Switching cell phone carrier and paying off remaining phone balances

[valley_man0505]

After many years with Verizon, my wife, daughter, and myself recently switched to US Cellular.  However, my wife and I had our phones on the Edge program (or whatever it is called now) where we were making monthly payments on the phone and, between the two of us, have a little over $600 left to pay off our phones.  However, our deal with US Cellular is that US Cellular will payoff your remaining phone balance if you switch to them, which is why we did it (in addition to get an ADDITIONAL $336 rebate per phone on top of them paying off our remaing Verizon phone balance).  The problem is that it takes US Cellular 10-12 weeks to process the payoff and rebates, so they recommend that we payoff our Verizon phones out of our pocket for now until they reimburse us in 10-12 since Verizon will want this full amount "due upon receipt" when we get our final bill from them.

Now, we really don't have $600 that we can float for the next 3 months.  In addition, we will still need to pay for a full month of service for our last month with Verizon even though we switched right after our new billing cycle started.  So, basically, we are paying BOTH carriers for this month, so and extra $600 is definitely hard to cough up right now. Do you think that paying at least SOME sort of monthly payment to Verizon towards our phones until we get our reimbursement from US Cellular in a couple months will keep them happy?  Or will they still report a 30 day late (or even send to CA) if we don't actually pay the full sum right away?

[Revelate]

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@valley_man0505 wrote:

After many years with Verizon, my wife, daughter, and myself recently switched to US Cellular.  However, my wife and I had our phones on the Edge program (or whatever it is called now) where we were making monthly payments on the phone and, between the two of us, have a little over $600 left to pay off our phones.  However, our deal with US Cellular is that US Cellular will payoff your remaining phone balance if you switch to them, which is why we did it (in addition to get an ADDITIONAL $336 rebate per phone on top of them paying off our remaing Verizon phone balance).  The problem is that it takes US Cellular 10-12 weeks to process the payoff and rebates, so they recommend that we payoff our Verizon phones out of our pocket for now until they reimburse us in 10-12 since Verizon will want this full amount "due upon receipt" when we get our final bill from them.

Now, we really don't have $600 that we can float for the next 3 months.  In addition, we will still need to pay for a full month of service for our last month with Verizon even though we switched right after our new billing cycle started.  So, basically, we are paying BOTH carriers for this month, so and extra $600 is definitely hard to cough up right now. Do you think that paying at least SOME sort of monthly payment to Verizon towards our phones until we get our reimbursement from US Cellular in a couple months will keep them happy?  Or will they still report a 30 day late (or even send to CA) if we don't actually pay the full sum right away?

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Historically (10+ years) VZ will accept a credit card payment for all of their services including VZ Wireless.  

Why not float it on a credit card for the 10 weeks?  That's what they're designed for.

I don't know on VZ's practices on what they'd do; 30+ day late doesn't happen immediately, it's 30 days past the first missed payment effectively if you don't make it up in the time frame.  They could in theory send it out to a CA effectively immediately but that's unlikely to happen that soon.  Either way though I'd personally find a way to sort it... if you have a CU and you don't have $600 available on a credit card (which suggests different issues) talk to them as well or pick up short term financing on a $2600 loan, pay $2000 right back to them and use the remaining $600 to pay off VZ... APR's there way worse than a CC but still a better option in my opinion.

There's lots of options for short term financing.

[IOBA]

Check your Verizon bills and follow up.  Verizon charges one month in advance.  You might be entitled to a month of service charges - refund.  You'd still owe for the phones.

It would be an excellent idea to get something in writing from Verizon that you did NOT break your contract.  Not sure how long you have had the phones, but typically Verizon considers upgrading/buying new phones as a committment to a new two year agreeement.  I don't know at what time Verizon changed thier mindset to say that if you pay off the phones, you aren't locked in a contract and/or dropping the minimum two year contract. 

Check with them.  And get it in writing.  And copying/download all of your bills and your final statement!!  Keep good records.

The other person suggested using a cc to float the phone balance.  It's a good idea if you have the available credit.