Consumer Reports: Tiered Verizon plans no biggie for most customers

Consumer Reports: Tiered Verizon plans no biggie for most customers
http://www.macworld.com/article/1609...ered_data.html

--
"Your first, last, and only line of defense-a Cohort of Roman Heavy
Infantry"

Jim_Higgins wrote on [Thu, 07 Jul 2011 12:29:44 -0400]:
> Consumer Reports: Tiered Verizon plans no biggie for most customers
> http://www.macworld.com/article/1609...ered_data.html

This of course doesn't seem to take into account that the 2GB plan is
not eligible for discounts.

I checked online and what I thought was a 15% discount is a 20% discount I
receive currently on the "unlimited" plan. I am only paying 23.99 for that
plan currently. Plus taxes and fees of course.

How are you getting a discount?
bj

"Justin" wrote in message news:iv4n7b$i31$1@dont-email.me...

Jim_Higgins wrote on [Thu, 07 Jul 2011 12:29:44 -0400]:
> Consumer Reports: Tiered Verizon plans no biggie for most customers
> http://www.macworld.com/article/1609...ered_data.html

This of course doesn't seem to take into account that the 2GB plan is
not eligible for discounts.

I checked online and what I thought was a 15% discount is a 20% discount I
receive currently on the "unlimited" plan. I am only paying 23.99 for that
plan currently. Plus taxes and fees of course.

bj wrote on [Fri, 8 Jul 2011 16:36:42 -0400]:
> How are you getting a discount?
> bj

corporate discount.

Walk in, show your work ID, they apply the discount

>
> "Justin" wrote in message news:iv4n7b$i31$1@dont-email.me...
>
> Jim_Higgins wrote on [Thu, 07 Jul 2011 12:29:44 -0400]:
>> Consumer Reports: Tiered Verizon plans no biggie for most customers
>> http://www.macworld.com/article/1609...ered_data.html
>
> This of course doesn't seem to take into account that the 2GB plan is
> not eligible for discounts.
>
> I checked online and what I thought was a 15% discount is a 20% discount I
> receive currently on the "unlimited" plan. I am only paying 23.99 for that
> plan currently. Plus taxes and fees of course.

Justin wrote:
> bj wrote on [Fri, 8 Jul 2011 16:36:42 -0400]:
>> How are you getting a discount?
>> bj
>
> corporate discount.
>
> Walk in, show your work ID, they apply the discount
>
>>
>> "Justin" wrote in message news:iv4n7b$i31$1@dont-email.me...
>>
>> Jim_Higgins wrote on [Thu, 07 Jul 2011 12:29:44 -0400]:
>>> Consumer Reports: Tiered Verizon plans no biggie for most customers
>>> http://www.macworld.com/article/1609...ered_data.html
>>
>> This of course doesn't seem to take into account that the 2GB plan is
>> not eligible for discounts.
>>
>> I checked online and what I thought was a 15% discount is a 20%
>> discount I receive currently on the "unlimited" plan. I am only
>> paying 23.99 for that plan currently. Plus taxes and fees of course.
>
Yeah, but you see, unless you actually bought your phone for work-related
reasons, and you legitimately use it for work-related reasons, you may be
one of the "abusers" that forces companies like Verizon to raise their rates
(though I'm sure you would never consider yourself an abuser), and yes, even
to do away with work-related discounts originally designed to help small
business owners. This is not much different than why unlimited data plans
are disappearing. Take advantage of what starts out as a reasonable offer,
take the short term savings, pay the bigger price later. It's like a law of
nature.

Anyone who thinks they can outsmart the big companies is fooling themselves,
and hurting everyone else along the way.

Fortunately for me, an analysis of my bill, which has 4 smart phones on it,
shows that none of them exceed 2GB of data/month, so my monthly rate won't
change. But geez, I never took advantage of that "corporate
discount"...damn. I guess none of the 4 of us thought that our phones were
movie-watching machines either.

