Verizon Left Me Butthurt

A portrait of me after talking with Verizon 8 times.

A portrait of me after talking with Verizon 8 times.

I had glanced at my phone a couple of times during the torrential downpour during the 104.5 concert and I believe this cause my phone to incur some mild water damage. It is still operable but I have to push the lock key in very hard for the screen to light up. This left me with the idea that it was time for a new phone. I’ve seen Ck4 work magic with AT&T a few times before and wondered how hard could it really be. The upgrade on my account was exactly 1 year away so that dropped that option of making it easy. The next step was understanding my options before I threatened to leave and hopefully get Verizon to wilt to my pressure of terminating my contract.

Option 1 – Leave Verizon, pay $230 to get out of Verizon, move to AT&T where they’d set me up with the same plan I have currently (more data actually) and give me a Samsung Galaxy III (not even a 4 and red) for free.
Option 2 – Stay with Verizon and pay full retail price for a Samsung Galaxy III which was $599 and had pre-owned options at $399.00.
Option 3 – Get Verizon to sell me a phone at the discount price of 199.99 which would be the same as using my upgrade that I didn’t have.

I also called Verizon and understood that they would set up new members with a Galaxy III for $150 and a $50 dollar rebate making the phone I wanted 100 bucks. Next I called Verizon explaining that my best option at this juncture was to pay 230 dollars and move to AT&T because the prices for a new phone they were offering me were unreasonable. My hopes were that they’d settle for option 3 after I explained to them all the variables. I went through their website chat representatives, their retention department 4 times, and any other possible means I could think of and I couldn’t get one person to relent and SELL me a phone at a discounted rate. I’m a smidgen away from actually cancelling and paying the $230 for a new phone and moving with AT&T. My @Verizon email address still exists and I get the phone I want for $230 + $36 activation fee = $266 dollars compared to $599.00. I’m not a spring chicken on the phone either and I swear these people are trained to be impossible to work with. I had one woman actually schedule a disconnect for my line. After trying 5 times to talk to reps I eventually decided to take a break from the beating and reconsider my options. Any suggestions?