Last word from me on greedy Verizon. Have you all noticed when searching for new phones on line, fairly high-quality phones are offered for free or deeply discounted at sites like Letstalk.com, wirefly.com, intelenetwireless.com, (inphonic.com)...but they are offered at Verizon for a much higher price even when "upgrading"? The catch is, you have to be a brand new Verizon customer or change carriers when purchasing from those other (inphonic.com) sites.
So if you are a brand new Verizon customer, you get rewarded with the free phone or deep discounts....but if you are an existing customer, you get no reward from Verizon for your years of loyalty. I wonder if more Verizon customers got together when our contracts were ready to expire if we might have more leverage in getting the same deeply discounted or free phones?
I am so naive to the upgrade process. I've been with Verizon for a few years now and in April04, a salesperson called asking me to renew my service which apparently had expired in Nov03. Because I was in need of a new phone, I said I would renew for one year but only if I didnt have to pay for a new phone. He said buy a phone, call me, and I will credit your account $50. I'm just now looking at a Samsung-a650 but have to renew for 2 years to get it at the 2-yr plan price ($19.99@Radio Shack, $59.99@Verizon). In other words, having renewed for that one year didn't buy me much. Am I way off base here? Should I have done something different...like only having to have to renew one additional year to get the 2year-plan price? So confused.

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