How to cancel Verizon service
Can you hear me now? No? Leave Verizon behind.
If you’re not happy with Verizon’s service, it’s your right to cancel whenever you please. Just remember that you signed an agreement with the carrier, so you’re probably not getting off scot-free.
The penalties and processes associated with canceling your Verizon service will depend on whether you’re on a traditional two-year contract or in a month-to-month agreement. We’ll tell you how to do both.
We’ll also give you some advice when it comes to dropping lines from family plans, since canceling multiple lines at once can end in some incredibly hefty early termination fees.
- How to cancel your Verizon service if you’re on a two-year contract
- How to cancel your month-to-month service with Verizon
- How to drop lines from a shared Verizon plan
- Things to remember
How to cancel your Verizon service if you’re on a two-year contract
There are a few things to consider before canceling your two-year Verizon contract early. It’s best if you can just wait it out and then decline to re-sign or go month-to-month. However, if you decide to cancel early, here’s what you should consider.
Can I cancel my contract online?
No dice. The only way to cancel is to head into a Verizon store in person or to call Verizon customer service. They need to be able to verify who you are before they go losing any money – ahem, canceling someone’s account. If you want to cancel, you can call Verizon’s cancellation line at 1-800-922-0204.
What kind of fees will I have to pay when I cancel my two-year contract?
There are a few mitigating factors that determine what type of penalties you’ll have to pay for canceling your Verizon service. How far into your agreement are you? Did you buy your phone from Verizon? We’ll walk you through the nitty gritty.
Billing charges
Depending on you where you’re at in your billing period, you might have to pay for whatever’s remaining in the month, even if it’s the first day of the new cycle.
Early termination fees (ETF)
Your early termination fees will be dependant upon how far into your Verizon agreement you are. If it’s pretty early, then you’ll pay $350, which will decline by $10 per month in months 8 to 18, $20 per month in months 19 to 23, and $60 in the final month of your contract. These fees apply to each line of service you have, so be careful when dropping lines from family share plans.
However, if you cancel within 14 days of signing, you’ll be able to cancel without issue, provided you return your phone and pay the $35 restocking fee. Things start to get a bit mucky after 14 days.
If you don’t cancel within three days of signing, you’re also on the hook for your activation fee.
“You will also be responsible for all applicable usage fees, prorated access charges, taxes, surcharges or other charges that accrued to your account through the termination date,” which means any talk, text, or data overages too.
Device/equipment charges
At their discretion, Verizon says they may decline your device return at any time. They might also may make you pay for missing components if you don’t return the phone and everything that came with it in the original box.
If you bought a phone on Verizon’s “Device Payments” plan, you’re on the hook for the remainder of the phone, if you don’t return it upon cancellation. That’s on top of the early termination fee.
Can I avoid paying fees?
There’s no guaranteed way to get around fees, but we have some tips that just might work.
Poor service
You could just try complaining, plain and simple. Don’t be a jerk about it, but you could claim that your Verizon service was poor and not what was promised in the agreement. If you owe them $350, they probably won’t waive it, but they may reduce it.
New provider pays your fees
Some providers, like T-Mobile, offer to pay your switching fees, so long as you trade in your phone and buy a new one on their network. So, if you weren’t planning on taking your Verizon device with you, you might be out of luck, but you could certainly try. If you’ll be switching more than one line over to a new provider, that could play in your favor.
What’s the easiest way to get out of my contract with Verizon?
Just tell them you’re switching to a new provider or moving to another country. You’ll have to go through the whole rigmarole of them trying to “keep your business,” which may lead to them sweetening the pot and retaining you as a customer, fair enough. Otherwise, just stay in the pocket and insist that you’re leaving and that’s all there is to it.
The bottom line
The whole process is entirely subjected to how you and the Verizon customer service rep handle the situation. Go in with a smile on, be pleasant, and hope that whomever you’re dealing with is having a good day. Rules are rules, sure, and there are fees that Verizon says they “have” to charge you, but nothing’s set in stone.
How to cancel your month-to-month service with Verizon
Things are much simpler if you’re with Verizon on a month-to-month basis and are financing your phone.
Can I cancel my month-to-month agreement online?
Not gonna happen. In order for Verizon to verify your identity, you’ll either have to head down to your nearest Verizon store or call them at 1-800-922-0204. You’ll need your account number!
What kind of fees will I have to pay when I cancel my month-to-month agreement?
Unlike a two-year contract, there are no early termination fees for canceling a month-to-month agreement with Verizon. You’ll just have pay your bill for the rest of the month you’re canceling and then you’ll have to pay out the phone you’re financing. Once you’re all paid off, you’ll keep the phone — and since it’s unlikely to work on another carrier, you’ll want to consider selling it.
