How to protect yourself from the cell phone insurance scams
When you upgrade your cell phone, many cell phone companies will offer you a sum (normally about $20) in exchange for your old phone. This is a ploy so that you’ll have to buy insurance, which actually gives you very little for your money.
Insurance is not a bad thing if it actually covers you, but when you insure your phone with a company such as Asurion, you pay $4 to $7 per month, yet if your phone becomes lost, stolen or damaged, you'll still have to pay a $100 deductible for a replacement smartphone or $50 deductible for a replacement regular phone. This comes to about two thirds of the price you paid for the phone when you originally purchased it, regardless of the fact that you've been paying Asurion to the tune of several dollars a month for up to several years.
To add further insult, the ‘new’ phone will not even be new, but a refurbished old phone, probably broken by some previous customer sucker. That wouldn’t be a problem if the insurance covered the cost of the replacement phone, and for $4 to $7 per month plus $100 deductible, you have more than likely covered the cost of a brand new phone.
So here’s how you can outsmart the insurance company by 'insuring' yourself:
1) When you purchase a new phone, ignore the sales rep and REFUSE to purchase insurance. Instead go home with both your new and old phones, and store the old phone somewhere safe.
2) If your new phone is ever lost, stolen or damaged, dust off your old phone, take it to your nearest cell phone store and ask them to reactivate it.
3) You now have no backup phone at home. Therefore log onto ebay and purchase a replacement phone. This will normally cost you no more than the fifty to one hundred dollars that you'd be expected to pay at your local cell phone store. Do not be put off that the phones sold on ebay are second hand, because the phone you would purchase at your local cell phone store would also be second hand. The ebay purchased phone is now your insurance phone. Keep it somewhere safe.
This system worked very nicely for me when I broke my new Blackberry. I reactivated my old Blackberry, then used ebay to purchase a used Blackberry for $100. The ebay Blackberry then replaced my old Blackberry as my insurance and it all worked out cheaper than lining the pockets of Asurion every month.
Perhaps, if, after several years, you find that you have accumulated old phones, then why not give your provider your oldest, most useless phone for the $20 and teach them a lesson about being suckered. Whatever you do though, always keep the phone from which you have just upgraded, as that old phone is your insurance.
The tracker ball on my husband’s Blackberry stopped working. He was insured, but Sprint claimed they couldn’t fix it, so they made him buy a new phone and then gave him $20 in exchange for his 'unfixable' old phone. Suckered !!!
When you upgrade your cell phone, many cell phone companies will offer you a sum (normally about $20) in exchange for your old phone. This is a ploy so that you’ll have to buy insurance, which actually gives you very little for your money.
Insurance is not a bad thing if it actually covers you, but when you insure your phone with a company such as Asurion, you pay $4 to $7 per month, yet if your phone becomes lost, stolen or damaged, you'll still have to pay a $100 deductible for a replacement smartphone or $50 deductible for a replacement regular phone. This comes to about two thirds of the price you paid for the phone when you originally purchased it, regardless of the fact that you've been paying Asurion to the tune of several dollars a month for up to several years.
To add further insult, the ‘new’ phone will not even be new, but a refurbished old phone, probably broken by some previous customer sucker. That wouldn’t be a problem if the insurance covered the cost of the replacement phone, and for $4 to $7 per month plus $100 deductible, you have more than likely covered the cost of a brand new phone.
So here’s how you can outsmart the insurance company by 'insuring' yourself:
1) When you purchase a new phone, ignore the sales rep and REFUSE to purchase insurance. Instead go home with both your new and old phones, and store the old phone somewhere safe.
2) If your new phone is ever lost, stolen or damaged, dust off your old phone, take it to your nearest cell phone store and ask them to reactivate it.
3) You now have no backup phone at home. Therefore log onto ebay and purchase a replacement phone. This will normally cost you no more than the fifty to one hundred dollars that you'd be expected to pay at your local cell phone store. Do not be put off that the phones sold on ebay are second hand, because the phone you would purchase at your local cell phone store would also be second hand. The ebay purchased phone is now your insurance phone. Keep it somewhere safe.
This system worked very nicely for me when I broke my new Blackberry. I reactivated my old Blackberry, then used ebay to purchase a used Blackberry for $100. The ebay Blackberry then replaced my old Blackberry as my insurance and it all worked out cheaper than lining the pockets of Asurion every month.
Perhaps, if, after several years, you find that you have accumulated old phones, then why not give your provider your oldest, most useless phone for the $20 and teach them a lesson about being suckered. Whatever you do though, always keep the phone from which you have just upgraded, as that old phone is your insurance.
The tracker ball on my husband’s Blackberry stopped working. He was insured, but Sprint claimed they couldn’t fix it, so they made him buy a new phone and then gave him $20 in exchange for his 'unfixable' old phone. Suckered !!!
Where the customer is a sucker !!!
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