Verizon (VZ) appears to have developed a tense relationship with some of its customers over the past few months.
The phone carrier has made it clear that it isn’t afraid to continuously increase prices for its services, which has frustrated customers who are sick of price hikes.
In March last year, it increased the monthly price of its 5G Start, 5G Play More, 5G Get More, and 5G Do More unlimited mobile plans by $4.
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By October, it reduced its autopay discount from $10 to $5 monthly for customers on older phone plans. Then, in December, it raised its monthly Administrative and Telco Recovery Charge for mobile users by $0.20 per line.
In January, Verizon kicked off the new year by hiking monthly prices for wireless customers with myPlan and New Verizon Plan accounts due to “rising operational costs.”
Also, just last month, Verizon added a brochure on its website warning customers with four to 20 lines that the monthly price of its Verizon Mobile Protect Multi-Device plan and Verizon Mobile Secure Multi-Device plan will increase by $8 on March 27.
Amid these changes, many Verizon customers took to social media to air their frustrations about price increases, with some threatening to switch phone providers.
Verizon attempts to win back customers with generous deal
Now, it appears that some of those customers may have followed through with their promise to cut ties with the company, as Verizon is now rolling out a new offer to win them back.
A T-Mobile customer, who recently switched from Verizon, took to Reddit to reveal that Verizon has repeatedly been notifying them that they are eligible for a new promotion that offers them $500 in bill credits, which will be dispersed within a period of 36 months if they switch back to Verizon.
This translates to a $14 discount per bill and only applies to customers who add their own phone to a myPlan account.
“Verizon sent me this offer 4 times in the past 2 weeks,” wrote the T-Mobile customer in a Reddit post. “This is all it says. It doesn’t have any terms and details on the offer letter. I call just to see anyways. The rep was like ‘yea this is a great offer you’re eligible for.’ But here’s the kicker… the $500 is given to me in bill credits over 36 MONTHS! Haha. I literally laughed and told him that’s a horrible deal to switch back. He also said I was eligible for a new free line if I come back and buy a new phone.”
Some Reddit users, who claim to be former Verizon customers, responded to the post, agreeing that the deal wasn’t good enough to make them switch back to the company.
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The move from Verizon comes after T-Mobile rolled out deals over the past few weeks (shortly after it also hiked prices) offering select wireless customers free voice lines.
Verizon flags major problem after touting price increases
Verizon recently ended 2024 on a good note by earning $27.6 billion in total consumer revenue during the fourth quarter of 2024, a 2.2% increase compared to the same period in 2023.
Its wireless service revenue also spiked by 3% year-over-year, which it claims was mainly due to recent “pricing actions.”
However, the phone carrier warned its investors in a recent Securities Exchange filing that it expects postpaid phone gross additions in the first quarter of this year to either remain flat or slightly decline, compared to the same quarter in 2024.
Related: T-Mobile hopes to win back angry customers with generous offers
While speaking at the Deutsche Bank conference on March 11, Verizon Chief Revenue Officer Frank Boulben said the company has been experiencing softer demand this year due to heightened competition.
“It’s been a challenging quarter from a competitive intensity standpoint,” said Boulben.
His comments follow Verizon Consumer Group CEO Sowmyanarayan Sampath’s statement during an earnings call in January that customers “feel very comfortable” with the company’s prices.
“We had four major price-ups in 2024, we’ve had two in 2025, because we are delivering more value to our customers, and they feel very comfortable with our price structure,” said Sampath.
He also said that Verizon has already earned over $1 billion from those recent price increases.
“We cannot, of course, comment on future price-ups, but we will look where we see lower churn, where input prices are a little higher, and more importantly, the value that we deliver to customers,” said Sampath. “For 2025, the price actions that we’ve already done are in the hopper. More than $1 billion-plus of our service revenue growth is already baked in just with those price-ups.”
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