How to drop lines from a shared Verizon plan
Early termination fees apply to each line of service, so if you have a couple birds leaving the nest who want to start their own accounts, don’t outright cancel their lines. You can request an Assumption of Liability. Rather than canceling the lines, the Assumption of Liability allows you to simply move service into a new account, under a new name. This could save you a ton of money in the long run. The best way to do this would be to hit up a Verizon store or to call their customer service line at 1-800-922-0204.
Once you start dropping lines from your family share plans, you might want to take a look at switching your other lines to individual plans. If you had four lines on your family share and two moved over to new accounts, then you have two lines on a family share plan and it’s likely not saving you any money.
Just to remember
Everything is discretionary on the part of Verizon, so the above-mentioned fees aren’t finite or necessarily consistent across the board, since each cancellation case is different. Expect to pay early termination fees if you’re in a two-year contract, but remember that other carriers may be willing to pay your dues for you.
Sunset will reach Sunrise Calendar on August 31 as focus shifts to Outlook
The current Sunrise Calendar app will be removed from the Google Play Store in a few more days, and will stop working on installed devices after August 31. The Sunrise team will instead begin focusing their full efforts on the Outlook mobile app following their acquisition by Microsoft.
The Sunrise team revealed their shutdown plans for the app in a blog post:
The entire Sunrise team is now working side-by-side with the Outlook team and it’s a thrilling moment for us to work on an app of this scale. Unfortunately, as all good stories go, there’s a sad bit to it: we’re not able to support and update Sunrise anymore. No new features. No bug fixes. For us, that’s the definition of a lousy app and it’s not a user experience we want to leave you with. For this reason, we’ll be removing Sunrise from the app stores in the next few days. On August 31st, we’ll officially shut down the app and it will stop working all together.
The blog added that the Sunrise team is still hard at work at Microsoft to bring “the magic of Sunrise to the Outlook apps.”
Get lost in space with an out of this world Wallpaper Wednesday
Don’t let your home screen fall into a rut — switch out your wallpaper!
You don’t have to pull out a complex new theme like Deadpool to bring a breath of fresh air to your home screen. A new wallpaper can do wonders, and launchers like Action Launcher can re-theme your entire home screen around a good wallpaper. In our effort to help brighten your device — and maybe your day — we’re compiling some wallpapers for you to try out.
If you’ve got a wallpaper you use everywhere, share it in the comments below! We’re always looking for something new. Now get your wallpaper picker ready and see what’s in store this week.
Stars
Looking up at the night sky for most of us treats us to a few brighter stars, maybe the moon, and a lot of darkness. But imagine if you looked at at night to a scene like this? Granted, some of the stars here are closer than any others will every be to Earth, but look at the color, the vibrancy, the activity. Look at all the stars, all the worlds there are out there! This wallpaper makes me wonder about the life, the wonder, the mysteries that are just waiting up in the sky, waiting to be found.
Stars
Galaxy Collection from New Revolution
The universe is a vast, vast place with with unspeakable beauty. While we keep sending telescopes and cameras out to capture and catalog that beauty, the truth is that we’ll never see most of it. Thankfully that hasn’t stopped artists from imaging what the farthest reaches of space look like, and this collection of wallpapers shows us galaxies that we may never reach, but that we can at least reach for.
Galaxy Collection from New Revolution
Orion Liftoff by NASA
We’re still a few years from Mars, but test flights like this Orion launch get us closer and closer to the red planet. This shot featured on NASA’s website from the test flight of the Orion spacecraft may not be blasting off to distant world quite yet, but we know it’s coming. And while we can’t plaster up a launch that hasn’t happened yet as our wallpaper, this liftoff helps remind us the raw power and science that goes into each and every flight.
Orion Liftoff by NASA
Spacex Launch
Spacex may not be the only game in town when it comes to the new space race, but they are without a doubt the most visible. Their programs are not only helping us get closer and closer to a new age of space travel, they’re helping re-ignite a focus on science and technology, especially for the millions of kids (and kids at heart) who watch the Spacex livestreams and cheered when they had their second successful landing at sea last week. This wallpaper, like Spacex itself, reaches for the heavens, to slip the surly bonds of Earth and explore the final frontier.
Spacex Launch
Just Read the Instructions
If you’re reading this site, you’re probably the person all your family and friends turn to for help with technology. You’re the only they turn to when an app won’t work or their camera won’t save pictures or their computer’s making funny noises and smoking a little bit. Spacex, being run and staffed by smart people who are likely turned to for technological help on and off the clock, have the polite version of the phrase we all want to scream sometimes emblazoned on one of their landing pads. And now you can emblazon it on your screen.