Carl wrote on [Thu, 14 Jul 2011 09:26:00 -0400]:
> Justin wrote:
>> bj wrote on [Fri, 8 Jul 2011 16:36:42 -0400]:
>>> How are you getting a discount?
> Yeah, but you see, unless you actually bought your phone for work-related
> reasons, and you legitimately use it for work-related reasons, you may be
> one of the "abusers" that forces companies like Verizon to raise their rates
> (though I'm sure you would never consider yourself an abuser), and yes, even

I fail to see how under any definition of the word, that if you use under
50% of the 5GB cap you can be called an abuser. I have gone over 2GB
often, but always seem to stay under 2.5


> to do away with work-related discounts originally designed to help small
> business owners. This is not much different than why unlimited data plans

Small business owners? Are you kidding, the discount I get is
due to a company with over 60,000 employees. The discount is to get
employees to use their company instead of AT&T or Sprint

> Fortunately for me, an analysis of my bill, which has 4 smart phones on it,
> shows that none of them exceed 2GB of data/month, so my monthly rate won't
> change. But geez, I never took advantage of that "corporate
> discount"...damn. I guess none of the 4 of us thought that our phones were
> movie-watching machines either.

You don't need to watch movies to go over 2GB

You also don't see that more and more uses of data are coming, like
video calls. The faster your device the more data you will use, too.

On 7/14/2011 9:26 AM, Carl wrote:
> Justin wrote:
>>>
>>> I checked online and what I thought was a 15% discount is a 20%
>>> discount I receive currently on the "unlimited" plan. I am only
>>> paying 23.99 for that plan currently. Plus taxes and fees of course.
>>
> Yeah, but you see, unless you actually bought your phone for work-related
> reasons, and you legitimately use it for work-related reasons, you may be
> one of the "abusers" that forces companies like Verizon to raise their rates
> (though I'm sure you would never consider yourself an abuser), and yes, even
> to do away with work-related discounts originally designed to help small
> business owners.

You don't know what you are talking about. The phone companies offer
them to employees of large for their personal use. There is nothing even
mildly abusive about it. Here is Verizon's page:

http://www.verizonwireless.com/emplo...-program.shtml

"Bill" <billrubin@prodigy.net> wrote in message
news:ivqg0v$2p0$1@dont-email.me...
> On 7/14/2011 9:26 AM, Carl wrote:
>> Justin wrote:
>>>>
>>>> I checked online and what I thought was a 15% discount is a 20%
>>>> discount I receive currently on the "unlimited" plan. I am only
>>>> paying 23.99 for that plan currently. Plus taxes and fees of course.
>>>
>> Yeah, but you see, unless you actually bought your phone for work-related
>> reasons, and you legitimately use it for work-related reasons, you may be
>> one of the "abusers" that forces companies like Verizon to raise their
>> rates
>> (though I'm sure you would never consider yourself an abuser), and yes,
>> even
>> to do away with work-related discounts originally designed to help small
>> business owners.
>
> You don't know what you are talking about. The phone companies offer them
> to employees of large for their personal use. There is nothing even mildly
> abusive about it. Here is Verizon's page:
>
> http://www.verizonwireless.com/emplo...-program.shtml

Is the form you directed the poster to, a recent form. When I applied for
my discount as a state employee, all I needed to do was use my work email
address. They sent a confirming email and when I responded they activated
the discount.

Carl

On 2011-07-15, Bill <billrubin@prodigy.net> wrote:
> On 7/14/2011 9:26 AM, Carl wrote:
>> Justin wrote:
>>>>
>>>> I checked online and what I thought was a 15% discount is a 20%
>>>> discount I receive currently on the "unlimited" plan. I am only
>>>> paying 23.99 for that plan currently. Plus taxes and fees of course.
>>>
>> Yeah, but you see, unless you actually bought your phone for work-related
>> reasons, and you legitimately use it for work-related reasons, you may be
>> one of the "abusers" that forces companies like Verizon to raise their rates
>> (though I'm sure you would never consider yourself an abuser), and yes, even
>> to do away with work-related discounts originally designed to help small
>> business owners.
>
> You don't know what you are talking about. The phone companies offer
> them to employees of large for their personal use. There is nothing even
> mildly abusive about it. Here is Verizon's page:
>
> http://www.verizonwireless.com/emplo...-program.shtml

I have discovered, however, that Verizon picks and chooses which
older plans qualify for that program, and what Verizon gives now
Verizon seems willing to take away later.

