Netmeg

I want to buy an iPhone 4S.  Verizon Wireless is making it very difficult for me to do so.

First off, I am a longtime BlackBerry user.  But RIM is a dying platform (I don’t care what anyone says, they are – you know it and I know it so shut up) and it’s time to get something else. I haven’t found a Droid I like yet, and so it seems like a good time to get an iPhone. A new model just came out last week!  Consider it a tribute to Steve.  Whatever. I want one.

Now, I have been a VerizonWireless customer for at least eight or ten years.  I have a family plan, and I’ve never had fewer than three (and sometimes as many as five) numbers on my plan. I have smart phones and data plans. Always signed up for the two year extensions.  Never once paid late. My monthly bills run well into three figures.  I put friends and family members (who are not on my plan) on Verizon so we’d all be on the same network.

Any other marketing-savvy industry would consider me a VIP customer – worth keeping happy and hanging on to at almost any cost.  This is where you get your brand evangelists, after all.

But not Verizon Wireless. And, to be fair, pretty much all the carriers operate the same way. Because it’s a royal pain in the ass to switch carriers; particularly when you have multiple lines, they figure you have a higher threshold of pain for any little price gouge they can stick you with.

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