Verizon Raises Smartphone Upgrade Fee to $30

In other news Verizon execs got a raise...

That literally costs them nothing.

This is what happens when you limit competition! Verizon and ATT continue to increase rates on everything because there is no competition. I am paying double what I paid 5 years ago for the same service, nothing has changed except my bill! Verizon and ATT continue to grow and as they get bigger, we will all pay more!

According to Verizon, its upgrade fees help to cover "increasing support costs" from customers switching their devices.

What a load of Yak-****.

And yet I can't vote with my wallet because the places where I need strong signal the most is dominated and proven reliable only by Verizon.

Criminals. Love their service... beginning to loathe their prices. $180 plus fees for 20GB... just saying. If T-Mobile actually reached the 50mbp/s that I get for their $70/month, I'd switch, but Verizon's speed and reliability is awesome.

Le Sigh.

I get 60-70 Mbps with T-Mobile I love it! They are pushing for 1gbps by the end of the year.

I think I speak for many when I say, 'you suck Verizon'.

why dont they charge $100?

So just to be clear: if one buys a new iPhone sim-free, takes the sim out of their old phone, puts it in their old phone, and does all of this without ever entering a Verizon store or calling their customer support... That costs $30?

So glad I'm not with this awful, greedy company.

Edit: replies have indicated they do not charge the fee in the scenario I described, but do if you buy from Verizon. Which strikes me as odd (why are they incentivizing people to NOT buy from them directly?) but not as bad as what I was imagining.

FWIW, following up on the line in the OP "According to Verizon, its upgrade fees help to cover 'increasing support costs' from customers switching their devices" should take time to read the Ars post, which I read much earlier today. In essence, their support costs went down, Ars cited it, Ars asked VZW for feedback on the lowered costs but "increasing support costs", and Ars still hasn't received feedback on their question about this matter. So, bullsh*t, in consumer-speak.

Not in the Ars post is that VZW started phasing out their in-corporate-store tech support 3 years ago, leaving only commission-based sales people in-store and recently closed several of their support call centers (http://www.cio.com/article/3131057/consumer-electronics/verizons-miserable-customer-service-is-about-to-get-worse.html). VZW offloaded their towers to American Tower about 2 years ago (http://www.fiercewireless.com/wireless/verizon-offloads-towers-to-american-tower-for-5b). So, what increased support costs?

Happily beating up VZW's LTE network while under contract since 2011.