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Get a Free iPhone 6

Don't know if the plan of the OP will work or not, I sincerely doubt it, but you have to give them credit for crowdsourcing this forum to help them think of a plan that could potentially work ;) The OP should rename this thread to "Help me figure out a way to get a free iPhone"
 
I thought about this about a week ago, but you take the cake for involving 3 carriers (and a 4th carrier if you count the fact that your old iPhone 4 is an AT&T phone). Because I'm a stickler for details, I feel compelled to comment on some things...

ILowry82 said:
I figured out a plan to get a free iPhone 6. It uses loop holes but it's not technically dishonest or illegal.
Click to expand...
Illegal, no. Dishonest? That's debatable. Your plan leaves Verizon losing a little bit of money, and T-Mobile losing several hundred dollars worth of money.

ILowry82 said:
So this isn't technically free but much cheaper than buying a phone outright.
Click to expand...
Thread fail. Your thread is titled "Get a Free iPhone 6". ;-P

OK, so a few more comments on the details:

1) Good luck finding an iPhone 6 at a Verizon store anytime soon.
2) You will need to submit your *final* Verizon bill, showing the ETF, to T-Mobile. If you attempt to cancel Verizon within the first 14 days, expect them to hassle you about getting that iPhone back, so you should plan to cancel after 14 days. Plus, T-Mobile might find it fishy if they saw that your 1st bill and your final bill were one and the same and might suspect that you're up to something (i.e., fraud).
3) So you'll need to keep that Verizon line active for 14 days, then sign up with T-Mobile. Not sure if T-Mobile handles canceling your account with Verizon, or if you need to circle back and do that. Probably the latter. So now you can cancel with Verizon so that the ETF date is >= the T-Mobile activation date. And now you have to wait for that final Verizon bill showing the ETF fee. Depending on how the billing cycle runs, that could be another 30 days. Not sure how proration works, but I'd plan to pay at least one month of service of Verizon.
4) And now the new T-Mobile contract is active and you're starting to pay them, too. The new Verizon bill showing the ETF fee might take a while to show up online (depending on how the billing cycle runs, maybe up to 30 days from the time you canceled?). So you could be looking at paying for a full month of T-Mobile service before you can even submit that request for ETF reimbursement to T-Mobile. Then, you are looking at waiting up to 8 weeks before the card arrives. I wouldn't expect it to arrive early. So now we could be looking at 3 months of active T-Mobile service before you can cancel with them. And depending on how T-Mobile's billing cycle and proration works, it's not beyond the realm of possibility that you somehow end up getting billed for a 4th month. But I'll leave that out of the final numbers.

So, all told, you could easily be looking at 1 month of Verizon service and 3 months of T-Mobile service. Plus lots of taxes and such. And an *AWFUL* lot of hassle. And in your situation, you'll also be looking to trade that phone, so add in all of that hassle. The Verizon iPhone is missing a few Sprint-specific bands, so if you want to end up staying with Sprint, you'll definitely be needing to trade it (or resell it and buy a Sprint iPhone 6 at full price).

The general plan makes a lot more financial sense in other scenarios. For example, I'm on AT&T with an old family plan. Let's say I have 3 lines of service, all available for upgrades. Let's say I actually *want* to move to T-Mobile (or Sprint). So, I re-up with AT&T for 2 more years, buy 3 new iPhone 6's (at $200 each, minus any trade-ins I have), and then I run right over to T-Mobile/Sprint, switch to them, and let them pay off my ETFs. I just got 3 new iPhones for $600 total, free and clear.

Slight variation on the above: Maybe I'm happy with AT&T but want to switch to their mobile share plan. I do the above, suffer through T-Mobile/Sprint's poor coverage in my area while I wait for my ETF reimbursement to arrive, and then cancel with them and switch back to AT&T on their newer mobile share plans and bring my own AT&T iPhone 6's back with me. That assumes that AT&T hasn't put some sort of fraud alert on my account, such that they won't take me back.
 
First things first... If you can't afford to buy an iPhone or don't want to put the effort into just selling/trading your old device, don't go doing hard credit checks on two carriers just to save a few bucks.

Second, after all the driving and hours of time you waste at all these carrier stores, the sales rep's time and just all around using up a whole day. You could pick up an extra shift at your job to pay for your phone. Assuming you're not making $10/ hour at McDonalds. If that's all you're making, you should respect your own credit score enough to not do those hard checks.

