Squeezing the deal out of Verizon's double-talk
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}When Verizon announced radically lower prices for its cell plans earlier this year, Dick Lambert was a happy man. Finally, the Minnesotan and his family could enjoy rates comparable to those offered by AT&T and Sprint.
By signing up for the Verizon Edge Share Everything plan, Lambert computed that he’d pay $300 per month for five new smart phones sharing 10 gigabytes of data. That included the data service and the purchase cost of the phones (one iPhone 5s and four Samsung Galaxy S 5 phones), based on 20 interest-free installments. But what really attracted Lambert to the Verizon Edge Share Everything plan was that his monthly service bill would drop, he predicted, to just $175 per month once he paid off the phones.
Not bad, considering that under the traditional two-year contract, Lambert’s plan would continue to cost about $300 per month just for the service, on top of a $675 down payment for the five smart phones. (Prices don’t include taxes.)
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Find the best deal on service, and use our cell phone buying guide and Ratings to get the right phone.
But Lambert said he was shocked when one of the sales representatives at the Verizon store told him the monthly $15-per-phone service fee on the Edge plan would shoot up to $40 per device once the phones were paid off, completely erasing the discount. Worse yet, none of the Verizon sales staff could show him any documents that stated that policy.
Lambert called the Minnesota attorney general and asked whether he could file a complaint. He said the attorney general's office was sympathetic but didn’t seem confident that it could coax a response from Verizon. So Lambert reached out to Consumer Reports, and we contacted Verizon.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}The company’s e-mailed response: “The customer would pay the same line access rate after paying off the phone. The plan does not shoot up to $40 per smart phone.” Indeed, from that point on, the sales representatives contacted by Lambert and Consumer Reports confirmed that. We’re not sure our call had anything to do with the apparent change by Verizon—or whether an official policy regarding such fee increases had ever existed. But we’re glad we helped Lambert, who is now enrolled in the Verizon Edge Share Everything plan.
What does that mean for consumers?
If you think your cell service provider has used a bait-and-switch tactic, you can take a couple of steps to make it live up to the promised deal. First, contact your state attorney general's office; it’s a long shot, but it might able to intervene. Next, make sure you have copies of the original ad announcing the plan you are interested in. Ask the store to show you, in writing, any deviations from that plan. Then call the company’s public-relations staff—not customer service—and tell them you are planning to showcase the discrepancy on Yelp. That should get their attention.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}—Mike Gikas
This article also appeared in the November 2014 issue of Consumer Reports magazine.
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