Just Read The Instructions
Hitman GO coming to Gear VR and Oculus Rift this week
The boardgame-style assassination game Hitman GO will soon be available to play in VR. Starting Thursday, May 12, owners of the Samsung Gear VR or the Oculus Rift will be able to download and play the game from those devices’ respective stores with 91 levels of assassination challenges, according to The Verge.
While most games with Hitman name are third-person action or stealth-action titles for PCs and game consoles, GO takes a different path. Over the course of levels straight out of other parts of the series, GO tasks you with turn-based assassination missions from a bird’s-eye view.
The Gear VR version will be available for $7.99, while the Oculus Rift game will cost $9.99.
Samsung Gear VR
- Gear VR review
- Five Gear VR games that shouldn’t be missed
- Inside Samsung’s Gear VR web browser
- Gear VR vs. Google Cardboard
- Where to buy Gear VR
Amazon
AT&T
Best Buy
Samsung
Facebook may be gaining support for 360-degree photos in the coming weeks
According to a new report, support for 360-degree photos may make its way to Facebook within the next few weeks. Facebook has needed to add support for this feature for some time already, so it would be a welcomed addition. This will make uploading 360 or panoramic images from a phone or 360-degree camera much easier.
According to SlashGear:
Facebook 360 Photos will arrive in the next few weeks, supporting uploading a 360 or panoramic image from a smartphone or 360-degree camera like Samsung’s Gear 360 or Ricoh’s Theta S. That content can be viewed by dragging the photo around with a finger or mouse, or – if you’re using the Facebook mobile app – by tilting your phone around.
If you have Gear VR, though, you’ll be able to load the image and move your head to look around it. Meanwhile, come June there’ll be a new way of accessing all this too, with a redesign for Oculus Home on Gear VR. That should make it easier to access recently-played games and experiences, among other things.
With 360-degree video becoming more popular, it is great to see support coming for still images as well. Be sure to keep an eye out for the new features to go live.
Samsung Gear VR
- Gear VR review
- Five Gear VR games that shouldn’t be missed
- Inside Samsung’s Gear VR web browser
- Gear VR vs. Google Cardboard
- Where to buy Gear VR
Amazon
AT&T
Best Buy
Samsung
Amazon’s Top Gear rival is The Grand Tour, will be filmed in a tent
Amazon’s rival show to Top Gear has finally got a name. Jeremy Clarkson, James May and Richard Hammond will present a new car show called The Grand Tour, which will start on the Amazon Prime Instant Video this autumn.
Not much has been revealed about the new show yet, although Clarksom himself revealed a small snippet on his Twitter account; it will be filmed in a tent and travel around different countries.
He also asks for prospective viewers to nominate locations around the world for the roadshow to visit.
So, the Grand Tour (GT for short) will come from a tent, which we will put up in a different location every week. Your town?
— Jeremy Clarkson (@JeremyClarkson) May 11, 2016
The Amazon website elaborates on the concept: “Not only will the guys travel to different locations, but for the first time ever the studio audience recordings will travel every week, all housed within a giant tent,” it says.
Amazon customers can get in on the action and win tickets to be in the audience. “Amazon customers will have the chance to be in the audience when tickets are released through prize draws this summer,” reveals the site.
The BBC’s new Top Gear starts at the end of this month, May, so will have a significant head start on the rival show from its old presenting team. Let battle commence.
Nest opens the networking code for its smart home devices
Nest already has a bunch of companies lined up to use its Thread network protocol in their devices (over 30 submitted right now), but it’s not content with what’s on deck. The Alphabet-owned company has created an open source version, OpenThread, that lets anyone implement the smart home-oriented technology in their connected gadgets. In theory, it doesn’t take much work — Thread is already an IPv6 protocol, so any device that handles the 802.15.4 standard (used for low-rate personal networks) should only need a few tweaks to play nicely.
The hope is that OpenThread will become the de facto connection format for Internet of Things devices that aren’t explicitly Thread-certified (the certification program isn’t going away). A smart home startup could not only use ready-made networking code, but submit changes if they think the tech could stand some improvements. Whether or not other companies take it up is another matter. After all, it’s tempting to either cling to the most universal standards (even if they aren’t ideal for IoT gear) or else write proprietary code. Would-be users will have to see that there’s a clear advantage to using OpenThread instead of going their own way.
