Like the Religion: I just Ramit-ed my cellphone bill!

likethereligion:

I just called AT&T and lowered my cellphone bill. At the risk of sounding like an email scam, it was pretty great. I apologize if my tone offends…

I followed Ramit’s advice on what to say, trying hard to be pleasant, and added my personal touch by saying that I could save $20/month by…

Following CR’s lead last night, I phoned Verizon and successfully got some unadvertised discounts. This is also a follow up to my post last week about Verizon increasing the cost as of June 28 for folks who are paying the least—I wanted to be sure to implement any changes and get a new phone (Galaxy S III!) before the new billing comes into law.

With Ramit’s approach, combined with CR’s info that ATT would give me a great rate if I switched my family plan over (my parents are on my plan), I switched to Verizon’s “legacy plan” which has 550 shared minutes for $70/month instead of 700 minutes for $80/month. Also, because my employer has a corporate contract with Verizon, I got an extra 6% off my bills going forward with their employee discount program. As a result, I’ll save a total of about $200 each year!

UPDATE: It looks like I also got the $30 “upgrade fee” on my new phone waived, thanks to an amazing Verizon rep after asking nicely.

P.S.S. I forgot to mention that we met Ramit IRL on Monday night, and it was awesome.