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Verizon iPad will not have $35 activation fee.

P

protobiont

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jul 6, 2010
650
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UPDATE: It seems to be confirmed that Verizon will not have such a fee.

According to this article.

First off, I hope this isn't true, cause it suddenly makes the first month of service more than double in price. Second, if we are using the LTE coverage at intermittent times, they won't require an activation fee each time you restart, will they?

Can anyone with a verizon iPad 2 explain how it worked/works at present?

Thanks!
 
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I would hope the activation fee isn't imposed every time you start your service. I don't have a 3G or 4G iPad so I can't say. However, the activation fee in the beginning is customary. It's BS but it is customary.
 
jessica. said:
I would hope the activation fee isn't imposed every time you start your service. I don't have a 3G or 4G iPad so I can't say. However, the activation fee in the beginning is customary. It's BS but it is customary.
Click to expand...

I had the first gen iPad, and don't recall any sort of activation fee with ATT.

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protobiont said:
I had the first gen iPad, and don't recall any sort of activation fee with ATT.
Click to expand...

I see this as Verizon's chance to woo me away from ATT. Some bs like this would not help.
 
protobiont said:
According to this article.

First off, I hope this isn't true, cause it suddenly makes the first month of service more than double in price. Second, if we are using the LTE coverage at intermittent times, they won't require an activation fee each time you restart, will they?

Can anyone with a verizon iPad 2 explain how it worked/works at present?

Thanks!
Click to expand...

I can tell you easily.

I have a Verizon 32GB iPad 2. Signed up for the $30 for 2 GB plan about three months ago when I started to really need 3G data. I never paid an activation fee, just the monthly costs.

That article is just full of BS.


There are no additional charges for activation, or for personal hotspot. It's a no-contract plan. Cancel whenever you want, sign up whenever you want.
 
protobiont said:
I had the first gen iPad, and don't recall any sort of activation fee with ATT.

----------



I see this as Verizon's chance to woo me away from ATT. Some bs like this would not help.
Click to expand...

Seems the article is wrong; however, Verizon has no desire to woo you. I was a 10 year customer of AT&T and all previous owners (follow their chain) and VZW had no intentions to woo me. They gave me a contract that I could be happy with and service that suited my needs. AT&T also never made any move to woo me back or keep me there. No one company really cares about one customer. You may get lucky and that is great but overall, they couldn't care less about you.
 
pelicanflip said:
I can tell you easily.

I have a Verizon 32GB iPad 2. Signed up for the $30 for 2 GB plan about three months ago when I started to really need 3G data. I never paid an activation fee, just the monthly costs.

That article is just full of BS.


There are no additional charges for activation, or for personal hotspot. It's a no-contract plan. Cancel whenever you want, sign up whenever you want.
Click to expand...

Thanks!
 
jessica. said:
Seems the article is wrong; however, Verizon has no desire to woo you. I was a 10 year customer of AT&T and all previous owners (follow their chain) and VZW had no intentions to woo me. They gave me a contract that I could be happy with and service that suited my needs. AT&T also never made any move to woo me back or keep me there. No one company really cares about one customer. You may get lucky and that is great but overall, they couldn't care less about you.
Click to expand...

I don't actually think that Verizon is interested specifically in ME as a customer. Would they like to have more customers than they do at present? Undoubtedly. Could offering a superior network experience to millions of iPad users who may also have iPhones with ATT help them to get more customers in the future? Certainly.
 
I dont know... I honestly believe that there is no activation or re-activation charge with Verizon for the iPad data plans. But I have not been able to get positive confirmation of that from ANYONE I have spoken to at Verizon. They seem to have some serious customer service and mis-information issues going on.

I encourage you to call them and/or visit their store - its fun! After several phone calls I went to the couple nearest Verizon stores and had every representative I spoke with tell me beyond any shadow of a doubt that there is a $35 activation fee when you first setup the data plan. Then, if you disconnect and re-connect later I have had some tell me its $15 to re-activate and others say it is $35. You could suspend the account to avoid the re-activation fee, but the suspension period can be no longer than 3 months. But none of them could tell or show me where the details for that activation/reactivation fee are presented on either their printed material or website.

That does sound plausible for the post-paid plans, and asking about the pre-paid plans I get similar replies and insistence that there is a $35 activation fee.

I have shown them the page on their own website where it says there is no activation fee, no reconnect fee and no overage charges:
http://www.verizonwireless.com/b2c/splash/ipad.jsp

So far, that has just gotten them confused and upset - I had the last store manager I spoke to try and explain that it means there is no activation fee when there is no service - but when you do start the service, there will be an activation fee. Other Verizon sales people tried to tell me that was just an online promotion.

Like I said, I think the in store and customer service people are confused or perhaps even willfully mis-informing customers to get them to sign up for the post-paid plans rather than the pre-paid. But that's just speculation...
 
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We paid $35 VZ activation fee. Here's the real story.

