What? No, that can’t be right… can it?
Back story: On Saturday my fiance and I went to Verizon to renew our contract. We had both been eying the Blackberry Storm since it’s release. We go in, sign up, get the phones with accessories and our data plan and are happily emailing, texting, and browsing the web all weekend. Monday, somewhere around noon, I get one of those annoying “you are eligible for a new / free phone” calls from “Roger” in “Wisconsin”. I am annoyed. I just got a new phone why are you calling me? Haven’t your systems in India synchronized with the US ones yet? This was over 48 hours ago. I told them I just signed up for a new two year. Hopefully they will leave me alone.
About 30 minutes later, another call. This time it was from Rosanne. I am pretty sure that was her real name too. I was talking to somebody in Verizon’s customer service department whom is apparently tasked with reviewing new accounts and making sure everything is okay (kudos to you for having QA/QC on your plans Verizon!). She asks if my phone is for corporate use. “No”. But you have a corporate plan. “Yes I know, it is for the discount program at work”.
It turns out that she wanted to save me money, and she did to the tune of $40 per month! Basically for somebody who is not a corporate user, doesn’t need to get email from an exchange server or have access to the intranet at work, the $45 per month Blackberry plan (hence forth, VZW BES) was not required. Instead, I should have the $30 per month plan (hence forth, VZW BIS). Now, the VZW BES is labeled on Verizon’s website as “Unlimited Data” while the BIS is just “Internet and Email”. I confirmed with the CSR at least 3, maybe 4 times that both plans included unlimited data (that is, until I suck down 5 gigs worth to my Storm!). She told me that they were (she did go and confirm some things either with a supervisor or the computer, and I was on hold for the 2 or 3 instances for no more than 45 seconds).
So BAM, right there switching the Blackberry plans saves me $30 a month over both lines with zero change in my service. I am not paying for things I won’t use now. This is awesome. Further more the CSR decides to check our minutes usage. We have a 700 minute share plan at this point, the smallest / cheapest they offer. We barely use 300 total peak minutes between the two of us. Turns out, there is an unadvertised “loyalty” plan that is used for “loyal customers” (and probably also for those threatening to leave VZW) that is a share plan of 550 minutes and is $10 per month less. As a bonus we have 500 additional minutes that is a “reserve” of sorts. If we do go over rather than getting billed the minutes come out of that reserve first. Cool eh?
So after 14 minutes and 3 seconds on the call, I am not saving $40 per month. How cool is that?
