Verizon wireless - Service Credit?

Author

Service Credit?

Robert Price

2006-02-15, 11:48 pm

I changed some terms in my 2 year contract and that reduced the contract to
1 year. I now get a promotion stating that I will get a credit if I call
and increase my service contract to 2 years.

Do I gain anything from this? How much is the credit?

Does the contract prevent my rates from increasing?

Is a shorter contract better because I can qualify for new equipment sooner?
or is it better because I have less time to incur the $175 penalty if I quit
while within the contract dates?

Thanks for the replies.

Rob

Quick

2006-02-15, 11:48 pm

Robert Price wrote:
> I changed some terms in my 2 year contract and that
> reduced the contract to 1 year. I now get a promotion
> stating that I will get a credit if I call and increase
> my service contract to 2 years.
>
> Do I gain anything from this? How much is the credit?
>
> Does the contract prevent my rates from increasing?
>
> Is a shorter contract better because I can qualify for
> new equipment sooner? or is it better because I have less
> time to incur the $175 penalty if I quit while within the
> contract dates?

Yes, the 2 year contract will lock in your price. I have yet
to see prices go up. So far the changes have all been for
more minutes per dollar. So far they have grandfathered
any discontinued plans even after you go month to month.
Discontinued plans are just not available to switch TO.

You are eligible for equipment upgrade discounts irrespective
of 1 or 2 year contracts. In fact, equipment upgrade discounts
are completely independent of contract start dates or end dates.
They are dependent only on the date of your last upgrade.
Note that you will have to enter a contract or extend an existing
contract to end 1 or 2 years from the date of the equipment
upgrade (depending on the discount).

NE2 is a separate promotion on top of upgrade discounts and
requires having been on a 2 year contract and signing another
2 year contract.

If you are going to get equipment and don't have definite plans
to terminate after 1 year and before 2 years you might as well
go for the 2 year contract. The ETF ($175) is the same for 1 or
2 year contracts. So you already are committed for 1 year. If
you stay for 1 year, you are very likely going to stay for an
additional year. With the 2 year contract the ETF has been
defrayed by the increased equipment discount. You can
effectively apply the additional discount to the 2nd year
ETF liability for comparison. You should look at it like
marriages and electrical equipment. 50% of marriages
fail in the first year and it drops off to almost nothing for the
second year. Electrical equipment failures are very concentrated
in the first 90 days of use and then tail off very rapidly until
the end of life. Amortize your risks and the downside of a
2 year contract over a 1 year contract is small compared
to the increased equipment subsidy. I don't know what the
value of the promotion is they are offering you.

My feeling is do the 2 year contract unless you know you
will terminate in less than 2 years or have some phobia with
being under contract.

-Quick

The Ghost of General Lee

2006-02-15, 11:48 pm

On Thu, 16 Feb 2006 02:16:58 GMT, "Quick"
<quick7135-news@NOSPAMyahoo.com> wrote:

>I have yet
>to see prices go up. So far the changes have all been for
>more minutes per dollar.

I'd have to take some exception to this particular statement. While
it is true that the effective price per minute has consistently gone
down, VZW (as well as many other providers) have done away with their
their cheaper plans under the guise of giving the customer more
minutes.

When I had VZW service, the last plan I had was the $39.99/mo AC1 plan
for 400 minutes with one LOS. I never once went over my allotted
minutes. Now that I'm on Alltel, I'm paying $59.99/mo for 900
minutes, plus $10/mo each for 2 additional LOS, and we haven't even
gone over 100 minutes yet. So we're effectively paying $20/month more
for (at least) 500 minutes we'll never use.

Roger Binns

2006-02-17, 5:48 am

"The Ghost of General Lee" <ghost@general.lee> wrote in message news:egp7v1586gekaa9
ckgj1b0im6ct31fa82o@
4ax.com...
> I'd have to take some exception to this particular statement. While
> it is true that the effective price per minute has consistently gone
> down, VZW (as well as many other providers) have done away with their
> their cheaper plans under the guise of giving the customer more
> minutes.

They also increase the nickel and diming. For example when I
signed up at the begining of 2003, you could get bundles of
SMS messages for $3. Now the cheapest bundle is $10. Similarly
1x data could be had for minutes of use whereas now I can't figure
out how to get data for less than $60 with all sorts of
draconian restrictions.

Unfortunately consumers are still just looking at the bottom line
price for minutes, so that is where the carriers compete, making
up the difference with all the other "services" behind the scenes.

Roger

Quick

2006-02-17, 5:48 pm

Roger Binns wrote:

> They also increase the nickel and diming. For example
> when I signed up at the begining of 2003, you could
> get bundles of SMS messages for $3.
> Now the cheapest bundle is $10.

Gee, that must be *very* recently. Just last week I added
100 txt msgs.(don't know if that includes unlimited IN txt
msgs.) for $2.99. (why the wife has suddenly taken to
sending txt msgs I have no idea...). I also added 250 txt.
msgs (with unlimited IN?) to the wife's line for $5.

-Quick

LinkBot