Does VZW allow you to buy Fascinate and deactivate it a month later? How useful will it be?

[potove]

I have two lines on my family plan account.

The first line already has a Fascinate on it, with 16 months remaining on the contract.

The second line is a plain old dumbphone(voice only) and under no contract. This line has been eligible for upgrade

at dicounted price since the beginning of 2005. (yes, I said 2005....  I never bothered to upgrade it)

If I order another Fascinate and put it on the 2nd line, it will obviously be $49 or $99(depending on what VZW or

BestBuy is selling if for at the moment)  

My questions are:

(1)  can I deactive it after a month or two and switch the dumbphone back to line 2?  I know line 2 will be under a 2-year contract which is fine with me.  I just don't want to pay the $29.99 month data charge for the fascinate on line 2.  (explained below)

(2)  I plan to use the 2nd Fascinate on Wi-Fi only and mostly use it as a plain media player.  Will it still be usable if I deactivated phone service from Verizon on this phone?

(3) if the phone is deactived, will it still have any warranty left? (let say a manufacturing defect is discovered 3 months after purchase...)

THANK!

[rcschnoor]

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potove wrote:

I have two lines on my family plan account.

The first line already has a Fascinate on it, with 16 months remaining on the contract.

The second line is a plain old dumbphone(voice only) and under no contract. This line has been eligible for upgrade

at dicounted price since the beginning of 2005. (yes, I said 2005....  I never bothered to upgrade it)

If I order another Fascinate and put it on the 2nd line, it will obviously be $49 or $99(depending on what VZW or

BestBuy is selling if for at the moment)  

My questions are:

(1)  can I deactive it after a month or two and switch the dumbphone back to line 2?  I know line 2 will be under a 2-year contract which is fine with me.  I just don't want to pay the $29.99 month data charge for the fascinate on line 2.  (explained below)

(2)  I plan to use the 2nd Fascinate on Wi-Fi only and mostly use it as a plain media player.  Will it still be usable if I deactivated phone service from Verizon on this phone?

(3) if the phone is deactived, will it still have any warranty left? (let say a manufacturing defect is discovered 3 months after purchase...)

THANK!

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1) You can switch back to the "dumbphone" at any time. You will have to go back in and manually cancel the data plan, though. Switching the phone back does not necessarily cancel the data plan at the same time.

2)I would think that It should still be usable as wifi/media player.

3)You will probably have to wait to see for this one until and if you actually need to take advantage of the warranty.

If you buy from someone other than Verizon, you should check to see the consequences if you happen to cancel the data plan after switching phones. There may be service guarantees that you have to agree to in order to receive the additional savings.

[DonM]

I would think that you would have to pay a termination fee for ending the second data plan early (about $350). I would suggest looking on eBay or craigslist for a Fascinate.

[rcschnoor]

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DonM wrote:

I would think that you would have to pay a termination fee for ending the second data plan early (about $350). I would suggest looking on eBay or craigslist for a Fascinate.

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The Verizon ETF is for the phone line only, not the data plan. If you have a phone active on the line that requires a data plan, you have to have a data plan. If you switch a different(older) phone back to that line that does not require a data plan, you can then cancel the data plan without any fees from Verizon. Whether or not you would incur any fees from Best Buy(or other 3rd party reseller) is another question.

[DonM]

I stand corrected.

[PJNC284]

yeah, Verizon doesn't have anything strictly prohibiting buying a phone that requires a data plan and then deactivating it and the data plan by putting a dumbphone on the line.  Online 3rd party retailers like wirefly, etc have wised up to this and charge a secondary ETF for anyone who changes within the first 6 months probably because they get a chargeback and lose the commission for selling the phone if it and the data plan aren't there for a certain period.

[Jax_Omen]

Buying from VzW: change the second line back to a dumbphone immediately if you wish, they don't care what phone's on the line, the contract is based solely on the line staying active for voice service and the device that was purchased with a discount.

third party: READ VERY CAREFULLY ANY CONTRACT YOU SIGN BEFORE TRYING TO DO THIS.

Either way, yes, it works great on wifi and as a personal media player even when deactivated. No idea on the warranty, but I'd assume it'd be negated.

[GinaH_VZW]

Thank you everyone for your knowledgeable answers especially about reading over third party's terms and conditions for the discounted phone price before your purchase. I wanted to make sure we have fully answered question 3. If the phone is deactivated, it would still have the one year manufacturer warranty starting from the date of purchase. 

Thanks