Trying to Switch To Verizon from ATT

[Xplorer4x4]

My girlfriend and I are ATT customers atm, but I am sick and tired of there service(both cell service and customer service). I am trying to convince her to switch to Verizon. I had her convinced until...we found out our early termination fee would be about $350 and there was the nail in the coffin. Between buying our new VW phones(Droid 2 in my case, she was going to get a Droid 2 as well but changed her mind and decided to stick with the iPOS4:icon_evil: ) which would be about $350. Sorry but $700 is to much for our budget in a month. So I am trying to come up with ideas of how to cut costs and get the transition done ASAP.

Option 1: Not sure this would work, but I think we can drop one phone line from our plan at any time with out paying a cancellation fee. Drop it to one phone..give it a few days, and then try to close out the account paying only 1 of the cancellation fees. I would guess they would probably make me pay the whole $350 anyways..

Option 2: Wirefly.com If we sign up for a Verizon plan on here, we get two Droid 2s for free. Problem is she really wants her iPhone 4. So seeing as we didnt buy the phones from a Verizon retail location would she have to buy the phone out right rather then the contract price?

Option 3: Wirefly.com What if we signed up for one Droid 2 through wirefly, then went to the store and added a second line. Would she be able to get the $200/2 year contract price for the iPhone?


On a side note, I formatted her Laptop the other night..we had no choice to make a long story short. She didnt want me to waste time backing up her actual OS/App data. Now she has lost all her iTunes info like play lists and apps if they were not installed on her phone. I tried to show her how the Android Market works and how this wouldnt happen on an Android! She still wont do it, so I am out of ideas on how to convince her. I been an android user(Motorola Backflip using Preclair ROM) so I am not new to android and pretty familiar with the advantages of android, but welcome to ideas to try to convince her!

 

[watt9493]

Wirefly = bad in my book. Js. You cant really change ANYTHING when uoure locked in. You go over minutes, you pay through the nose. You go over data or hreak a phone? Ha. Good luck with that. Droid incredibles are 100 after rebates and such. Why not join us at the hTc DROID family? I too was in the position you're in (only one line, from tmobile) and I had to bite the bullet, cause I didn't feel safe dropping calls. Sorry for the long post bud. Just tryin to help.

Sent from my ADR6300 using DroidForums

 

[Xplorer4x4]

Thanks for the response, but that was far from long lol. As for wirefly, I guess I need to do my research. Lack of sleep tonight..guess I didn't think about it. Care to elaborate on your comment? I know a friend of my girlfriends got a phone off there awhile ago. She got it for next to nothing or nothing and she had no problems. She was not signing up for a contract but still never heard her mention any problems with it.

I will pass on the HTC. While I realize there the best phone for nodding, I don't like sense UI, which is really not a problem as I use ADW Ex. I also need a qwerty keyboard so the Droid 2 is the only option, plus I love the Droid 2. I don't mind paying the extra 50 but free vs 150 is a big difference lol.

Sent from my MB300 using Tapatalk

 

[Ckepascoe]

My wife and I switched from sprint to verizon. to get out of our sprint contact we Said we moved to a place that kdad no sprint service, provided an address and they were fine with it. Account closed that had 4 lines. Don't know if att will fall for that. As far as wirefly, I think they are the best. Get a single phone and your plan. I think the only penalty wirefly has is if you down grade your service. So it should be possible to go to verizon and upgrade your plan to a more expensive family plan and get the iphone at new contact price for your lady. How that helps

Sent from my DROIDX using DroidForums

 

[Hawaiian Princess]

Sorry to hear that. But sadly ATT has many dropped calls but vzw customer svc is not all there either. I'm a loyal vzw customer for many many years but there are times just can't get any help.
Is there someone who is willing to take over ur contract? Maybe it might be easier that way, unless they don't offer it? Outrageous isn't it when its $350 PER phone?

sent from my Hawaiian Xoom...ALOHA

 

[gsu_golfer]

Look into Amazon for a discounted third party retailer. They offer good discounts and basically no restrictions. Their only restriction is that your line stays active for six months (you have to sign a two-year contract anyways, so this is irrelevant).

 

[Xplorer4x4]

@Ckepascoe, lol that address trick is funny, but sadly I dont think it would work around here. Its kind of a metro area. I live in Evansville,IN which is the third largest city in Indiana, which doesnt say much since the rest of the stat is mostly corn fields lol. Sadly coverage is just to dense here I believe.

