My wife has an iphone 4 and bitches about it constantly (always freezing, needs to be upgraded), but for some reason is enamored with apple and refuses to consider anything other than an iphone 6. She also refuses to consider any service other than verizon, because she's on a family plan with her parents and likes the call quality. No amount of reason or math can get through to her, so it is what it is.
I just got a call from her, she was at the verizon store with the sales rep. She wants to upgrade to the iphone 6, and here is how it works:
$660 for the phone, spread out evenly over 24 payments of $27.50 each.
$25/mo discount applied to the account for those 24 months, making the net cost to the account $2.50.
No contract, if you want to change provider you just pay off the remaining balance on the phone, but then you own it and resell it if you like.
She put me on with the rep and he explained it to me. I asked what the catch was, and he claims there is no catch.
So how does verizon hand out iphone 6s and only charge $2.50/mo? How could they possibly be making money on this deal? And even if they are swimming in so much profit from the service why are they willingly subsidizing the new phones?
I am suspicious that there is something being overlooked that is going to change the overall bill substantially more than $2.50/mo. Or that there is some other hidden caveat I have not thought of because i've only been dwelling on it for about 20 minutes.