Why are Some People Allowed to Upgrade Early, Verizon?

I've found that they will allow their customers to upgrade early if
they start to have problems with their phones near the end of their
contract.

They will typically allow an early upgrade in cases where you're near
the end of your contract, but are having problems with your phone.

heh but i'm not surprised either...

If a customer is loyal (and pays his/her bills on time) then I can see
Verizon saying "Gee... upgrading early means they'll still be keeping
our contract... maybe even longer too!"

i did that myself once... but i was only early by 3 days. Apartment
had been broken into and the phone stolen...


So naturally they let me upgrade 3 days early... cos... if they hadn't
i could have easily waited 3 days and said, "OK... bye!" without
paying a fine :)

I was contacted by an Verizon customer service rep named Liz yesterday
afternoon. She agreed that we have been loyal customers for many
years, and allowing an upgrade a month early would be acceptable,
especially since both of us switching to Blackberry devices means
additional $$$ for them every month in the form of the $29.99 (per
phone) unlimited data plan.

Thank you so much to everyone here for their help!

Try another verizon location (mall kiosk, free standing store, Circuit
City). My husband and I are also long time Verizon customer's and we
just went through a somewhat similar situation. The first time we
tried to upgrade, we found out that only my phone was eligible for the
new every two deal because we went on a family share plan in February
(2 months before we both would of been eligible for an upgrade). When
we went on the family plan, we weren't told that only one phone is
eligible for the new every 2. So we decided to upgrade at a later
date. We went back to the same location 2 weeks ago to again, try to
upgrade and again, were told that only one phone is eligible. My
husband asked what they could do to keep our business and keep us from
walking next door and buying 2 iphones. The sales girl discussed it
with the manager and came back and asked what phones we were
interested in. So yes, they were willing to work with us and we
upgraded both phones that day. So be persistent. Try different Verizon
dealers. Like I said, the one inside Circuit City, which is a store we
are not fans of, was willing to work with us. We've had better luck
there than at the actual Verizon Store.

My phone broke last month and after 10 tries I finally got someone to
allow me to upgrade early, I was going to pay for the phone anyway,
just didn;t want to pay a ridiculous amount!

I was allowed an early upgrade last month (my contract isn't up until
February), because their marketing department called ME, and there was
an offer that included TWO phones for me to chose from, and the
upgrade was not 100% free.

You should keep trying back to see what early upgrade offers are
available, but if your wife has her heart set on a certain phone, be
advised that it might not be one that is being offered. In that case
she will most likely have to settle for something else or wait.

You are correct. The best advice is to keep trying. What you need to
do is get to a supervisor, who is authorized to negotiate. In some
cases, you might hit someone that's actually incentivized to keep
customers (sometimes called "retentions"). There are certain times of
the year where there are more willing to negotiate, because they want
to be able to show an increase of customers. This will usually be
near the end of a fiscal quarter.

You should be clear with the person you speak to: if they do not
authorize this, you are prepared to cancel your account TODAY and move
to Sprint, AT&T, etc. You need to be prepared to do this if you don't
get your way. Verizon is doing, comparably, well, and they are less
likely to buy into a bluff that, say, Sprint (who is desperate to keep
and gain customers).

Hopefully, this letter will yield results. There is someone from
Verizon that visits PlanetFeedback and will provide a direct e-mail
address. You might want to search old VZW letters.

Good luck. Keep trying, but be prepared to leave if you don't get
your way. That means, of course, no Storm. (Hint: The Storm is the
reason that they might be less willing to let you go. They are
banking on this attracting new customers and so they are less willing
to work with you than, say, they don't have the hottest product out
there).