By Peter Smith

April 12, 2012, 8:30 AM —

Starting on April 22 2012, Verizon Wireless will have a new way of thanking you for being a loyal customer: charging you $30 for the privilege of buying a new phone from them.

Here's how it works. Existing users who are ready to buy a new phone with a new two year contract will be subject to a $30 upgrade fee. New customers won't be hit with this fee. So effectively phones will cost $30 more for existing customers than they will for new customers.

The best part is Verizon's justification:

"This fee will help us continue to provide customers with the level of service and support they have come to expect which includes Wireless Workshops, online educational tools, and consultations with experts who provide advice and guidance on devices that are more sophisticated than ever."

They suggest using their trade-in program to get a few bucks from your old phone in order to offset this new fee.

I've been a Verizon Wireless customer for many years. I'm told that other carriers have a similar fee and that in the case of AT&T and Sprint it's even larger ($36). I'm outraged by this fee on Verizon and I'll happily be outraged on your behalf if you're on another carrier that has been charging this kind of upgrade fee for some time. Why didn't you scream bloody murder when they instituted it? (Or maybe you did and I wasn't listening.)

Here's an idea, Verizon. Why not just charge for Wireless Workshops, online educational tools and consultations with experts instead of asking those of us who know what we want to subsidize the education of your other customers?

Sounds to me like the thing to do going forward is just switch carriers every two years so that you're always a new customer. Get a Google Voice number and give that out instead of the number the carrier assigns you.

We've had a long run together, Verizon Wireless, but when my contract is up I'll be going with AT&T. I'll see you again in another two years because I'm not paying AT&T their upgrade fee, either!

http://www.itworld.com/mobile-wireless/266914/verizon-reward-loyal-customers-screwing-them-over

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"Come out from man foul spirit. What is thy name?" And he said unto him, "Our name is legion, for we are many." Gospel of Mark, 5 - 8

Patriotism is your conviction that your country is superior to all others because you were born in it. George Bernard Shaw

Yuck, although AT&T is not so much better than Verizon, every time you renew your contract with the new phone they squeeze 30 something dollars and even new customers are charged same amount under activation fee. What I do is I usually complain enough and do some math to confuse the customer service guy that he removes all the extra stuff.

It's been that way here for years.

It's like the corps here just sit back a few years to see whats the best way to screw their customers over through what others have done overseas and then implement it here.

It's almost like they are trying to force customer loyalty to be a thing of the past, even at their own expense. Sounds like social engineering to me.

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Freedom is never free.

It's almost like they are trying to force customer loyalty to be a thing of the past...

It actually mostly deals with accounting practices, customer service is a cost and therefore in bacterial level of intelligence of most finance types it should be minimized...of course what the bacteria, err sorry, financial geniuses do not figure into their calculations is the acquisition costs of new customers and brand value.

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financial geniuses do not figure into their calculations is the acquisition costs of new customers and brand value.

I dunno Coalde, I have a hard time believing anyone working for such successful corporations can be that dumb and keep their jobs, unless the intended results of their actions were not simply to save/increase wealth but to engender in the general public the habit of going with whoever is providing the cheapest service at the time, regardless of what is beneficial for them in the long run. Thus making accurate predictions and manipulations of where our finances are going much easier.

any one got spare tin foil? I'm making hats. :D

I have a hard time believing anyone working for such successful corporations can be that dumb and keep their jobs

I have actually sat in a meeting room and listened to senior executives of major Canadian firms decide not to innovate...purely because they were concerned that their primary competitors would also innovate, thereby creating competition in their cozy little collusive oligarchy.

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That's understandable.

"That's understandable."

...understandable indeed! What is also understandable is how that mindset leads to such tragedies as Nortel and RIM.

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