Verizon wireless, that is. Used to be, every 2 years you got a free phone thruogh their “new every 2” program. I used to get $100 off the price of a new phone every 2 years if I renewed my contract. Couple years back they changed it, because I am not on a data or texting plan, I only get $50 off. Fine, I could still find free phones after the discount.
Recently, they sent me a mailer claiming that I can get my new every 2 discount about 6 months early. But instead of 50 bucks off, I get a “$50 mail in rebate debit card”
I don’t think so you assholes. I know full well why you switched, and it’s so that not as many people will be able to claim the 50, and you can make some interest off the money you @#%ers hold for 4 - 24 weeks (or whatever, I didn’t read the fine print).
So, when my contract is up, you guys had better have switched, or I’m taking my business elsewhere. Maybe that’s what you wanted all along…
I dropped them after a 2 years of BS regards their billing practices - bills came randomly. The amount on the bill and the amount they told you that you had to pay over their automated system weren’t even close sometimes. I was told by a customer service rep. this is because your billing period “closes” 6 days before the bills are actually printed. That seemed designed so that a person would not get an accurate statement.
I dropped them for AT and T - where every month I am happy to see a normal bill that looks a lot like the bill the month before. The service is better, too. I’ve got kids in Asia and New Zealand and AT and T works there without an up-grade or huge increase in fees.
I’m cancelling them when my contract is up as well. I got tired of roaming charges so I switched to the Nationwide Plan. Then I got a ginormous bill with roaming charges after travelling through West Virginia, which, since 1863, is a part of our nation.
I was told that I should have read the fine print about the roaming area. …
I was going to mention AT&T. I haven’t had any problems and my bill’s identical each month. I got laid off a year back and missed a payment and they didn’t charge me a late fee or shut anything off—just paid double when I got a new job. Been with 'em for seven years now and, really, no complaints.
I had Verizon Wireless for six years.I fnally dropped them last month for T-Mobile. I never did have a problem with them though. The reason I switched was because for the same amount of money I was paying Verizon for just voice I could get what I currently had plus unlimited data for a smartphone. I tried to get Verizon to come down in price but they didn’t seem interested. I guess with the Alltel merger they are now the largest wireless provider in the US and couldn’t be bothered to try and keep a customer of six years.
Ditto on AT&T. I’ve only had a cell phone for about six months, but my husband has been on their plan for four years. I added a line on his plan for $9.99 a month, plus I got a free phone.
I have no problem using my phone anywhere, and I get to keep my rollover minutes. I’m very happy with AT&T.
Whatever you switch to, avoid VirginMobile. They suck ass.
After my big roaming charges, AT&T told me that I shouldn’t trust the phone’s display, because it doesn’t always say “roaming” when you’re roaming, I need to follow the map. I think that was the only time in my life I actually cursed at a customer service person.
With that being said AT&T pulled the same shit on us. We borrowed from a savings account so we could put the cash back when the rebates came in. Sure enough, here come two debit cards. :rolleyes:
With that being said, though, we’re on our 4th upgrade with AT&T and that’s still the only complaint we’ve had. We just upgraded to iPhones and we confused the entire staff since our contract predated every employee there.
I’ve had Verizon for years without any problems. I recently got a new phone and was also upset about the $50.00 gift card instead of the rebate, but I did recieve it in about 2 weeks. If it helps, if you pick out your new phone from their website, they just knock an additional $50.00 bucks off the price of the phone. No rebates, no giftcards. I would recommend going to a Verizon store to find out which phone you like and then just picking it up online. They ship it overnight/ 2 day for no extra, or at least they did for a friend of mine. It’s annoying, but still better than paying extra.
It depends on where you are/live. Verizon Wireless worked like a dream in my old neighborhood. It was as good as my wireless DSL at home, and at a couple of local Starbucks. But there was no signal at all in much of UCLA South Campus, and in Palms where I live now, the signal is so poor that they actually allowed me to cancel our air cards without having to pay the ETF, owing to a “known problem”. Our mobiles don’t even work everywhere in the apartment, and the air cards never did. Downtown Culver City by the studios is equally bad. AT&T isn’t any better, from what a neighbor in the building tells me.
“More bars in more places”? What a joke. Around here we’re lucky to get a couple of feeble ticks on the TX meter.
Yeah, I know,it is what it is. All the big mobile companies have pros and cons and everybody will have good and bad experiences on a individual basis. It is kind of nice that we have so much choice, to be honest.
All of West Virginia is a blackout zone for all the wireless carriers except, I believe, Alltel or maybe it’s Cellular One, which has a virtual monopoly over the state. And what they allow other carriers’ phones to do over their signal is limited; even in places where I had a 4 bar cellular signal on my Verizon phone, I never was able to get online with it at all. And that was in the relatively sizable town of Beckley. In smaller towns and more rural areas, my phone is a brick, not even capable of getting off a 911 call, and that’s even driving on the interstates.
This would bother me less if my family didn’t own vacation property in West Virginia and I weren’t scheduled to go down there very soon. That we’ll be outside of a town with a population of 302 makes me feel pretty sure that I’ll be essentially cut off from the world for a week.
As for Verizon, between the unwillingness to ever put dates on their advertisements and the consequently apparent random “let’s end that nationally advertised special on Tuesday the 11th” decisions that follow (which made my “new every two” phone $119 rather than $19) and the gift card nonsense, and the steep difference in data plan pricing from regular phones to “smart” phones (I have unlimited mobile web on an LG EnV for $5 a month, “unlimited-with-limits” data on any smart phone starts at $35 a month) and the utterly shitastic service in the Verizon stores and…
I have 11 months and 6 days left on my contract, and then it’s syonara Verizon, hello iPhone and AT&T. Thank you very much.
OTOH, this choice is somewhat illusory, since there isn’t really a “bad” provider and a “better” provider, only providers who have screwed you over, or haven’t screwed you over… yet.
I’ve got Verizon in my sights; I have a Blackberry, which has worked reliably everywhere I’ve gone (it’s the 8830, world ed.) Recently, I’ve started having problems with the phone part, which I rarely use because of the unlimited data setup. So much so that I’m considering a switch. I have an aircard through work and I manage a fleet of just shy of 100 of the things and aside from the occasional network hiccup, here in Chicago, I’ve had excellent coverage and just about average tech support. The account rep though, kicks 5 kinds of ass.
You can have your Verizon’s and your AT&T’s. The regional carrier I’m on has great coverage, excellent customer service and will swap my battery out FOR FREE no questions asked. The only way I’d leave them is if I moved out of their service area.
I understand the idea of dead spots and other areas where I could make a call, but not browse the internet. But in an area where there is signal, and I have a “Nationwide” plan that I specifically switched to three years ago for the express purpose of avoiding roaming charges, I feel that I was greatly misled by being charged for this.
Am I wrong for wanting a little truth in advertising here?
I spent about a week in West Virginia 2 years ago, and used my Verizon Wireless phone often during that time. I didn’t get hit with any roaming charges… (This was mostly in the Fairmont/Morgantown area, but we went as far south as Charleston.)