Recently my daughter’s cell phone line became eligible for its biennial discounted upgrade and she wanted to get an Android phone. When I checked the Verizon Wireless website I found that the company had made a change in policy for online purchases.

For years, Verizon has offered many of its phones in its brick and mortar stores with a mail-in-rebate which typically amounted to $100. Mail in rebates need to be banned and I won’t buy anything with a rebate.  If you went to the Verizon website you could generally get the same phones but instead of the mail-in-rebate, the discount was taken off when the phone was ordered so you didn’t have to pay extra up front and then try to get it back weeks or months later.

Verizon has now changed that to a mail in rebate and worse yet now, you don’t just get a check, you get a Verizon debit card so you have to spend it at Verizon. For the Droid Incredible that Sofie wanted I would have had to pay $299 and then get the debit card. After shopping around I found I get the same phone and do the Verizon upgrade on Amazon.com for just $79, no rebates of any kind.  From now on I’ll probably be buying new phones from amazon.