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Limit of 5 lines for family!!

teejaa6

The "One Too Many" thread is locked and Read Only so I'm starting a new one. I have the same exact story as in that thread. 6 in my family and I cannot add my 11 year old daughter to our family plan. Was told at the mall and on the Customer Service line today that I have to create a new account and the minimum charge for Talk and Text would be 50 or 60 bucks per month...just to add my youngest daughter to a Verizon plan!! Give me a break. I told Customer Service that there's an in between number of the 10.00 bucks for 6th line and the 50-60 bucks they're requiring. How about charging me 15 or 20 bucks for any line over 5? They're making money hand over fist anyway. Had no clue there was a limit until the folks at the mall informed me.

Asked about prepaid options but the cheapest would be more expensive than adding a new 6th line (50-60 bucks/mo.) And if I get here a "track" phone from Walmart or something, any minutes between our daughter and us will count against both plans/limits.

Been with Verizon for years but between the lack of quality "Featured Phones" and this stupid limit, we will definitely shop around for different carriers now. Although I'm seeing all the major carriers have the same 5 line limit on a given Family Plan. What a racket!

Anyway, if anyone has faced this same frustration and found a decent solution, please let me know. Our "donation" to Verizon of over 170.00/month is quite enough for this family.

Comments

budone

Have you checked to see if you could get a business account?

teejaa6

Thanks for the suggestion.

Yes, but business account requires a tax id tied to it....something like that.

budone

A tax ID can be a Social Security Number, they should know that

teejaa6

a business account...do i have to prove i own a small business or something? is this a doable solution if i simply give them my SSN as my tax id? they already have my SSN, i'm pretty sure.

anyway, i'll check into it. thanks much.

anyone else run into this?

Coaster

This isn't anything new, when I was activating cell phones at Best Buy in '04, we occasionally ran into this with a family. None of the major carriers offer a family plan with larger family plans. As another poster said, that's more than the average family. It also prevents a small business from taking advantage of this and getting everyone in the office a phone. Even back in 2004, we had families that had to opt for small business lines, or sometimes, two family plans.

That said, I feel that there needs to be an inbetween. Sometimes, people have big nuclear families. I would say that if they would allow an in between price for add-on lines over the 5th line, without going to a business account, that people would accept that. Call it a Family Plus Plan. Require that they prove that they have that many people in their family, via tax records or something. And you know there would be people that would be outraged at that, so the employee would have to say something like; "In order to prevent abuse of this Trial Offer by small businesses posing as families, we would ask that you submit to Verizon records of residence of all family members at this address. You can mail in copies of your tax forms, or this document, or this document, or bring in the social security cards to a local Verizon office for verification within 60 days. If you don't provide verification within 60 days, your account will revert to a small business account."

Something like that would work, if they wanted it to. IF. They wanted it to.

SuzyQ

Coaster wrote: "In order to prevent abuse of this Trial Offer by small businesses posing as families, we would ask that you submit to Verizon records of residence of all family members at this address. You can mail in copies of your tax forms, or this document, or this document, or bring in the social security cards to a local Verizon office for verification within 60 days. If you don't provide verification within 60 days, your account will revert to a small business account."....

Something like that would work, if they wanted it to. IF. They wanted it to.

We are currently on a family plan, using all 5 lines. Four of us live in the same household; one lives across the country in NY State. I know of many family plans where the members do not live in the same household (son or daughter away at college, adult children like me with parents on the plan, etc). Residence in the same household is not (and should not be, IMO) a condition of a family plan.

A family plan is up to a max of 5 ines. It has been that way as long as I can remember, and is consistent across carirers. For whatever reason - profitability is likely the major reason - more than 4 add on lines @ $10 each (also an industry standard) is the point at which it becomes non-profitable. I doubt it's going to change.

Options - 2 family plans; one family plan + pre-paid for those who use the least; older children break off and get their own plan; possibly others I haven't thought of. Family plans are a great deal, but they do have restrictions, and 5 lines max is one of them.

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