Best Buy Mobile employee here! Feel free to ask me questions :)

[Aookay]

so we are all on the same page now. Good to know and I will be sure to not do that again. I hate the taste of crow and feet together

I don't get the reference =/

Too young? Too old? I dunno >.>

 

[Aookay]

Do you know if the X is going to be drop shipped on the 14th or 15th or if stores will have them in earlier?

Usually the stores will receive them prior to launch, but we cannot sell them before the 15th, if that is what you are trying to get at mr sneaky!

 

[jreed2560]

The biggest one is they push 'for pay' app tot he phone and then spam you with ads (the most common complaint is something around voice mail to text message) and you can't remove these aps or disable the ads. Not sure how bad it really is but i've heard it from a couple of folks.

I have never heard of anything like this on my android phone, or any other dumb phone I have ever had. Maybe its a BB or WinMo thing. I don't know.

 

[jreed2560]

I don't get the reference =/

Too young? Too old? I dunno >.>

I was saying that I stuck my foot in my mouth and I had to eat crow and admit I was wrong.

 

[Aookay]

Hi, I am looking to upgrade to the DX after three long years with my Samsung Alias. I know that I'm due for an upgrade with 2-year contract renewal and am wondering whether I'll be able to buy my DX at Best Buy or not.

I have to add the $29.99/month data package to my line and I am not the primary line holder on the family account. Will I be able to waltz into a Best Buy that has the DX in stock and get my upgrade to the DX without any issues?

If there is an issue arising from me being a secondary line holder, are there things that I need to provide to prove my legitimacy, like a monthly bill, last four digits of the account holder's social, etc?

So, we get this a lot. In order for you to do the upgrade through us without and issues, you have to be an authorized user on the account. Essentially this means you can make changes to the account, and are authorized to do so. This is a pretty easy fix, as you just have to have the Main account holder (whos name it's under) call Verizon and add you on as an authorized user. After that happens, you can come in and just upgrade, and we'll see your name on the account

You will need the last 4 of the social as well as the password to the account as well when you come in. Other than that, get ready to say bye to your alias

 

[Aookay]

I'm assuming we still don't have the Best Buy 1-year or full price yet?

Not yet, still waiting for it to pop up into our system

the incredible/EVO is 599.99 right now, I would say the full retail will be the same for the X, but we will see.

 

[Aookay]

Thanks for the info, I did not know that your account has to be flagged for this. I just called Verizon and spoke to a very nice lady about having my account flagged for this promotion. She took care of that, my contract ends 12/2010 and I have a pre-order at BB also.

Awesome!

Glad to hear this

 

[Aookay]

Right? I've been reading people getting confirmation of Verizon's MSRP of $569 but Best Buy always seems to hover around $600 so i've been waiting on Aookay to help me out. I guess they don't know yet

This is correct, sorry dude =/

I checked yesterday to no avail. Hopefully today I will have more time to dig through our system.

 

[Aookay]

Thanks for the recommendation, here, Aookay! I tried swapping over to month-to-month via Verizon's online chat, and while she confirmed my plan would work, she couldn't do it, and said I had to call. I called in, but two different service reps gave me two different problems:

The first said that there's no such thing as month to month - if I cancel my contract and try to start a new one, I'll just jump back into the old one. I tried working through different ways to accomplish this, but they couldn't give me anything viable. Sad emoticon.

I tried again the next day, and this time the rep said that they could cancel my contract, and I could start a new one, but would have to lose the number - there was no way to get the phone at the subsidized price and keep my number. We worked through a couple ways for me to keep the number, most of which involved becoming a family plan with approximately 400,000 minutes per month (plus free weekends!) - maybe a little hyperbole, but more than one person needs. I asked to be bumped up to the supervisor, who was more helpful:

I explained to her my problem: I was totally willing to pay the ETF, since I was upgrading early, after all. But I needed to keep my number, and wasn't willing to pay more than someone jumping over from AT&T would - I was basically being penalized for being a loyal VZW customer! We haggled for a few more minutes - I mentioned the featurephone to smartphone upgrade you linked, and she said it was only for certain states. I pointed out that at this point, it looked like my best move was, sadly, to switch to an iPhone, since it would be significantly cheaper - this prompted her to offer to flag me in the system as eligible for an early upgrade (with $20 fee), but cautioned that the folks at BBY might no accept it. I took the deal and thanked her profusely.

