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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.

5 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 Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      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).

    2. 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:Why would I upgrade? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    I am glad you told me all about your family situation and your opinion about the need for SD cards. The discussion about upgrade fees was definitely helped by this invaluable information.

  3. Re:You tell your carrier about your new phone? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.