it pays to ask...

I called up Verizon yesterday to ask what my cancellation fee would be for my wireless plan. The reason I'm doing this is because the plan costs $39.99 a month. After taxes and that oh-so-stupid "Universal Service" fee, the cost per month is just over $48.

I almost never use this phone since I got my digital land line. In fact you'd be lucky to see more than 10 minutes of usage on it each month.

That $48 monthly is now wasted cash.

Verizon told me my fee would be $155 and change for the cancellation.

But then the rep asked me why I was considering canceling. I told him it was all about cost. Then I found out there are three plans lower in cost than the one I'm paying now. A $34.99 one, a $25 and a $20.

I went for the $25 a month which gives me 100 anytime minutes and something like 300 or 500 night/weekend minutes. It doesn't matter because I don't even put 30 minutes a month on the phone let alone 100.

After taxes and universal service fee b.s. it should round out to $32 a month.

If this works without any b.s. and I find that I'm still barely using my phone, I'll switch to the $20 a month plan. Then my monthly cost shouldn't be any more than $25.

I'm both pleased and ticked off at the same time, because if I had known about these I would have switched months ago.