Phone replacement options

[answerman1000]

My daughter is a senior in high school and just had the opportunity to march with her high school marching band in the 2014 Rose Bowl parade.  During the trip her phone was damaged.  She has 2 months left on the phone contract and is part of our family plan.  We just went to the Verizon Wireless store and was told that we could buy a phone at full price or try to find a place to repair the phone (not Verizon obviously since they did not offer that service).  The LCD is non-functional and the glass may be cracked (not sure as there is a screen saver over the glass).  I offered to take on the 2 months on my "contract".  They would not consider this. 

First where would one find a good repair place?

Second what has happened to customer service? 

I remember a time where people would try to help other people and create solutions.  We are not trying to cheat anyone of what is due.  We were only trying to solve a short time problem.  I am so very disappointed in Verizon Wireless.  We have been faithful customers for quite a while.  That means nothing so it appears.

I went on their website to find an email address to have this discussion in private first to no avail.  No email address could be found.  I am so sorry that my daughter has to be hit with this major disappointment two days after her great success and accomplishment.  Very few people can say they marched in the Rose Bowl Parade.  Even fewer as a high school student.

[tikibar1 · Accepted solution]

Congratulations to your daughter on marching in the Rose Bowl !

Sorry to hear about the damaged phone.  Unfortunately, Verizon usually just allows early upgrades of a few days in most cases.  They eliminated the e-mail option for Customer Support early last year.

Options to replace her phone until she's eligible for a subsidized upgrade include paying full retail price for a phone from Verizon, having the phone repaired (possibly the manufacturer for a fee or at a local cell phone repair shop), buying a gently used phone from somewhere like ebay or swappa, using another upgrade on the account if one is available, borrowing a phone from a friend, activating an old phone if you have one laying around, or a Certified Pre-Owned Replacement phone from Verizon (Certified Pre-Owned (CPO) Devices - Verizon Wireless).

[ttipgem]

Congrats to your daughter on the parade.  That's a great honor.

If the contract has not fulfilled the full two year term, then it is not eligible to purchase a new device at a subsidized price.  This is what you agreed to when you entered voluntarily into the contract.

You can, as the store mentioned, purchase a phone full retail price at any time.

Your other options might be to purchased a used device from eBay, Craiglist, swappa, etc.  Or from a friend or other family member.  Just be sure that it is a Verizon branded phone.

Alternately, if another phone on your family plan is eligible for an update, you could use that update.  That would mean that that use would then need to wait 2 months to upgrade their phone.

Another option would be to look at Verizon's Certified Preowned Phone program.

http://www.verizonwireless.com/wcms/consumer/shop/preowned.html

[tikibar1]

ninjas are running loose again tonight ...