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

Posted by BeauHD on from the icing-on-the-cake dept.

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.

6 of 187 comments (clear)

  1. I switched to T-Mobile a few months ago by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Verizon's "baby come back" letters are pathetic.

    1. Re:I switched to T-Mobile a few months ago by demonlapin · · Score: 5, Insightful

      There is the small problem that there are only four widely-spoken languages in the Americas, that quite a lot of people will have to travel a long, long way to encounter more than two of them on a regular basis, and that one of them is so isolated from the European source that even native speakers will have difficulty making themselves clearly understood on more than a trivial level by speakers of only the European variety (Canadian French). Whereas Europeans can travel a relatively short distance and find themselves in a place where an entirely different language is in general use. Languages aren't all that hard, but skills that cannot be practiced without a lot of expensive travel are unlikely to be very robust.

    2. Re:I switched to T-Mobile a few months ago by Fly+Swatter · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Get yourself an audiobook and start learning Spanish. There are plenty of people in the US to practice with. Not being able to speak Spanish is almost pathetic.

      Get yourself an audiobook and start learning English. There are plenty of people in the US to practice with. Not being able to speek the primary language of a region, and planning to live in it, is pathetic.

      There, FTFY.

  2. Why, Verizon? by Sable+Drakon · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Seriously, with added fees like this, it's as if they're trying to get people to leave their service and forcing them into T-Mobile's very very welcoming arms.

    --
    The Amarri pray for god, the Caldari pray for profit. the Gallente pray for peace, but the Minmatar pray their ships hol
  3. Re:Please explain by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Verizon hates its customers. AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, etc. just want to make money, but Verizon is too big to care about lame stuff like mere profit. They have to be dicks about it.

  4. Re:You Yanks Are Stupid! by LostMyBeaver · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Of course they do.. what's the alternative? These companies build wireless networks able to span across one of the largest countries in the world with demands from customers to have 4G when an LTE tower has an effective range of about 8 miles of line of sight or 1.6 miles of rough terrain. There are individual farms in the US that could require 20 or more high powered LTE towers for coverage.

    It's not like Europe where there are 2-10 mobile service providers within a country and as soon as you cross to another country, you roam onto another network cleanly. Creating an LTE network in Europe costs nothing and the population density is much higher so the costs are covered more quickly. Also the governments understand the absolute critical importance of a functioning LTE network and fund their build out in to rural areas.

    The US is too busy deciding between Trump and Clinton... It's like "Would you prefer to be shot in the left temple or the right temple?"... Either way, NATO will be going to war large scale within 3.5 years.