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Buying a Cell Phone help

Allofus123

Allofus123

Here ducky, ducky, ducky!
Joined
Aug 25, 2001
Messages
3,869
Don't tell me to call Verizon as I have already done that and they're idiots.

My son graduated HS and when I asked him what he wants for graduation he told me a new cell phone. His provider is Verizon so I went to their web site and every phone listed has a discounted price IF you sign a 2 year contract. Since my son lives with his mom who handles his account I can not sign him up for a 2 year contract and wouldn't anyway..... what a crock. So I asked them how I could find out their regular retail prices and all I could get out of them was "which phone are you interested in". I'm one that prefers to compare features and prices and wasn't about to go down the list of some 50 phones they had available... totally unacceptable.

Any suggestions or web sites anyone would recommend to outright purchase a cell phone at a fair price?
 
Good luck trying to buy a CDMA (tech used by Sprint/Verizon) phone that is NOT from the carrier. From a technicality standpoint you could activate a Sprint branded phone on Verizon, but good luck trying to get them to do that for you.

Your best bet is to go to a corporate store, not one of those "XYZ Wireless" shops/kiosks that sell for everyone. While there you can get the retail prices for the phones. Even after doing that you will have to get your son to call, or go in, and give them the ESN (serial number, basically) so they can activate it on his service plan.

Hope that helps. Wish he had Cingular or T-Mobile. For GSM tech phones all you need to do is have it unlocked and just put in the SIM card.
 
I like these guys for info> linky

I'd post an ISO thread in the BST room.

I'm sure someone has an extra or older Verizon cell....then it's just an activation issue on mom's account.
 
OpusXKC said:
Good luck trying to buy a CDMA (tech used by Sprint/Verizon) phone that is NOT from the carrier. From a technicality standpoint you could activate a Sprint branded phone on Verizon, but good luck trying to get them to do that for you.

Your best bet is to go to a corporate store, not one of those "XYZ Wireless" shops/kiosks that sell for everyone. While there you can get the retail prices for the phones. Even after doing that you will have to get your son to call, or go in, and give them the ESN (serial number, basically) so they can activate it on his service plan.

Hope that helps. Wish he had Cingular or T-Mobile. For GSM tech phones all you need to do is have it unlocked and just put in the SIM card.
Click to expand...

X2....CDMA pnones are the main reason I dropped Verizon and went to T-Mobile, features locked out and such.
I will tell you, you're going to get soaked at a retail store, funny thing is, cell carriers treat new contracts like kings/queens, but us long time customers can only get a new phone every 2 or so years. funny how that is.
I recently purchased an unlocked phone on fleabay for Tmobile network, no problems at all. Do a google search for CDMA phones, that may point you in the right direction.
Rob
 
grateful1 said:
I'm sure someone has an extra or older Verizon cell....then it's just an activation issue on mom's account.
Click to expand...

Don't think I can get away with buying an old used model as a graduation present. I'm shooting for the "Cool" effect. ;)


Rob_k said:
I will tell you, you're going to get soaked at a retail store, funny thing is, cell carriers treat new contracts like kings/queens, but us long time customers can only get a new phone every 2 or so years. funny how that is.
Click to expand...

Yea, I figured I'm hosed no matter what I do here. If I owed the account I'd run it right up the chain of command for customer retention. Thats always fun. :D
 
I've got a phone my wife stopped using in December when I got her a new one.
It works fine, it'd come with chargers etc and is in good working order. She used it on Verizon so I know it's compatible.
It doesn't have a camera, but does have a nice color screen and some decent 'simple phone' features.

If you want I'll send it to you, if you're interested just shoot me a couple smokes or something, if not? Cool.

Let me know
Rob
 
Kenny, go to a couple of different Verizon carriers. Find the manager and explain the situation. They should be able to help you.
 
My wife has had excellent success getting phones on fleabay. So long as it is a Verizon phone, its a simple act to turn down the old phone and turn up the new one. We've done in many times with my kids.
 
...and if the old phone has a SIM chip, you can swap them between old and new and have all of your previous information right there.
 
One thing to inquire about as this happened to a friend of mine.

Verizon may not allow you to activate on older models of phones if the phone does not have a GPS enabled / compliant (or something like that) chip. I think there is some federal rule that all new phones must have this GPS enabled chip and if not, I believe Verizon will refuse to activate it.
 
Kenny, I'm sure you can get this one pretty cheap. He'll be the envy of his HS buddies:

cell-phone-old.jpg
 
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