I went out to the store the other day (Yay! conquering snow!) and as I drove, the radio played. I’m a little hypersensitive lately about advertising that is a blatant attempt at taking advantage of people… especially people who are trying to bootstrap themselves out of bad situations.

So, a Verizon commercial came on, and started with a discussion of how hard times are, how “you’ve cut your grocery budget — no junk food, no expensive snacks, you’ve cut movie night… but try to cut your kids wireless and you’ll have them protesting in the front yard. Never fear! Verizon Wireless has free phones for the whole family.” It then ran through (you know, Radio Guy with the Fast Voice) the small print.

Here’s how the deal ends up working. You sign up for a $100 plan plus 3 added lines ($10 each) for two years… so, committing to a new $130 payment every month. In exchange for your $3120, you’re getting 4 phones that are a total value of probably $800 (at no contract pricing). But, what happens when you try to cancel? $20 per line per month remaining on the contract. So, when you get to 8 months remaining on the contract and something catastrophic happens, you owe them a payment of $640 if you want to stop making your monthly $130 payment.

Two problems:

First, proposing a new payment of $130 a month to a family that’s “cut their grocery budget and their movie night” seems irresponsible and possibly even stupid.

Second, it seems like interactions with cell phone carriers are entirely slanted their way… there’s little benefit to the customer. It’s not like they drop your monthly charge if you don’t take the free phones and sign the contract. Maybe they should!

Just remember when you’re dealing with them that it IS your money. You can choose to deal with whoever you want. I’m starting to think that it might be time for a revolution in the cell phone market.