On a Distant Verizon…
Due to my daughter once again blatantly ignoring the house rules on cell phone usage and racking up almost $89 in text message charges last month, she’s been removed from the family plan. I removed myself, too, because I just don’t use it, leaving only my wife on an individual plan and saving us about $70 per month. But my daughter’s total disregard for rules and continued flagrant disrespect for us, the providers of her rather costly privileges, aren’t the only annoying cellular phone issues.
About three years ago, I created the three-line account with Verizon, adding the two new phones to my line and converting my individual plan to a family plan. Seemed quite straightforward at the time. The holidays rolled around the following week and the two new phones showed up Christmas morning, ringing loudly on the tree.
It wasn’t until I decided to look into a new phone for myself a few months ago (about four years overdue, my phone being quite outdated) that I discovered that Verizon had switched the primary line away from my phone number, which I’d had with Verizon for many years, to the last line added — my daughter’s phone number — without my knowledge or request. She was 15 at the time I added her to the account. Unfortunately, this affected everything about the account, making it impossible for me to take advantage of the free or reduced phone offers for my line, leaving me unable to access certain features of the account, and requiring an additional two-year contract extension upon any changes to her or my lines.
After a quite lengthy conversation with Verizon, their response to me was that I should have requested that my existing line remain as the primary line, and that it was now impossible to change without imposing a new two-year contract requirement with penalty fees for early cancellation. To me, that’s not much different than ordering coffee in a restaurant, watching a waitress pour the coffee onto the table, having her berate me for not requesting a mug, and then charging me for replacing the coffee-stained tablecloth. When adding a line for a minor, who in their right mind thinks to request that the adult accountholder must continue to have control of the account? Shouldn’t that just be obvious? It’s just another case of a company blaming the customer for its own stupidity. You can’t tell me that the fix is anything beyond updating a single field in a database table somewhere.
Since the rule-breaking daughter is now required to get her own cell phone account, I had no choice but to dissolve the family plan today, otherwise my wife would have lost her phone number, my contract would have been extended at an old, expensive rate, or my contract would have been renewed for a minimum of two years — all unacceptable options.
You’d think in these fickle days that companies would do more to retain long-time customers.
Yowza! She just opened up her own account at Verizon and is now contracted to spend $90 per month for pretty much the same plan she had before on my account, with the addition of not-quite-unlimited text messaging. Personally, not a choice I’d make on a Hot Dog on a Stick paycheck. Maybe businesses like this have absolutely no incentive to keep the long-time customers paying $100 per month for three lines, because they can sucker in the young, text-dependent ones at basically the same rate for a single line.
I’m quite happy with the plan I have from PacBell Wireless, I mean Cingular, or is it AT&T - who knows… Anyways, $40/mo for 450 anytime min (5000 night/weekend) which gets rolled over - so I have a lot of anytime minutes right now - and unlimited cell to cell with other AT&T wireless customers (my fiancee being one.) I seem to be paying $5/mo for unlimited texts (used to be $10) plus an extra $20 for unlimited data use. After taxes and all, just a little over $70 - so your daughter is not a smart shopper a/o Verizon is a rip-off (but you knew that already…)
FYI: I have no affiliation with any cellular provider, except for being a customer. I have many times been tempted to leave my current provider - but I’m just too lazy (luckily, I’ve been upgrading my phone independent of my carrier - so I am free of a contract and can go at any time…)
Ah, but you’re not a girl. Since when did 450 minutes suffice? Ever seen those high-pitched, yacking teenage girls on those annoying commercials?
Having had both AT&T and Verizon phones, I’d say Verizon provides significantly better coverage in the Bay Area. In addition, an equivalent plan from AT&T would cost $85 with only 200 text messages, as opposed to Verizon’s $90 plan with unlimited network texting plus 500 out-of-network texts. And she keeps the phone she already owns.
Is she spending way too much? Absolutely. Would I pay that kind of money for a single cell phone line? Not a chance in hëll. If I was in her position, I’d take the free route that my parents offered and stay within the long-established boundaries. Apparently, the desire to make up her own rules outweighs the pain of the expense, the yearly equivalent of 100 movie tickets. Ouch!
(On a side note, not being 18 until next month, she didn’t qualify to sign the contract, so she is phoneless.)
I seem to recall from the one Bus Law course I took that a minor can’t be held to any contract they sign. The example was something like a minor contracting for a service and then failing to pay for it. The contract was not enforceable against them because they are a minor.
Might she actually be really smart and “[contract] to spend $90 per month for pretty much the same plan she had before on my account” but in actuality get a free month of service before she turns 18?
LOL
UPDATE: Verizon would allow her to get a phone as a minor, but she’d have to deposit $500 with them first. She didn’t want to do that. I did offer to let her pay the delta between a two-line account for us (the parents) and a new three-line, upgraded account with her on it. Since the delta was $60, plus tax, she decided to take my offer instead.
Still, if I was in her shoes, I’d've gone the no-texting but free phone route.