Considering Cancelling Galaxy S3/Verizon And Starting Over With Pre-Paid

[Tiffanator]

I've had my Samsung Galaxy S III for almost a week, and I really like the device, however, I'm a bit nervous about this contract.

When I signed up with Verizon, I opted for a 1GB data plan (with unlimited talk and text) because anything I'd really want data for (movies/games/apps)  is done on my Kindle Fire HD.  I'm not going to add that to my Verizon plan, because where I live/work, I get wifi for free as part of my benefits. These benefits, however, do not cover my personal phone.

I'm nervous because when I signed onto the plan at the local Target where I bought the phone, I had asked the sales rep how much, exactly, I would be paying out of pocket when I bought the phone. Although I realize "how much" would depend on certain things, I was originally led to believe that the service would be $50.00 a month. Then, when I went over my paperwork, I discovered it would be somewhere near $90.00 a month. Then I saw my first bill - and I do  realize there are activation fees and one-time charges, but Jeez. It's not right! And I also found that my unlimited talk/texts are somehow nickle and diming me in kb's of data usage for texts (though they are called pics texts or some such thing - though I can assure you that these are standard texts - no pictures/videos, etc). I thought texts were supposed to be free....anyway, does anyone have any reasons I should STAY with this two year contract? I only have a week to decide, and although I'm not as freaked out as I was before by this, I'm still very much considering a switch to Cricket or a company like it, and hope it will be less expensive and more of what I'm looking for.

Thank you for your time and attention, and also for your help.

Best

TZ

Message was edited by: Tiffanator

>>Personal information removed<<

Message was edited by: Verizon Moderator

[Jax_Omen]

If you just have one line, you're going to be paying a LOT more on a postpaid service provider such as Verizon Wireless than you'd pay on prepaid.

If price is a major concern, cancel while you can and go somewhere cheaper.

Keep in mind that somewhere cheaper won't have nearly as good coverage outside of cities, and depending on where you go, may have significantly inferior speeds within cities.

[vzw_customer_support]

Wow Tiffanator. We don't want to start off our great wireless relationship on the wrong foot and have you leaving our fantastic network. Your first bill is always higher for a few reasons. There's the one-time activation fee applied to your first bill, in addition to any proration for the first few days before your first full bill cycle begins with your normal month of service billed in advance.But the 1GB Share Everything plan is $50.00 per month for your account level access, and then there's a $40 line access for smartphones bringing the total monthly access for one smartphone on that plan to $90.00 per month plus taxes. You can check www.vzw.com/discounts to see if you may be able to save on the account level access through your employer.

And I assure you that text and picture messages do not count against your data usage, unless you've chosen to download a messaging application from the Google Play store that would need data access to sync with the original messaging app that came on your phone. There are even some backup applications that sync your messages to their backup service as they arrive. Do you have a messaging or backup app downloaded by chance? You can check what's been downloaded by accessing Google Play, press menu, and select My Apps.


Thank you
JenniferH_VZW

Please follow us on Twitter @vzwsupport

[Tiffanator]

Thank you for taking time to respond.

I might be confused by the text/data thing because it's showing 0.00 GB, but for data used, the only data it shows is txt messages and then shows it in kb's. The usage is not very much, but then again, I am only subscribed to 1 GB, so I have the mobile data off most of the time unless i'm not at work/home.

This is sort of what I'm seeing on my current usage:

09/16/2013

10:17 AM

DATA SHARE TALK & TEXT

148.1

only it's a whole column of this information.

-Tiffanator

[Tiffanator]

I think i might be in a spot. I think you have to buy your phone outright with pre-paid...that could cost some bucks, too. Blimey! (Yes, I'm frugal.)

[Tiffanator]

Also, I believe that the text messaging system I am using is whatever came with the phone. The sales rep at Target started setting up my device, so maybe she added it without my knowledge. I will check into that. Thank you again.

The Tiffanator