Third, your Verizon ETF will be due far before you receive your T-Mobile reimbursement. So you'll have to pay that $350 plus the bill. If you have the $4-500 to pay for that, just buy the farking iPhone. If you don't pay that VZ bill, you either risk collections or have to beg them not to put it in collections.

You're just trying to float the cost til you get reimbursed. Totally shows lack of discipline and attributes of a person with poo credit.

Seriously, that's just too much work to save a few bucks off a phone, OP.

----------
hipnetic said:
I thought about this about a week ago, but you take the cake for involving 3 carriers (and a 4th carrier if you count the fact that your old iPhone 4 is an AT&T phone). Because I'm a stickler for details, I feel compelled to comment on some things...

Illegal, no. Dishonest? That's debatable. Your plan leaves Verizon losing a little bit of money, and T-Mobile losing several hundred dollars worth of money.

Thread fail. Your thread is titled "Get a Free iPhone 6". ;-P

OK, so a few more comments on the details:

1) Good luck finding an iPhone 6 at a Verizon store anytime soon.
2) You will need to submit your *final* Verizon bill, showing the ETF, to T-Mobile. If you attempt to cancel Verizon within the first 14 days, expect them to hassle you about getting that iPhone back, so you should plan to cancel after 14 days. Plus, T-Mobile might find it fishy if they saw that your 1st bill and your final bill were one and the same and might suspect that you're up to something (i.e., fraud).
3) So you'll need to keep that Verizon line active for 14 days, then sign up with T-Mobile. Not sure if T-Mobile handles canceling your account with Verizon, or if you need to circle back and do that. Probably the latter. So now you can cancel with Verizon so that the ETF date is >= the T-Mobile activation date. And now you have to wait for that final Verizon bill showing the ETF fee. Depending on how the billing cycle runs, that could be another 30 days. Not sure how proration works, but I'd plan to pay at least one month of service of Verizon.
4) And now the new T-Mobile contract is active and you're starting to pay them, too. The new Verizon bill showing the ETF fee might take a while to show up online (depending on how the billing cycle runs, maybe up to 30 days from the time you canceled?). So you could be looking at paying for a full month of T-Mobile service before you can even submit that request for ETF reimbursement to T-Mobile. Then, you are looking at waiting up to 8 weeks before the card arrives. I wouldn't expect it to arrive early. So now we could be looking at 3 months of active T-Mobile service before you can cancel with them. And depending on how T-Mobile's billing cycle and proration works, it's not beyond the realm of possibility that you somehow end up getting billed for a 4th month. But I'll leave that out of the final numbers.

So, all told, you could easily be looking at 1 month of Verizon service and 3 months of T-Mobile service. Plus lots of taxes and such. And an *AWFUL* lot of hassle. And in your situation, you'll also be looking to trade that phone, so add in all of that hassle. The Verizon iPhone is missing a few Sprint-specific bands, so if you want to end up staying with Sprint, you'll definitely be needing to trade it (or resell it and buy a Sprint iPhone 6 at full price).

The general plan makes a lot more financial sense in other scenarios. For example, I'm on AT&T with an old family plan. Let's say I have 3 lines of service, all available for upgrades. Let's say I actually *want* to move to T-Mobile (or Sprint). So, I re-up with AT&T for 2 more years, buy 3 new iPhone 6's (at $200 each, minus any trade-ins I have), and then I run right over to T-Mobile/Sprint, switch to them, and let them pay off my ETFs. I just got 3 new iPhones for $600 total, free and clear.

Slight variation on the above: Maybe I'm happy with AT&T but want to switch to their mobile share plan. I do the above, suffer through T-Mobile/Sprint's poor coverage in my area while I wait for my ETF reimbursement to arrive, and then cancel with them and switch back to AT&T on their newer mobile share plans and bring my own AT&T iPhone 6's back with me. That assumes that AT&T hasn't put some sort of fraud alert on my account, such that they won't take me back.
Click to expand...

Totally agree with your post. I see your scenario a lot more as "not sure who the best carrier is" rather than just trying to work the system.
 
aneftp said:
This doesn't make any sense. OP is with sprint.

Wants to trade in iphone 4 to verizon. However op isn't eligblr for upgrade with sprint. Which means they are probably under contract with sprint.

Op wants Verizon iPhone for $199 on contract with a $200 old iphone trade in. Op needs to pay ETF with sprint first. Than sign on with verizon.

