Being Charged to View Music, Ring tones, AND ringback tones!????

[tallguysmom]

We just upgraded because my chocolate, which I loved, got caught in between my purse and my wheelchair and busted the screen. I had paid insurance for it for a year only to find out I could purchase a new phone cheaper than the $50 charge for a refurbished phone comparible to the one I had. My DH and myself opted to get new phones instead. It was explained that if we bought a blackberry that I wanted we had to purchase a MB package for about $23 dollars more each month. So I opted for the LG voyager because of the qwerty keyboard ( i am an avid texter). We just got our first bill. It was $100 more than last months even though we changed nothing. Come to find out we were made to upgrade to the new plan, and now it costs to search for music, and tones on the phone which then since you don't have the MB package you get charged per MB.

I have decided this is like going to Sears and them charging you to look at their catalog whether you purchase anything or not. If it was explained to us that we would lose our Americas Choice plan, I would have gotten a used verizon phone to use. 

WE are now looking into switching to different providers. At least some that are outfront about their policies. This is a really sneaky trick Verizon did. Not only that, we cannot even use most of the features we are paying for because we live out in the "boonies" To get them to work we need to travel to a bigger city. 

I am really upset. Even though it was not explained, they say they cannot switch us back however, the people that have not upgraded their phones still have the plan we were on previously.

This is not fair. Especially since we don't even use up our minutes with 4 phones on our contract.

Are you upset? Let them/me know. This is not Chicago this is a little podunk little town in the middle of nowhere. Speak out.

[Spanky]

You certainly should have been informed of the change in pricing, but there is a reason for the requirement.  The Voyager has an HTML web browser, (better-than-average for a phone) basically meaning that the device itself is really built for data services.  The new plan is actually a requirement of using that particular phone, due to it's advanced capabilities. (this still doesn't excuse the fact that you were not informed of the change in data service pricing)

First off; you have the right to change back to your old plan within 30 days of the change, should you change your mind.  Granted, this means that the plan would again become incompatible with your Voyager. 

A good Option is to upgrade to a "Connect Plan", which gives you UNLIMITED data services for a "nominal charge."  Ok, so that might mean an increase in your monthly cost, but bear in mind that you are NOT being billed per minute (no plan minutes) when you are using those services... This may not be a perfect fix for you, but it would mean that you were able to use all of those cool things that phone can do.

Regarding your physical location; Chicago or not, you are obviously getting access to the data services, and you certainly seem to get a fair amount of use out of them.  If everything you are saying is accurate, the extra $100.00 on your bill would account for roughly 50MB of data usage, which isn't necessarily unheard of, by any stretch, but doesn't totally support the "podunk town" concept.  Regardless of where you live, you are billed the same way for data services, as everyone else.  The Connect plan, mentioned above would provide you access to these features, free of "surprises", and it becomes an unlimited browsing sitaution; meaning you could even use it a lot more than you are now... it even includes mobile email, if that interests you.

Almost done... the per-megabyte charges are only assessed for Web Browsing, Email, and Application browsing/purchasing; which yes, does include the VZTones application for Ringtones/RBT.  When browsing (and downloading them) for full songs, using VCast Music, you are not incurring MB charges at all.  You can set up RBT on verizonwireless.com, even assign them to specific people, and never have to incur those charges.