# Why does Verizon offer discounts to employees of so many companies?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-verizon-offer-discounts-to-employees-of-so-many-companies/733447
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [October 3, 2015, 11:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-verizon-offer-discounts-to-employees-of-so-many-companies/733447 "2015-10-03T23:58:34Z")
**Posts on this page:** 5
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@boffking](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/boffking)
#### Post date: [October 3, 2015, 11:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-verizon-offer-discounts-to-employees-of-so-many-companies/733447/1 "2015-10-03T23:58:34Z")
Verizon has a very long list of large companies whose employees they give discounts to. Why do they do it? Are they all companies Verizon owns stock in? I can’t imagine how they would benefit if I left my job at a local IT company to work for Cisco or Microsoft.
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### Author:  [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)
#### Post date: [October 4, 2015, 12:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-verizon-offer-discounts-to-employees-of-so-many-companies/733447/2 "2015-10-04T00:04:45Z")
We can get discounts from AT&T or Verizon because my employer has large contracts with them for mobile phone services. It’s possible that these contracts may include a discount for employee’s personal cell phones.
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### Author:  [@TallTrees](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TallTrees)
#### Post date: [October 4, 2015, 12:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-verizon-offer-discounts-to-employees-of-so-many-companies/733447/3 "2015-10-04T00:52:04Z")
Because of competition.
Other cell phone companies offer such discounts under the same circumstances to get business. If Verizon chose to not do the same, they’d be waving goodbye to the opportunity to have those customers.
My large employer has the same arrangement with three carriers, take your pick. Each of the three wish to be considered, we’re nearly 50,000 employees in total. That’s a lot of potential customers when you consider it can be used for family member accounts in the employee’s name too.
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### Author:  [@glowacks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/glowacks)
#### Post date: [October 5, 2015, 12:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-verizon-offer-discounts-to-employees-of-so-many-companies/733447/4 "2015-10-05T00:34:39Z")
Because the marginal cost of additional subscribers is very, very, very small, but there is a limited pool of people from whom all companies have to draw on. They have to charge some rate to pay off their fixed costs and investors based on how many customers they expect to have, but they can definitely charge less if they know they’re guaranteed many more customers.
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### Author:  [@Mudshark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mudshark)
#### Post date: [October 5, 2015, 6:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-does-verizon-offer-discounts-to-employees-of-so-many-companies/733447/5 "2015-10-05T06:29:12Z")
As other said, competition. Where I work, we get a Verizon discount, because we do a lot of their collections work. I don’t even work in that division, and I get the discount. It’s not something most of the people I work with know about, since they don’t advertise it.