A few questions on upgrade fee, overage charge on prorated bill, and data usage when phone is on WiFi

Question

1st question, I bought 2 iPhone 4s's Dec 2011, unlimited plan which was up Dec 2013. April 19 2014, I bought 2 iPhones, 1 5c, 1 5s with the more of everything plan, which is not more of everything, it's far less then my old plan, but whatever. I got charged a total of $60 for a $30 upgrade on each phone. I'm not upgrading, my plan was expired, I bought 2 new phones and was forced into a new plan in order to get new phones, how is this an upgrade? Never been charged in all these years(early 2000's I became a customer) of being a loyal Verizon customer of an upgrade fee, unless I was upgrading my phone before the contract was done. If I was a brand new customer to Verizon would I get charged this upgrade fee?
2nd question, my bill cycle runs from the 24th to the 23rd, since I bought these new phones on the 19th, there were 5 days left to the billing cycle, so they prorated old plan and new plan. New plan is 1 GB, 5 days were prorated, I used in those 5 days between the 2 phones 371.77 MB, and I'm being charged for an overage of 206.61 MB of $15. Now my plan gives me 1 GB a month, that would be 1024 MB, I didn't go over this 1 GB in the month, so why am I being charged an overage for 5 lousy days?
3rd question, really 5 days and I used 371.77 MB's of data? Strange, didn't get the new phones until after 6pm on April 19th, yet I have all kinds of data charges on that day, when both phones were in my home, connected to WiFi the entire day. I spent the entire day online jerking around with 2 different Verizon employee's over getting new phones and a new plan in my home, on my computer, never touched my phone the whole day. Couldn't the day before I smashed the screen beyond use. So how on earth did I have all these data charges on that day? Now I could understand if I had, had the new phones earlier in the day, because there seems to be some strange glitch with these iPhone 5's were you use data, even when your phone is connected in your home to WiFi, but these were the 4s phones during the times of these data charges..
I'm not happy at all, first I got jerked around by 2 different Verizon employee's online, every option I tried they had some stupid reason why I could not do that and that I had to go with 1 option, I got so fed up, I didn't process my order online. I then turned around and went over to Sprint and spent time online with a Sprint employee, where I did not get jerked around, where I could have placed my order and then went to the store and picked up my phones right then. But no I was foolish, long time Verizon customer, happy with Verizon until this day, so I got in my car, drove to a store and spent an hour doing the whole process over with a nice friendly store employee(not a Verizon store). Now I get these upgrade fees, overage fee for 5 days of data service, where I was not over my monthly 1 GB, and all kinds of data charges appearing in the 5 days of the bill cycle on these new phones. Might not be much strange added on data to some, but in 2 years 4 months of the 4s iPhones, never used more then 1 GB a month and now so far I will exceed that 1 GB in this new billing cycle and by at least 1 GB, it would be 2 GB's except I shut one phone completely down and the other one is down to bare minimum, when nothing has changed in the way we are using our phones, and we are not using more data. I have now completely shut my phones cellular data off, I've turned it on in this billing cycle 6 times, bare minimum of only when I absolutely have to. The other phone, I can't do that with, and that phone is going through double, possibly triple the amount of data then the 4s, same user on both phones. I do now shut the cellular off of that phone when it comes into the house and it's not turned back on until it's out my door, so I will see if these strange data charges stop for when the phone is in the home hooked to WiFi. On top of that, I have shut down every app on that phone that is needed when WiFi can't be accessed, cellular is turned off except for 2 or 3 things. This is a bunch of garbage, I have 2 smartphones, and I have to shut them down and turn them into nothing but a normal old phone. What the heck is going on with this?

Answer 1

I will try to address your concerns - and explain why things are as they are ... you may not like the explanation but hopefully it will help you understand what has happened and what you can do moving forward.
I got charged a total of $60 for a $30 upgrade on each phone. I'm not upgrading, my plan was expired ...  If I was a brand new customer to Verizon would I get charged this upgrade fee?
Verizon's definition of "upgrade" is purchasing phone at a discount and agreeing to a new contract - if you are a brand new customer, you pay a $35 activation fee.  If you are an existing customer, you pay a $30 upgrade fee - this has been in place for about 2 years now.
2nd question, my bill cycle runs from the 24th to the 23rd, since I bought these new phones on the 19th, there were 5 days left to the billing cycle, so they prorated old plan and new plan. New plan is 1 GB, 5 days were prorated, I used in those 5 days between the 2 phones 371.77 MB, and I'm being charged for an overage of 206.61 MB of $15. Now my plan gives me 1 GB a month, that would be 1024 MB, I didn't go over this 1 GB in the month, so why am I being charged an overage for 5 lousy days? You only had the new plan for 5 days - pro-rating means you get about 34 MB per day, or about 170 MB for those 5 days.  If you used 371, that a 200 MB overage.  You likely were only charged for 5 days of the new plan as well...
...  I have shut down every app on that phone that is needed when WiFi can't be accessed, cellular is turned off except for 2 or 3 things. This is a bunch of garbage, I have 2 smartphones, and I have to shut them down and turn them into nothing but a normal old phone. What the heck is going on with this?
My daughter recently upgraded from her iPhone 4 to a 5c - her data spiked and she used nearly 1 GB in the first week where that was about what she uses an entire billing cycle.  We went through all her data settings and discovered she had about 10-12 apps (Facebook, Instagram, etc) that were updating all the time, connected to wifi or not.  She shut most of those off and will open the app and update manually when she is on wifi.  She downloaded and is using Onavo to manage her data and understand what gets used and when.  I hope we have it under control, but the defaults on the iPhone 5 seem to turn on everything to update constantly, and that's just not a good thing.
It does seem the iPhone 5 series takes more work than any phone I've ever used to keep data usage manageable.