So at this point, here's my question: when I go into BBY on the 15th, should I be prepared to do anything special to make sure that the folks there honor the early upgrade (it's store 269 in Springfield, VA, if anyone here works there )? I don't want to hold up the line by going through ten more rounds with Verizon while I'm there, and want to keep everything as painless as possible for the BBY mobile folks. When you see someone "flagged for early upgrade," is there anything you're looking for?

Thanks again (I apologize for the length of this post)!

Well first off, glad to hear it worked, though they gave you the run around and had a different solution for it than was previously though...but anyways.

So, when we are talking about an early upgrade, do you mean the annual upgrade? Those, unfortunatly, we can't do at Best Buy Mobile. I would check
Upgrade Checker | Best Buy Mobile: everything mobile - every point of view
first, see what it says. If it says you aren't eligable, then I would go in and talk to the Best Buy Mobile employees prior to the launch, to have them look on your account and make sure it's flagged for something other than the annual upgrade. If it's the annual upgrade, you would have to go to a Verizon store

Hope that helps!

 

[Aookay]

im planning to cancel my own line and get new line (a new numbers) and i can upgrade to Driod X
-that what one employee at BB told me


-still waiting for one year contract price?
-one employee at BB told me it prob be cost 100 more from 2 years contract so that mean 300 dollars

is that true Aookay

Generally the 1 year price is 200 dollars off retail, so it would be 399.99, but that's not true in every case, so we will have to see when we get it in our system.

I wish I could let you guys know the pricing sooner, but my hands are tied until I see something solid in our system.

 

[benjiedude]

This is correct, sorry dude =/

I checked yesterday to no avail. Hopefully today I will have more time to dig through our system.

That's fine. Thanks for checking and just let us know when you find out.

 

[bogman2121]

If past launches are any indication, then no. I actually just found out I will be opening for the launch, I'm pretty excited!

Store by store, because they have to open the whole store in order to do it. I don't really see them doing it unless there are a lot of preorders.

Thanks for the info. We all definitely appreciate it.

 

[Aookay]

Question for the BB Mobile guy,


Do/Can you guys credit VZW accounts for the purchase of the phone or do guys work with cash only? I do believe some folks can get the phone credited to the account rather than buying...<is this true>

Cash/credit card/debit card only, since the phones we sell are our stock and not Verizons, we don't have access to billing your account, so we can't do this in our stores.

 

[Aookay]

Aookay,

I was at Best Buy this weekend picking up a new phone for my mom, and they offered us a car charger for half off the normal price. Is this the norm when buying new phones? Does it just apply to chargers or does this apply to all accessories?

It's a store by store basis. Typically there are promotions going on with accessories when you get them with the phone. I know right now for example there is a bundle with the EVO (invishield+car charger) with the phone as well, it's pretty good.

Stores will run different promotions too, so I can't speak to what your store may be doing, but a certain percentage of the price might come off when you get it with the phone, depends on your Best Buy Mobile

 

[Aookay]

I asked this is another thread before I saw this one, but I wanted to be clear. Is it confirmed that Best Buy will allow you to sign a 1-year contract as a new customer? In the other thread where I asked, i was told that I'd have to go to a corporate store to do that. But reading back in this thread, it appears that Best Buy may also let you do it, though we don't know the price yet?

Is it just a case by case basis with each best buy store, or is there a policy on this?

It's in our Register, so yes you can do it through us, we just don't have the pricing on it quite yet. So yes there is a policy on it, we can do it, we just don't have a price for it yet.

 

[Wake4x4ptball]

one more week from today and we need to find something about prices and stuff soon

i cant wait

 

[Aookay]

I also want to know the answer to this question. I'm switching from sprint but given some of the horror stories I've head about verizon rather just lock myself in for a year than two; esp if the phone is 269 with 1 yr contract.

oh no, horror stories?

/cower



To be honest, you are going to hear horror stories from every company, sometimes it is hidden charges, sometimes it is something the customer did. As long as you have an open communication with your Carrier, and make sure to stay up on their latest changes, you won't have a problem. I've had Verizon for about 10 years now, and I have yet to run into a problem myself.