Than if they want tmobile. Tmobile will pay ETF from other carrier.
Click to expand...

I plan on keeping Sprint as my carrier and trading the verizon IP6 for a Sprint IP6. If I just had Tmobile buy out my Sprint contract I'd have to purchase the phone at full price through Tmobile.
 
ILowry82 said:
I plan on keeping Sprint as my carrier and trading the verizon IP6 for a Sprint IP6. If I just had Tmobile buy out my Sprint contract I'd have to purchase the phone at full price through Tmobile.
Click to expand...

Still way too much effort man.
 
MrDaveed said:
Still way too much effort man.
Click to expand...

I can afford the phone but to me it's totally worth the effort to save $400-$500. Apparently some people on here are rich. If you have that much money then yes, this might be too much effort for you.
 
ILowry82 said:
I can afford the phone but to me it's totally worth the effort to save $400-$500. Apparently some people on here are rich. If you have that much money then yes, this might be too much effort for you.
Click to expand...


I have friends that work in wireless. Ever think about the fact that you're taking an hour or more of 2+ rep's time? They think they're getting an activation ($20-50) in commission. Then they see that you deactivated and they didn't make money off that sale. How would you feel if someone came to your job and wasted your time and took money from your paycheck? Not very good.

Unless your job involves asking to super size value meals, you wouldnt be too happy.
 
My plan:

Work. Pay cash. Enjoy iPhone.

My time is worth far more than the plan of the OP, but if you only make $20 an hour I can see desperately looking for loopholes.

The sad part is, if they'd put half as much effort into school/work they wouldn't have to. Such is true for most folks into loopholes.
 
itjw said:
My plan:

Work. Pay cash. Enjoy iPhone.

My time is worth far more than the plan of the OP, but if you only make $20 an hour I can see desperately looking for loopholes.

The sad part is, if they'd put half as much effort into school/work they wouldn't have to. Such is true for most folks into loopholes.
Click to expand...

Thanks for disrespecting me without even knowing me. I make great money doing a job where I help people who can't help themselves, own a nice home and I have a beautiful family. I got all those things by being good with money and looking for deals when I can find them. Why spend $650 when I can spend $200. That's the way I see it. This thread was meant as a way to clue people into a loophole that I found, not a insult me even though you don't know me thread. If you find flaws in this idea then please contribute. But if you just don't agree with it and are just going to hurl insults please stay away and find something better to do.
 
ILowry82 said:
Thanks for disrespecting me without even knowing me. I make great money doing a job where I help people who can't help themselves, own a nice home and I have a beautiful family. I got all those things by being good with money and looking for deals when I can find them. Why spend $650 when I can spend $200. That's the way I see it. This thread was meant as a way to clue people into a loophole that I found, not a insult me even though you don't know me thread. If you don't agree with this than ignore it and don't get personal.
Click to expand...

Did you not look at what I said about taking commission and time from sales reps you're interacting with? It's not a good deal. It's a scam that involves other working individuals man. If you disagree it's a scam, that's fine but saying you can afford the phone and "help others" isn't true. Probably a good time to close this thread.
 
MrDaveed said:
Did you not look at what I said about taking commission and time from sales reps you're interacting with? It's not a good deal. It's a scam that involves other working individuals man. If you disagree it's a scam, that's fine but saying you can afford the phone and "help others" isn't true. Probably a good time to close this thread.
Click to expand...

That's completely untrue about the commission thing. They still make a salary and it's their choice to take a job that makes commission. However I do agree with you that this thread is no longer helpful as those of us who will take advantage if this opportunity already have all the info we need. I just don't know how to close the thread. Can an admin please do it for me? Thanks.
 
ILowry82 said:
That's completely untrue about the commission thing. They still make a salary and it's their choice to take a job that makes commission. However I do agree with you that this thread is no longer helpful as those of us who will take advantage if this opportunity already have all the info we need. I just don't know how to close the thread. Can an admin please do it for me? Thanks.
Click to expand...

Lol you're missing the point. You're contributing to others wasting rep's time and takings money from them. That's like saying that's up to a cop if they take a dangerous job and then not feeling bad about going on a joy ride, causing them to die trying to chase you down.

You're kind of a douche in my opinion man.
 
Wow. I've seen a lot of threads with people trying to save money but this might take the cake.

