Finally I can leave Verizon Behind

In a little bit more than one week from now I will receive my iPhone 6 with the no-contract option and will initially use T-Mobile as carrier. Hopefully that works out but if not I still have the option to switch but for sure I will not go with Verizon. After more than 3 years being a Verizon customer I can’t wait to ditch them. This is not only a story about bad customer service but also a story why I would never buy an Android phone because Apple is to a certain degree limiting the power of the carriers.This story starts 3 years ago when I had enough from ATT with their spotty service and mediocre voice quality and switched over to Verizon with the purchase of my iPhone 4s. Initially this worked well but when I wanted to buy the new iPhone 5 I had to pay nearly full price (around $750 per piece). Grudgingly I accepted it but thought that in a year I would be able to buy the new iPhone 5s with a new two year contract.

But Verizon was too greedy and they restarted my 2 year contract when I bought the iPhone 5 and so I was stuck again. There I promised myself that when that contract expires I will leave Verizon for good.

To make things worse since a few months back the Verizon service deteriorates considerably and I have more and more dropped calls which came to the point when I had to make an important phone call I had to use my “land line”. Anyone remembers Verizon’s slogan “Can you hear me now”. Well, I can’t anymore.

Funny thing though is that when I twittered about my switch Verizon told me that they do not want to loose me and that they care but they did not 2 years ago and even today they are greedy because my monthly charge did not change even though I was nearly 2 weeks out of the contract by the end of the last billing cycle. I guess once a cash cow always a cash cow. That is exactly the reason why I go off-contract with a fully paid iPhone now.

And no, I am not going to beg Verizon to reduce my monthly charge or hammer out another deal. As a good customer I expected that they would reduce my monthly fees right after I went out of the 2 year contract. That would have been good customer service and a token of good will. I applaud T-Mobile for their stance to only do off-contract iPhones and that is why I am going with them and not with ATT or Sprint.

• Andy