Have I had customer that have? Sure. But I've also had those stories with Sprint and ATT...and T-Mobile (even though we don't carry t-mobile).

Just be smart, if something makes you raise an eyebrow, always call and get it cleared up

 

[Aookay]

The biggest one is they push 'for pay' app tot he phone and then spam you with ads (the most common complaint is something around voice mail to text message) and you can't remove these aps or disable the ads. Not sure how bad it really is but i've heard it from a couple of folks.

I have not seen this with any Android phones, though I have seen this with the 3G feature phones like the EnV3 (not the ads part but the push 'for pay' apps).

Android is a pretty clean system, I wouldn't expect them to throw something like that into there.

 

[maniacman54]

So, we get this a lot. In order for you to do the upgrade through us without and issues, you have to be an authorized user on the account. Essentially this means you can make changes to the account, and are authorized to do so. This is a pretty easy fix, as you just have to have the Main account holder (whos name it's under) call Verizon and add you on as an authorized user. After that happens, you can come in and just upgrade, and we'll see your name on the account

You will need the last 4 of the social as well as the password to the account as well when you come in. Other than that, get ready to say bye to your alias

It's much simplier than calling up verizon. My brother added me as an authorized user through the website. The strange thing is that my brother called vzw to authorize me and they said they did. the bb rep told me that they might have just added a note to the account, which they can't see.

And with the social, you don't need to know the last four digits of the social (at least that's what it has on the vzw website). You can change it so that it's a universal password (i.e. you can have it be the last four digits)

 

[Aookay]

It's much simplier than calling up verizon. My brother added me as an authorized user through the website. The strange thing is that my brother called vzw to authorize me and they said they did. the bb rep told me that they might have just added a note to the account, which they can't see.

And with the social, you don't need to know the last four digits of the social (at least that's what it has on the vzw website). You can change it so that it's a universal password (i.e. you can have it be the last four digits)

Ah, I didn't know you could do it through the website, thanks for that!

Yeah, if they made a note to the account, we don't have access to those notes unless we call in to our sales support line.

When you come into best buy you need the last 4 of the social on the account for us to get into the account, for security purposes. And also, the password for the MyVerizon can be different than the password we need for the account. It's usually the ones they ask for when you call in to customer service.

Hope that helps!

 

[pinhead875]

Sorry if this was answered before in the 470 other posts, but what do I have to ask of the Verizon rep when I call them to have my account flagged for an upgrade? I called BB and all they see is that my account is available for an upgrade on Aug 2. But I preordered the DX and I want to pick it up on 7/15. But I understand the account needs to be flagged for an early upgrade. How do I ask that of the Verizon rep?
Thanks!

 

[Aookay]

Sorry if this was answered before in the 470 other posts, but what do I have to ask of the Verizon rep when I call them to have my account flagged for an upgrade? I called BB and all they see is that my account is available for an upgrade on Aug 2. But I preordered the DX and I want to pick it up on 7/15. But I understand the account needs to be flagged for an early upgrade. How do I ask that of the Verizon rep?
Thanks!

http://gizmofusion.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/3g-smartphone-early-upgrade-verizon-vzw.jpg

That one 3G smartphone early upgrade for customer whos contracts end this year.

 

[Travisimo]

It's in our Register, so yes you can do it through us, we just don't have the pricing on it quite yet. So yes there is a policy on it, we can do it, we just don't have a price for it yet.

Okay, thanks for the clarification! Does anyone know what the ETF is when you sign a 1-year rather than a 2-year contract?

 

[shadowangel]

I preordered yesterday at my Bestbuy. They told me I was around #10, and that they'd call to schedule the pickup. Is there a way I can find out for sure that thwy get enough stock in? As in, can I call the morning of the 15th and be able to find out if they recieved enough? If they get in less than they have preordered, I need to make some alternate plans.

 

[arche3]

hey Aookay,
if i add another family share line to get the droid x do i have to add the data plan at best buy? im just going to switch the X over to my main line to use which has a data plan. and put a razor on the new line i get with the X.

thanks.