Ok…so today was the day I was all set to head on down to the ATT Store to get my iPhone.  I am currently in a contract with Verizon Wireless that according to my calculations should be up at the end of the year.  I understand that I signed a contract and I am obligated to live up to my end, but here is my issue…

Several times in dealing with Verizon during this contract period, they have screwed up our billing ending up in “late fees” and disconnections.  They totally admitted on several occasions that they messed it up, yet nothing was done to make it right outside of an apology and my service turned back on.  Then last year, my wife went in to the Verizon Store to get her corporate discount applied to our account and somehow when we asked the guy at the Verizon owned store if there would be any changes to our contract or length, we were told “no.”  So we did it to save the money.  Come to find out, when changing account primaries or adding discounts, you automatically add a year to your contract.  So, we now have a contract that extends to December 2009 not December 2008.  To make it worse, our service was transferred to another region which resulted in an account number change and the dropping of our auto payment from our checking account.  That resulted in late payments and disconnected service once again.  They tried to blame us for this problem…once again, the Verizon Rep said, “Nope, nothing’s going to change.”
Fast-forward back to today.  My wife called Verizon to dispute some of these problems, 1) because were aren’t happy with Verizon. 2) Because we aren’t happy we are looking to make a move to ATT.

We were totally willing to pay our way out of the remaining 5 months of our contract at a reasonable rate.  Yet, Verizon wanted to charge us $335 to buy our way out of the remaining 5 months.  WHAT!  You have got to be kidding me!  I share minutes with my wife.  My phone costs us like $10 per month as an extra line and they want to charge me $140 to get out of my $10 line and $175 to get out of Katie’s primary line.

Why is it that when we don’t pay our cell bill Verizon has the right to run the gamit of repercussions against us.  But, when they don’t live up to their end of the contract, we don’t have any rights whatsoever against them.  It just makes me angry. If you are looking at new cell service, take my advice, think twice about Verizon Wireless.  They don’t stand behind their service as much as they say that they do.