Wireless carriers continue to amaze me by their drive to race each other to the bottom of the pricing curve.  Who can lose money faster to grab new customers?

But my recent experience with Verizon tops it all.

First, I must confess to being a bit of a technology Luddite. My twenty-something kids write me off in this department.  I have an 8MB IPhone4 with a pathetic camera. Why? Because my lovely daughter has a habit of destroying and/or losing phones, so she has used two of my last upgrades.

I recently called Verizon to inquire on my and my daughter’s upgrade dates. The service rep, obviously reading from a script, noticed that I had not used my May 2015 upgrade and offered me a $25/mo. bill credit for every month I did not upgrade. AWESOME!

Then my phone died (well, actually it overheated) when I was hiking in NH’s White Mountains. I went to my local Verizon store and asked about my options to upgrade to an iPhone6. I could pay $300 with a 2-year contract or pay a net $6.67 without a contract.

SAY WHAT??

Yup. I could pay the full $760 over 24 months but keep my $25/month credit. Net cost? $6.67/month.

Bottom line:  I’d pay $300 (a 60% discount) with a contract or net $160 (an 80% discount) without a contract.

HMM: Better phone at a lower cost with fewer strings attached.

Verizon seriously needs customer value training.