Verizon Changes Edge Program to Allow Upgrades in as Early as 30 Days

verizon wireless moneybagVerizon just announced a “promotion” that will allow Edge Program participants to upgrade their device in 30 days instead of 6 months. Now before you get too excited, Verizon customers, there is some fine print involved. Just like the old program, you are required to have paid off at least 50% of the value of your device and trade the device in to be eligible for this early upgrade. This was also announced as a promotion, but no end date was given.

This plan really makes no financial sense in any way I can see. Let’s use a Samsung Galaxy Note 3 as an example device. For all of these examples, I will show your out of pocket cost after you get rid of the phone. For re-sale values, I used the average sale price of this device on two popular reseller sites: CellTraderOnline.com and Swappa.com. The average price for a used Samsung Galaxy Note 3 on Verizon is currently $548.

  • Full retail price of this device is $699.99. Phone is yours to keep or sell. $699.99 purchase price minus $548 resell, loss of $151.99
  • On the Verizon Edge Plan, the payment is $29.31 a month. You pay off the device over the course of 24 months. If for some reason you went past the 14 day return period and then wanted to get rid of the phone, you would have to give Verizon the phone back and pay them $350 for the privilege of using the phone for 30 days. There is currently a zero dollar down promotion for those with approved credit, so on this plan you would have to pay $350 and give Verizon the phone. Loss of $350

You can see in the example above that the Edge program is by no means intended to benefit the customer, it is meant to ring every last penny out of your bank account. It is a good concept when your service is discounted, like T-Mobile, but when you are paying an inflated service cost that was built with subsidies in mind and then pay again for your phone, you are always going to lose.

So, go ahead, use this new plan if you have money to burn. Or you could just send me the money, either way you are out hundreds of dollars. But if you send it to me, I will send you pictures of me spending it, so there’s that.

Source: cnet

Image: Digital Trends

About Gavin Hall

Gavin is an awesome husband and a fan of anything that makes beep beep noises.