On March 22, 2012, having been unable to log in and get our iPad3 to sign up for the prepaid $20/1GB per month online offering, and having read Stewart Wolpin's claim on "Tech Goes Strong" that Personal Hotspot only works with postpaid data plans, we went to our Verizon store. There we found that (1) A $35 activation fee is required for a postpaid iPad data plan, (2) the smallest postpaid iPad data plan is $30/2GB per month, and (3) there's also Verizon's bundle of five garbage fees that adds about another $5 (neither I nor the salesman could precisely sum up the fee total). All of this I confirmed by looking at the salesman's screen--this was not a sneaky commission; it was all his screen allowed. Cancellation is OK anytime; partial months are prorated. Payments are one month in advance, so you pay upfront more than twice the $30. And, last but not least, if you cancel, to restart you pay another activation fee. We paid knowing we were being soaked but needing Personal Hotspot.

Awhile later the feedback on Wolpin's article went disconfirmatory--that is, Wolpin was full of **it. We're watching our data use and will likely cancel and go to prepaid.
 
SignalCorps said:
On March 22, 2012, having been unable to log in and get our iPad3 to sign up for the prepaid $20/1GB per month online offering, and having read Stewart Wolpin's claim on "Tech Goes Strong" that Personal Hotspot only works with postpaid data plans, we went to our Verizon store. There we found that (1) A $35 activation fee is required for a postpaid iPad data plan, (2) the smallest postpaid iPad data plan is $30/2GB per month, and (3) there's also Verizon's bundle of five garbage fees that adds about another $5 (neither I nor the salesman could precisely sum up the fee total). All of this I confirmed by looking at the salesman's screen--this was not a sneaky commission; it was all his screen allowed. Cancellation is OK anytime; partial months are prorated. Payments are one month in advance, so you pay upfront more than twice the $30. And, last but not least, if you cancel, to restart you pay another activation fee. We paid knowing we were being soaked but needing Personal Hotspot.

Awhile later the feedback on Wolpin's article went disconfirmatory--that is, Wolpin was full of **it. We're watching our data use and will likely cancel and go to prepaid.
Click to expand...

The other issue is when the POSTPAID plan is canceled the SIM card is rendered useless and you need to get a new sim to start over on prepaid and GOOD LUCK on that (unless you buy one off eBay)! The odds of VZW giving you a sim for PREpaid, unless they resolved their issues, are quite slim and closer to none.
 
SignalCorps said:
On March 22, 2012, having been unable to log in and get our iPad3 to sign up for the prepaid $20/1GB per month online offering, and having read Stewart Wolpin's claim on "Tech Goes Strong" that Personal Hotspot only works with postpaid data plans, we went to our Verizon store. There we found that (1) A $35 activation fee is required for a postpaid iPad data plan, (2) the smallest postpaid iPad data plan is $30/2GB per month, and (3) there's also Verizon's bundle of five garbage fees that adds about another $5 (neither I nor the salesman could precisely sum up the fee total). All of this I confirmed by looking at the salesman's screen--this was not a sneaky commission; it was all his screen allowed. Cancellation is OK anytime; partial months are prorated. Payments are one month in advance, so you pay upfront more than twice the $30. And, last but not least, if you cancel, to restart you pay another activation fee. We paid knowing we were being soaked but needing Personal Hotspot.

Awhile later the feedback on Wolpin's article went disconfirmatory--that is, Wolpin was full of **it. We're watching our data use and will likely cancel and go to prepaid.
Click to expand...

I am confused - why didn't you have them set up a prepaid plan instead of a post paid plan?
 
SignalCorps said:
On March 22, 2012, having been unable to log in and get our iPad3 to sign up for the prepaid $20/1GB per month online offering, and having read Stewart Wolpin's claim on "Tech Goes Strong" that Personal Hotspot only works with postpaid data plans, we went to our Verizon store. There we found that (1) A $35 activation fee is required for a postpaid iPad data plan, (2) the smallest postpaid iPad data plan is $30/2GB per month, and (3) there's also Verizon's bundle of five garbage fees that adds about another $5 (neither I nor the salesman could precisely sum up the fee total). All of this I confirmed by looking at the salesman's screen--this was not a sneaky commission; it was all his screen allowed. Cancellation is OK anytime; partial months are prorated. Payments are one month in advance, so you pay upfront more than twice the $30. And, last but not least, if you cancel, to restart you pay another activation fee. We paid knowing we were being soaked but needing Personal Hotspot.

Awhile later the feedback on Wolpin's article went disconfirmatory--that is, Wolpin was full of **it. We're watching our data use and will likely cancel and go to prepaid.
Click to expand...

You've been duped. Either this Stewart fellow is an idiot or a Verizon shill. ?I've been using hot spot on my PRE-PAID verizon iPad plan since day after launch! Multiple board members here and I have wasted hours of time and gallons of gasoline trying to convert the post-paid plan into pre-paid. What the poster above said is correct, you're going to need a new sim. Good luck on getting one from verizon AND getting them to refund those fees! I eventually got a new sim from best buy (where I got my iPad from originally). Prior to going back to best buy, I wasted over 4 hours at 2 different verizon corporate stores and also several hours on their customer service lines and those bastards would not give me a new sim.
 
I don't understand why Verizon isn't willing to give away or sell prepaid iPad data sims. Where are these ebay sims coming from? Is it true that even if you are on prepaid and activate service, then deactivate for more than five months the sim card becomes inoperable as well? I guess we'll know in about 5 or 6 months, but that doesn't sound right to me.

AT&T doesn't do anything funny with the sim card and will give/sell you another one.
 
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