Verizon's Long Term Plan

Question

I am writing to try and save Verizon from themselves. I have had a Verizon Wireless Account for almost as many years as there has been a Verizon Wireless. I used to have four lines but a couple years ago my son decided he wanted an iPhone and at that time Verizon did not have a phone that could compete. I tried to persuade him to stay with Verizon on our Family Plan but he was determined to have the iPhone so he is now and AT&T customer. Even though I was paying for his phone service he was willing to take on the expense of his own account to have the iPhone. Now my daughter wants an iPhone but I was able to convince her that the Android HTC Incredible would be almost as good as the iPhone with better coverage and she could stay on my plan. She agreed to stay with Verizon and was willing to wait for the back ordered Incredible. When I tried to order the phone and upgrade my service I was told I would have to pay retail for the phone ($500.00!) which is not an option for me. I am not due for any "Upgrade" pricing but since I would be changing my plan and, of course, agreeing to a 2 year committment, I assumed that I would at least get a discount on the price of the phone.I was told this would not be the case.
So Verizon is losing my daughter as a customer. I will have to take a hit on my account because my contract goes through 6/02/11. But Verizon will take a bigger hit because my daughter is 27 years old and would have probably continued to be a Verizon customer for the foreseeable future. I am 60 so my foreseeable future is not nearly as long. And I am not sure if I want to stay with Verizon either. I have a land line (unlike my daughter and son) and I do use my cellphone for making calls (which my kids do not do so much) but even though I enjoy the better signal coverage of Verizon I don't enjoy being taken advantage of. I have been a loyal customer but I would like to think that my loyalty was appreciated by Verizon.
Most importantly, I think the short term profit that Verizon may be making on this decision will be far outweighed by the long term losses on the many young customers who are leaving Verizon. I have tried to keep two customers for Verizon but apparently Verizon does not want or need them. I believe that Verizon will someday regret this policy.

Answer 1

I asked to be allowed to do this and I was told I could not. This would have been an acceptable but it was not an option. By the way, the last phone I got from Verizon Wireless (Samsung Convoy) I paid full price on because I was not due for a new phone then either. I bought it to replace an LG phone that had difficult to use voice dialing. The Samsung Convoy was not functioning properly and even though I had paid full price and the defects were apparent soon after I bought it, I had to accept a "refurbished" phone as a replacement. In fact I now am aware that if you buy any Verizon cellphone and it is defective you will recieve a refurb when you get any exchange at all. (And they are pretty sneaky about this process, I might add.)
I'm pretty sure Verizon is doing ok on recouping on their hardware.
Anyway, the point is that I think it is short-sighted for Verizon to be churlish about selling smartphones to previously non-smartphone customers. Just bad business.