Jul 15, 2007

Keep Your Old Cell Phone When You Upgrade

Marc and I recently upgraded our cell phones (we have a family plan with Verizon) and got two new phones for free by renewing our contract. The contract had expired quite some time ago and we waited until a good quality phone (i.e., one that was small, had a camera, and got particularly good reviews for the actual phone function) was free (except for tax). Of course, it was free with a rebate, but you can't win them all. At least the rebate arrived in about 4 weeks with no hassle.

Now that we have kids, it seems all too possible (probable?) that something will happen to one of our phones at some point. And we didn't want to be stuck in a contract and therefore obligated to buy either a cheap, crappy phone or an expensive but good phone, so we added phone insurance to our contract for $5.99 per month for both phones.

Earlier this week, the information on the phone insurance arrived and I took a quick look at it before filing it. Whoa! On the first page, the steps for filing a claim are outlined and step 4 said to have a credit card available to pay the $50 deductible. So on top of paying $6 per month, we'd have to pony up a $50 deductible to repair/replace a phone. No way.

And then I remembered a post by NCN in which he discussed replacing his broken cell phone with his old one at no cost. Brilliant! So I'm making sure we keep our old phones in a safe place and canceling the phone insurance pronto.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Another thing you can do is purchase a slightly used phone off Ebay for a fraction of the cost. I got a decent phone (few tiny scratches) for $55 + S/H, the phone retails new for $199. Not too bad for those of us with no back-up plan and serious daddy-brain (left the old phone in a cab).Just make sure the phone has been released from any pre-exisiting accounts.

ChiefFamilyOfficer said...

That's a great idea, especially if you want a more expensive phone, I would think. And hey, I definitely know I have mommy brain but I didn't know about daddy brain, lol!

Anonymous said...

Mr. Man went out and bought a new iPhone, discarding his old Razor. I, on the other hand, grabbed it out of the recycle bin and stashed it.
Good thing I did; an update nearly hosed the iPhone and Mr. Man had so many problems, he *wished* he'd had his ole Razor back.
I had it! Could he get it back?

Kristine said...

Handy link! Thanks! We've got a new phone arriving any day, and I'll definitely put the old one aside.