{"id":652633,"date":"2013-04-12T12:55:05","date_gmt":"2013-04-12T16:55:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mobilemoo.com\/?p=28749"},"modified":"2013-04-12T12:55:05","modified_gmt":"2013-04-12T16:55:05","slug":"want-to-upgrade-your-verizon-phone-youll-have-to-wait-four-months","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/652633","title":{"rendered":"Want To Upgrade Your Verizon Phone? You\u2019ll Have To Wait Four Months"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/p>\n

If you have tried to score an early upgrade from Verizon in the past year or two, you might have walked away disappointed. Ever since they picked up the iPhone in January, 2011, they essentially stopped allowing customers to upgrade before their eligibility date. <\/p>\n

“If you’re a doctor and absolutely need it, that’s a situation where we can help,” a Verizon store manager told me last year when I attempted an early upgrade. “And even then, there are absolutely no early upgrades on iPhone.” <\/p>\n

Instead of stonewalling customers, Verizon did make a concession. Previously they featured a 22-month upgrade cycle. That is, while your contract runs 24 months, you could upgrade your phone two months before your contract expired. In the last year or so, they reduced that to a 20-month upgrade cycle. That certainly compensates, at least a little, for the absolute rule of no early upgrades.<\/p>\n

Today they changed that, and at the expense of the consumer. From their corporate newsroom<\/a> comes a notice that customers are now on a 24-month upgrade cycle. That is, you can’t upgrade before your contract actually expires. This is sure to spark some anger among consumer advocacy groups.<\/p>\n

\"VerizonLogo\"<\/p>\n

In a way this makes sense. The staggered nature of upgrade and contract expiration dates can cause some confusion among consumers, even if it benefits them. It also probably benefits Verizon in terms of paperwork. But it’s also a big drawing point for retaining customers. When a customer has a contract expiring in November, and you can extend that for another two years by offering them an upgrade in July, you’re probably going to retain him or her. <\/p>\n

The 20-month upgrade remains from now through essentially the end of August. Customers who have contracts expiring in January, 2014, are the first affected. Those customers would be eligible for a 20-month upgrade in September, but instead will be the first group to wait that extra four months. Those who have contracts expiring up to December 31, 2013, can still upgrade four months before contract expiration. But that means they’ll have to wait 28 months for their next upgrade. <\/p>\n

Also part of the announcement: all New Every Two credits will disappear into the ether this Sunday, April 15th. We knew this was coming for a long time; Verizon killed the program in January, 2011 — coincidentally the same month they announced the iPhone for their network. Chances are eligible customers have used these credits by now, but there are surely some who have not. <\/p>\n

In the end this represents a slight inconvenience for customers who have contracts expiring after January 2014. When Verizon did away with early upgrades, the switch to a 20-month upgrade cycle helped considerably. Now that they’re back to the standard 24-month cycle, and still don’t allow people to upgrade even a day early, they’re going to have a lot of frustrated customers. <\/p>\n

Via Phone Scoop<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The post Want To Upgrade Your Verizon Phone? You’ll Have To Wait Four Months<\/a> appeared first on MobileMoo<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you have tried to score an early upgrade from Verizon in the past year or two, you might have walked away disappointed. Ever since they picked up the iPhone in January, 2011, they essentially stopped allowing customers to upgrade before their eligibility date. “If you’re a doctor and absolutely need it, that’s a situation […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7435,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-652633","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/652633","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7435"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=652633"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/652633\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=652633"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=652633"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=652633"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}