Why does it cost more to use Verizon with a contract than without?

Question

I have been being charged outlandish overage charges.   47 cents per minute is totally rediculous.  I have also been being charged oveage for internet usage.  I was not notified.  For some reason, my email address was not updated even though I have called them a number of times in the past year.  I used to get messages on my phone that told me when I was coming close to my quota.  Now they only do it as a text message.  Guess what, not all of us text! I had blocked my phone from text messages when I got it.  Anyhow, my last two months bills have been outlandish because of overages.  I can get  a non contracted service for $45.00 a month that includes unlimited  cell phone calls, messages and Internet.  I do have to buy a phone, but even with purchasing the phone and prepaing for an entire year, it is less than the total of the last two phone bills from Verizon.  Does it make any sense to even have a contract? 
I have talked to two different verizon reps on the phone about this.  One told me it would cost $70 per unit to break the contract.  A month later, a rep said it would be $85 per unit to cancel the contract.  This does not make sense as you would think the closer you were to the renewal date, the less it would cost to cancel.  I am not cancelling at this time, as I will be better off to just let the contract expire, call them and tell them not to renew the contract and go from there.   I think it is terrible to charge more for a contract than for a non-contract.  Doesn't customer loyalty mean anything to this company? 

Answer 1

I can understand your frustration when you are suddenly aware of this huge bill after Verizon (it sounds like) from your perspective changes it's practices and is no longer notifying you the way they had been and didn't make you aware of it that you know of. We have all had the experience of feeling totally frustrated with a situation even when we recognise the part we play in the responsibility. I don't think taunting and making wise cracks with no constructive suggestions is called for. I seriously doubt any of us is perfect or hasn't had a similar feeling of frustration. That said I have no doubt you wish you had kept closer track in one of the ways so unconstructively suggested here. You might think about checking into upping your plan during the months you will be going over (it sounds like this is a more recent problem so something has changed) so your overages aren't so high. You can change your plan minutes and data anytime during the billing cycle and can even have it include the overages you have already incurred as long as the billing cycle is still open. That way you might pay an extra $10 or $20 (guess) for a bigger plan rather than more in overages. Verizon usually has this pretty well figured out so that having a contract is more cost effective than not unless you rarely use your phone and it doesn't sound like that's the case. As far as the cost of breaking the contract it has always been my understanding that you are correct and the cost goes down each billing cycle. I have also gotten completely different information from different reps at Verizon at times and I know how frustrating that can be as well. Good luck!