My phones are on a North Americas Choice plan which Verizon stopped
selling about 4 years ago. I have received an employee discount on
the plan price for the six years I've had it, but that stopped a
couple of months ago. When I phoned to ask why my bill had increased
they said that particular plan did not qualify for the employee discount
(I couldn't get her to actually say that this was a change, for
some reason known only to her. As far as she was concerned this
plan had never qualified).

Note that I had managed not to buy new phones for the lines on this
account for about 3.5 years, but we dropped one of them and broke it
so I had to purchase a replacement. The price increase came with
the first bill following the new phone purchase. While that could
be a coincidence, it may also be that the new contract I signed
changed my terms of service in a way which permitted them to do this
(though I actually read the thing in full before signing and nothing
jumped out at me; I hope I don't have to start taking the things to
a lawyer before I sign...), or they just wanted me to have made an
investment in a phone and obligated myself to pay the ETF before
doing this.

In any case, it seems that all good things can come to an end.

Dennis Ferguson

On 7/16/2011 6:24 AM, crkeehn wrote:
> "Bill"<billrubin@prodigy.net> wrote in message
> news:ivqg0v$2p0$1@dont-email.me...
>> On 7/14/2011 9:26 AM, Carl wrote:
>>> Justin wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> I checked online and what I thought was a 15% discount is a 20%
>>>>> discount I receive currently on the "unlimited" plan. I am only
>>>>> paying 23.99 for that plan currently. Plus taxes and fees of course.
>>>>
>>> Yeah, but you see, unless you actually bought your phone for work-related
>>> reasons, and you legitimately use it for work-related reasons, you may be
>>> one of the "abusers" that forces companies like Verizon to raise their
>>> rates
>>> (though I'm sure you would never consider yourself an abuser), and yes,
>>> even
>>> to do away with work-related discounts originally designed to help small
>>> business owners.
>>
>> You don't know what you are talking about. The phone companies offer them
>> to employees of large for their personal use. There is nothing even mildly
>> abusive about it. Here is Verizon's page:
>>
>> http://www.verizonwireless.com/emplo...-program.shtml
>
> Is the form you directed the poster to, a recent form. When I applied for
> my discount as a state employee, all I needed to do was use my work email
> address. They sent a confirming email and when I responded they activated
> the discount.
>
> Carl

It's what I found when I searched. I could not find the page I get to
from my company (and I just checked and the link from my company's
website is broken).

