Verizon Plans $20 Upgrade Fee Even If You Pay Full Price For a Phone (macrumors.com)

An anonymous reader writes: According to a memo leaked by MacRumors, Verizon is planning to introduce a new $20 upgrade fee starting next week. The new $20 flat rate charge will begin next Monday, April 4, and will be applied to smartphones purchased on a Device Payment financing plan, or at full retail price. The premium will also apply to those who take advantage of Apple's new iPhone Upgrade Program. Verizon cites "increasing support costs associated with customers switching their devices" as a reason for the new fees. The new fee is in addition to the existing $40 upgrade fee for customers renewing a two-year contract with a new device.

Comments

Re:I switched to T-Mobile a few months ago

[Anonymous Coward]

I will never go back to Verizon after having went over to T-mobile. Much better prices, free tethering/hotspot, Pandora doesn't count against my data cap (and soon Youtube too), and customer service that doesn't treat me like they're doing me a favor by letting me use their service.

All Verizon has is a good network, and even that is now irrelevant unless you live way out in the boonies (or travel there a lot).

Re:You tell your carrier about your new phone?

[Anonymous Coward]

Verizon is a cdma and not a standard gsm network, they don't use sims like gsm networks and plans are directly tied to the phone. Support for sim cards are only used for 4g. US cell companies generally suck. Only t-mobile and at&t are gsm with somewhat different frequencies, while verizon and sprint are cdma networks. So yeah, half of our choices are proprietary networks that are locked down to a single phone often including "connecting" fees.