@Hawaiian Princess, its $350 for two phones on ATT atleast in our case. I realize VZW may not be perfect, but keep in mind its not just the network I want to get away from, its the customer service. I would say the majority of the contract ATT has managed to screw up our bill in one way or another. Sure they give us credit for it, but you reach a point when putting a bandage on the problem is just not good enough any more. Just the other day I got charged for an app I did not buy, and it was not the first time. Now when I called customer service they said they were raising the DSL service cost about $2 and raising Cell service costs $2-$3. Thats per month. We are under contract on the cell service, just not DSL. How can they raise the cell service price in a contract? I went to my local ATT store. The guy did not bother to look in to the issue, all he said was I have never heard of ATT rising the price on some one in contract in the 5 years I been here. Well good for you guy, that helps me none. After leaving, the girlfriend and I discussed it further and were not satisfied with that answer, and yes I did pressure the guy for a better answer. I did so in a nice cal tone to. I didnt lash out at the guy as I have done so before both in store and over the phone to ATT reps only when being a nice guy got me no where. I have worked in call centers so I had to be one of those guys who blows up on them.

Anyways so at store #2, we finally got it figured out, DSL service was going up, our cell service was not, but the guy spent so much time pitching us the slower less expensive DSL service when I had made it clear multiple times, the $2 increase was not appreciated because I was not informed, not because the service is over priced(ATT offers 6 mbps advertised, 5 mbps real world for $40 a month. Cable offer a fiber optic connection for $40 locally with speeds of 10mbps advertised, but due to living in an apt complex, they restrict us to ATT DSL for internet).

@gsu_golfer, thanks I will try amazon.


Now keep in mind, we could probably afford to make the switch if it came down to her accepting a D2 since we would only have to pay the ATT cancellation fee.

 

[Ckepascoe]

Well it might, I live in louisiana and told sprint I lived in and area in indiana that had no coverage I provided a friends address who lived there and I was good to go.

Set from my Droid X

 

[Hawaiian Princess]

isn't that just sad? I have my own personal tech/rep at a local vzw store here and he is absolutely one of a kind guys who goes out of his way to make sure ur taken care of. now weather im bringing business to him or the store, wish there were many like him to go around. im sure there are, somewhere.
I personally think the contract cancellation is much too extreme but understandable I guess. gosh I hope u folks can find alternatives to release u from that contract and head over here. but then again, vzw like I said has their fair share of customer svc issues. its the luck of the draw on who u get huh...

sent from the Hawaiian D2G

 

[gsu_golfer]

My experience with Verizon has been as follows:
-The customer support over the phone is TOP NOTCH. No problems whatsoever with that.
-The in-store customer support is as good as it's allowed to be. The individuals themselves are just fine. The method of servicing customers is rather poor and inefficient, however. But when they get to you, they do a great job.

 

[Xplorer4x4]

Can you hear me now?

Well we were bale to raise some extra funds and the store manager at VZW offered us a $50 credit on the first bill which more or less just cancels the activation fee so that helped to.

I have to say that the ATT Rep I talked to in the cancellation department about weather we could retain our unlimited data if we used the 30 day grace period to reactivate ATT. The answer was no but thats beside the point. The guy was an ace! If I were the average idiot off the street I would never have switched with the amount of lies and bs he fed me. The best one was that web pages will take 2-3 minuets longer to load on VZW. He even suggested car ports to be an issue with why I drop calls on ATT which I suppose is possible but just found it funny.

The week before I complained to ATT about dropped calls and the girl sent me a new sim card free of charge since mine was rather old..IT WASNT EVEN ACTIVATED! I had the thing shipped to me so I wouldnt need to bother with the store and I end up having to go to the store anyways! I suppose security wise this is good, but she could have atleast told me that.

So far we seem to have better over all reception usually one more bar over what our ATT phones have at any given time. Just earlier my girlfriend dropped an important phone call with her dad 2-3 times with her ATT iphone(not sure why she was using it). So far I havent dropped any calls on VZW.

@gsu_golfer you seem to have a point with in store customer service. The reps are always helpful just seems a bit inefficient and I always end up waiting when I go in there. ATT I rarely ever had to wait.