Bill

On 7/16/2011 6:09 PM, Dennis Ferguson wrote:
> On 2011-07-15, Bill<billrubin@prodigy.net> wrote:
>> On 7/14/2011 9:26 AM, Carl wrote:
>>> Justin wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> I checked online and what I thought was a 15% discount is a 20%
>>>>> discount I receive currently on the "unlimited" plan. I am only
>>>>> paying 23.99 for that plan currently. Plus taxes and fees of course.
>>>>
>>> Yeah, but you see, unless you actually bought your phone for work-related
>>> reasons, and you legitimately use it for work-related reasons, you may be
>>> one of the "abusers" that forces companies like Verizon to raise their rates
>>> (though I'm sure you would never consider yourself an abuser), and yes, even
>>> to do away with work-related discounts originally designed to help small
>>> business owners.
>>
>> You don't know what you are talking about. The phone companies offer
>> them to employees of large for their personal use. There is nothing even
>> mildly abusive about it. Here is Verizon's page:
>>
>> http://www.verizonwireless.com/emplo...-program.shtml
>
> I have discovered, however, that Verizon picks and chooses which
> older plans qualify for that program, and what Verizon gives now
> Verizon seems willing to take away later.
>
> My phones are on a North Americas Choice plan which Verizon stopped
> selling about 4 years ago. I have received an employee discount on
> the plan price for the six years I've had it, but that stopped a
> couple of months ago. When I phoned to ask why my bill had increased
> they said that particular plan did not qualify for the employee discount
> (I couldn't get her to actually say that this was a change, for
> some reason known only to her. As far as she was concerned this
> plan had never qualified).
>
> Note that I had managed not to buy new phones for the lines on this
> account for about 3.5 years, but we dropped one of them and broke it
> so I had to purchase a replacement. The price increase came with
> the first bill following the new phone purchase. While that could
> be a coincidence, it may also be that the new contract I signed
> changed my terms of service in a way which permitted them to do this
> (though I actually read the thing in full before signing and nothing
> jumped out at me; I hope I don't have to start taking the things to
> a lawyer before I sign...), or they just wanted me to have made an
> investment in a phone and obligated myself to pay the ETF before
> doing this.
>
> In any case, it seems that all good things can come to an end.
>
> Dennis Ferguson

So why don't you go back to the site where you sign up for the discount
from your company, and reapply for it? That way it's done automatically,
no middleman to make up excuses for why you do not qualify. I'm not
sure where you got the new phone from, but maybe they somehow turned off
the discount. I can tell you that I recently bought new phones for
everyone on my family plan (the primary line phone came from Wirefly)
and the corporate discount stayed (and in fact the discount for the data
plan got added automatically, sadly only for the primary line). And when
I switched my daughter's phone to primary a couple of years (so she
would qualify for NE2) all I had to do was enter her phone # on the
normal corporate discount page to get the discount to start again (since
it is tied to the primary line). Did you perhaps change the primary line
on your account? That would stop the discount.

With my corporate discount, the amount of the discount is not based on
the rate plan, it is based on the monthly charge. Below a certain amount
is one percentage, above that is a different one (1% higher).

Bill

On 2011-07-17, Bill <billrubin@prodigy.net> wrote:
> On 7/16/2011 6:09 PM, Dennis Ferguson wrote:
>> I have discovered, however, that Verizon picks and chooses which
>> older plans qualify for that program, and what Verizon gives now
>> Verizon seems willing to take away later.
[...]
> So why don't you go back to the site where you sign up for the discount
> from your company, and reapply for it? That way it's done automatically,
> no middleman to make up excuses for why you do not qualify.

No, you are missing the problem. I still qualify for the discount,
but my rate plan does not. The lady on the phone offered to "fix"
the problem by moving me to a current plan, for which I could get
a discount, but current plans including both Canada and Mexico roaming
(they apparently still offer inclusive Mexico roaming despite the fact
they don't advertise it) are a whole lot more expensive with the
employee discount than my current plan is even without it.

> I'm not
> sure where you got the new phone from, but maybe they somehow turned off
> the discount. I can tell you that I recently bought new phones for
> everyone on my family plan (the primary line phone came from Wirefly)
> and the corporate discount stayed (and in fact the discount for the data
> plan got added automatically, sadly only for the primary line). And when
> I switched my daughter's phone to primary a couple of years (so she
> would qualify for NE2) all I had to do was enter her phone # on the
> normal corporate discount page to get the discount to start again (since
> it is tied to the primary line). Did you perhaps change the primary line
> on your account? That would stop the discount.

I changed nothing at all. Verizon tells me I still qualify for a
discount, but my rate plan does not. If I want a discount I can
have it, but only if I change my rate plan.

> With my corporate discount, the amount of the discount is not based on
> the rate plan, it is based on the monthly charge.

I'll repeat it again. Verizon CS tells me I qualify for the employee
discount, but the rate plan I have no longer does. Not all (grandfathered)
plans are eligible for that discount, and apparently Verizon gets
to move plans from eligible to ineligible when they feel like it.

Dennis Ferguson