Cell phones...what a scam!

Our two-year contract with Verizon is running out and we can stay with the plan we have, or we have the option to purchase new phones at greatly discounted prices. Problem is, we must "re-up" for two more years, and it's not enough to just get the phones, we must get new car chargers and other accessories that we have for our old phone because the old parts are not compatible with the new phones (of course not, they want to make money on new stuff!)

My husband, since he has the main number, would be eligible to get his new phone for $50 minus a $50 rebate, so would get it for free. My phone would cost $100 minus a $50 rebate so would cost us $50. They were trying to tell us these phones are normally $400 phones. It's bullshit that these phones cost that much. They are not going to give us a $300 discount. They probably get them for practically nothing and are still making money even by giving one of them away. (They make money off the service, features and accessory fees which can be quite expensive.)

Then, our regular monthly service fee would go up $10. The salesperson pointed out that we would go from 500 anytime minutes to 700 anytime minutes for that extra cost and we could not have the option to keep it at 500. We never go over the 500 minutes we are allotted now, and we always have about 100-200 leftover minutes per month because we do most of our phone calls in the evening and on weekends when it is free. We asked if we could just keep the plan we have now, and just get new phones since what we want is the digital for better a better connection. The answer was no. We have to upgrade to the 700 minutes and pay more per month, even though we don't need it, just to get new cell phones! What a scam! They call it a "promotion" to get something better when in actuality it is just a ploy for Verizon to make more money off of people.

So, we just bought new batteries and we are going to be resistant for as long as we can. I know what they are going to do next. They will do what Cingular wireless did to my son and all of a sudden the existing service did not work with his phone and one day his phone just went dead. Cingular told him that he would have to buy a new phone, and sign another two-year agreement at an increased monthly rate in order to have their service. So, he switched to Verizon. But is it really any better? I don't know anymore.