Is this stealing, no but it is dishonest and just plain wrong. I feel bad that the OP doesn't realize how wrong it is to do this sort of thing.

It's people like you that in the long run cause the price hikes and added fees we all have to deal with now. Due to the fact that people like you play the system and hurt everyone along the way.

It's a phone, if you can afford it, go buy it the right way. If you can't afford it at its really price DON'T BUY IT.
 
ILowry82 said:
Thanks for disrespecting me without even knowing me. I make great money doing a job where I help people who can't help themselves, own a nice home and I have a beautiful family. I got all those things by being good with money and looking for deals when I can find them. Why spend $650 when I can spend $200. That's the way I see it. This thread was meant as a way to clue people into a loophole that I found, not a insult me even though you don't know me thread. If you find flaws in this idea then please contribute. But if you just don't agree with it and are just going to hurl insults please stay away and find something better to do.
Click to expand...

No thanks.

And you aren't. You're spending 250 (if it works), plus hours (probably days) of time doing it. Plus wasting the time of multiple other people.

If your time is that worthless I stand by my post 1000%.

But I believe that you are a gajillionaire. And I'm Bob Hope. This is the internet. What do you want to be?
 
The value of the OP's time must be zero. Because mine is definitely worth more than the "savings" from going through all of this hassle and the various missed taxes and fees that would eat away at the potential "savings". Factoring in the uncertain variable of how long it would take to find someone with a Sprint iPhone 6 who's willing to trade for a Verizon one could make the whole process very well take 3-4 months and be even more worthless. Yes the Sprint iPhone 6 is worth far less than the Verizon model on the open market, but OP would need to find someone on Sprint who's getting ready to go to another carrier and trustworthy enough to assume they're paying their bill and the ESN on their iPhone will remain clean. I wouldn't chance my plan on such a risky variable.

Also like someone said above, good luck finding an iPhone 6 in stock in most Verizon stores. By the time they're plentiful then the $200 trade ins for old iPhones might well be over.
 
I did some more research and it seems we may not even need to buy an T-Mobile phone. It seems all they require is the final bill with ETF fee and matching phone numbers (after the port) with addresses. So we could buy SIM only if we have another phone to activate on their service.

As for the time required, it took me 1 hr to buy the Verizon iPhone 6 today--mostly cuz of a pushy salesman trying to get me to sign up for cases and whatnot--and now I just need to wait 2 weeks until I can sign up for T-Mobile. Total time will be between 2-4 hours I guess depending on customer support. So tell me, are you guys making 150 dollars an hour?
 
Its amazing to me how so many people on here are pontificating on the OP's level of honesty or dishonesty. Lets be ...dare I say it, honest here. The companies involved would not think for a second about doing the same to the consumer. Just on a much bigger scale.
 
dvdchance said:
Its amazing to me how so many people on here are pontificating on the OP's level of honesty or dishonesty. Lets be ...dare I say it, honest here. The companies involved would not think for a second about doing the same to the consumer. Just on a much bigger scale.
Click to expand...

This always comes up in these situations. Let me ask you this:

If person A kills person B, is it ok for person Z to kill person A?

If you aren't happy with the companies, don't support them. It's that simple. There is no need to "out screw" them.
 
TWO2SEVEN said:
This always comes up in these situations. Let me ask you this:

If person A kills person B, is it ok for person Z to kill person A?

If you aren't happy with the companies, don't support them. It's that simple. There is no need to "out screw" them.
Click to expand...

Way OT, but your hypothetical isn't close to this situation. Following the exact letter of a promotion, rather then perhaps it's spirit, is a far cry from a killing.
 
you having the purchase the phone through verizon and another phone through t-mobile along with paying verizon's first month bill as well as t-mobile's first few months (until you get the rebate anyway) means it's not "free"

not to mention 2 credit pulls from t-mobile and verizon.

it's quite a process and not worth it imo.
 
dvdchance said:
Way OT, but your hypothetical isn't close to this situation. Following the exact letter of a promotion, rather then perhaps it's spirit, is a far cry from a killing.
Click to expand...

I am not referring to the OP's scheme. I am referring to the "we can screw them because they screw everyone" mentality.
 
Well, I don't care about the ****ing iPhone but ILowry82 can you apply the same crazy ass logic and get me a free or near free garden shed or dehumidifier for my crawl space? one or the other will be fine. My truck needs tires too so I guess that's another idea I'll need. Thanks.
 
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