up on enticing us to "come back" with their offers ... except, when bundling it with Fios products by another division within.

CPRich

Vz has had these for quite some time - at least a year, as I bought phones for my family last October. I think you might be able to get a contract with ETF if you really try, but it's not easy.

I have the same 22% with Vz - TMo discontinued corp. discounts just before I switched from Sprint and they lost my business. The price was then almost exactly the same and after taking a TMo phone for their "test drive", it was clear Vz was a better choice for us.

lhgreengrd1

You still need to pay very high monthly charges on Vz. My mom lives in a bit of a canyon that only is well covered by Verizon and AT&T towers. She got an HTC One X brand new and unlocked that was originally made for AT&T's LTE network that cost $140 brand new, and she's paying $35 a month for unlimited voice and text, with 0.5 GB of un-throttled data on Net10. If she needs more date bandwidth (she doesn't), $40 a month gets the same service with 3 GB of data before throttling. The service runs on AT&T's towers (and can also be gotten to run on T-Mobile's towers).

I think that $140 for a pretty good brand new unlocked no-contract midrange smart phone and $35-40 a month for an unlimited voice/txt plan with enough data for most needs is about as good as you can get. I think her service is pretty good, and I'm tempted to switch to it as well, although I'd get the 3 GB data version for $40/month and I'd probably spend a bit more for an unlocked HTC One M7 or Samsung Galaxy S4.