How I Lowered My iPhone Bill

DON’T’LET MY MISTAKES BECOME YOURS!!! I have been with VZW for almost ten years. I have always been a good customer and paid my bill on time.  They are the only carrier I have ever had. They were great to work with at first but have gotten very difficult to work with and expensive. I am very disappointed with VZW’s CS. I thought that my 10 years of loyalty would account for something, but I have found out that all they care about is my credit card, especially on 2 instances.

1)            I renewed a  2 yr. contract and upgraded  to a 700 min. unlimited data family plan with 2 smart phones about  18 months ago. At the time I assumed liability of my wife’s #.  We went to our local VZW store (that’s all they sale, not some kiosk at the mall) and talked to the manager. We followed all of her recommendations when we renewed. She told my wife to upgrade her phone before she jumped to my account or she would loss her upgrade. WHY????  Activated the new phone in the store and approximately 5 min. later manager jumped her to my account. Manager activated my new phone and we left. 7-8 months later my wife’s phone died. She called VZW CS to get a new one. It was still in the 1 yr. man. warranty  right? WRONG!!!  We paid for monthly insurance on both phones too. CS told her that the warranty was void because she jumped accounts after the phone was activated (my phone that was bought at the same time was still under warranty ) and the only thing she could do was pay $100 deductible, but CS had no record of our insurance plan. WHERE IS MY MONEY GOING!!!  Apparently the store manager signed us up under some 3rd party insurance that her store uses. CS doesn’t even know it exists. Store manager acted clueless about the voided warranty issue. She wouldn’t  do anything to help. She was happy she made her sale and got her cut I guess.  After 2 weeks of running back and forth to the store to argue with the manager, and my wife calling CS several times trying to resolve this issue, no one would help. I finally called CS and told them to shut down my account because of their poor CS.  This got their attention and a CS manager got on the phone. I told him the story. He explained that the store was a third party store. They are not directly managed by VZW. I told him it has a  VZW logo on the store, I signed a VZW contract, and that should account for something. The store manager just wanted to make a sale. After arguing for several minutes he finally asked what it would take to keep me a VZW customer. A new phone was at our house the next day.

LESSON LEARNED: All VZW stores aren’t created equal.

2)            My bill has never been the same from month to month since we got smart phones. The quote was about $150-160. Depending on taxes.  It pushes $200-220. The bills are so hard to follow you can’t figure them out. We always stay within our minutes.  We have unlimited data and text. I also have a 20% discount thorough my work. WHERE IS IT AT!!! Last month the bill comes in at $230. Highest ever! Just past the middle of the billing cycle I received a text from VZW that we were about to exceed our minutes.  (First time in 10 years. Sister In-law was planning her wedding.) Click here to upgrade to the 1400 min plan for $19.99 more. I followed the prompts. Quit convenient, so I thought. We were billed for $55.00 overage charges plus the prorated amount of the 1400 min plan. So I called CS……Rep proceeds to explain to me that I did not back date my upgraded plan. It took effect the day (still not over minuet allowance) I upgraded and was prorated for the month.   I told her I made an effort to keep my bill from going over, I followed VZW’s link, and I thought “take effect immediately” meant I was covered. After a lengthy argument all she would say was “This is not an error by VZW”.  Which meant it was my fault for not clicking the correct button. I clicked “take effect immediately” instead of “back date” or something. She offered to take 20% off the overage charge. I said okay. Then she said some legally technical stuff and asked if I agreed to it. I said NO. I asked her why she couldn’t back date the upgrade being a member account rep and all. “Because it was already processed”.  She then said “Let me check something else.” WHAT ELSE COULD THERE BE!!! “Okay I can take off 50% of the overage charge.” By this time I was so frustrated I just okay. They never did make it right. 20 minutes of arguing only saved me $25.00 WHAT A JOKE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

In all, I am ready to just bite the bullet and terminate, it’s too stressful to call and argue every month. As you can see I have only dealt with VZW
and don’t know much about anyone else. Any advice would be appreciated about other carriers. We live in Utah. An idea of the final price after taxes and fees for 2 smart phones would be nice. I am currently leaning toward Sprint.
Thanks DK