Source: GitHub
Google Translate now works in apps on any Android phone
If you hate having to paste foreign language text into Google Translate just to understand it, your worries are over. Google has updated Translate for Android to introduce Tap to Translate, an expansion of the translation-anywhere feature it introduced on Marshmallow last fall. Anyone running Android 4.2 or later can now decipher unfamiliar text on the spot simply by copying it — helpful if you frequently run into messages or social posts that aren’t in familiar tongues.
There’s more rolling out over the next few days, including things for the non-Android crowd. Translate for iOS now includes offline support, giving you a way to communicate in other languages when you don’t have data service (say, on vacation). And if you regularly visit China, you’ll be glad to know that camera-based Word Lens translation on both Android and iOS now supports simplified and traditional Chinese. If you’ve ever struggled to make sense of a Beijing restaurant menu or a Shanghai street sign, you can rest easy.
Source: Google Play, App Store
‘Civilization’ reinvents itself again this October
It’s been a long time coming, but a new Civ, Civilization VI, will hit PC this October. Traditionally Civ games have come every four or five years, but the release of the Beyond Earth spin-off in 2014 and its subsequent Rising Tide expansion appear to have pushed things back a little. So… what’s new in Civilization VI? It’s early days still, but the short answer appears to be “lots.”
The biggest change discards a rule introduced in Civilization V: one unit per tile. While you could technically place military units together with civilian ones, you will now be able to combine many units for combat bonuses or protection reasons. This will get rid of some serious pain points from earlier games, but also introduce new tactical elements.
Early in a Civilization V campaign, for example, you had to flank a settler unit with warriors, or hope barbarians did not capture them. Likewise, workers building roads out in the open were a big risk, and you had to keep on moving a warrior along with them. Now, you’ll simply be able to combine a settler or worker unit with a warrior unit to ensure they can’t randomly be jumped. Later on in the game cycle, you’ll be able to combine different military units to create better-rounded armies. Think about combining an anti-tank unit with an infantry unit to cover one another’s weaknesses. You could also combine two units of the same type for a new ultra-powerful “Corps” unit. This will seriously change the way combat works. While older Civ titles let you stack units on a single tile, they did not act as a single unit as they will in Civilization VI.
In another shake-up, the way cities expand is changing. In previous Civ games, a city itself took up a single tile, with only the land borders around it expanding. Now, cities will physically expand to consume tiles around them. You’ll be able to plan out the layout of each settlement, making individual cities more unique — a military city might have a very different layout to a farming town. You’ll have to craft cities based on the terrain around them to take full advantage of nearby resources.
Diplomacy and Research are also seeing an overhaul. Your conversations with other leaders will change significantly depending on which age — stone, bronze, etc. — you’re in. This makes a ton of sense compared to the static diplomacy of the past. Expect primitive interactions in early game, and more conflict and war, to give way to complex alliances and negotiations as your society progresses. For Research, you’ll now be encouraged to explore new lands and develop the local environment. Doing so will unlock boosts that advance the speed topics are researched.
Finally (for now, at least), there are tweaks coming to accessibility and multiplayer. While the game is designed for long-time Civ fans, a fresh tutorial system is promised that will ease new players slowly into the myriad aspects of a campaign. For multiplayer, a new mode is coming based around scenarios. This as-yet unnamed mode can be played both cooperatively and competitively, and is designed to be “easily completed in a single session.”
Expect to hear a lot more about Civilization VI soon. The game is scheduled for release on October 21st. Previous titles have also come to OS X and Linux, but as of now it’s only confirmed for PC. We’re likely to learn about new features, tweaks and release plans for additional platforms over the coming weeks months leading up to the launch.
Correction: This article has been modified since publishing to better explain the way unit combination will work in Civilization VI. It previously stated that having more that one unit per tile was new to the series. While unit combination is a new feature addition to the Civilization series, prior to Civilization V, multiple units could be stacked on a single tile. The two features are very different, but the original statement was nonetheless incorrect, and we apologize for the error.
Nintendo’s new mobile games will be free-to-play
Nintendo’s upcoming smartphone renditions of popular franchises Fire Emblem and Animal Crossing will be free to play, according to DeNA’s Chief Executive Isao Moriyasu.
The actual terminology Moriyasu used is “free-to-start,” meaning you won’t have to pay anything to get started with either game, but they will of course be monetized. Given Nintendo’s efforts in the handheld realm and the increasing number of mobile apps arising from the partnership between Nintendo and mobile company DeNA, this could very well be the norm going forward.
Unfortunately no additional details were given surrounding how the apps will utilize the free-to-play model. Animal Crossing on its own uses “bells” as a currency for players to purchase items, pay off their in-game homes and more, so it’s very possible there could be a similar model in the mobile app. Fire Emblem is a strategy role-playing game notorious for featuring game modes where members of your party can succumb to permadeath, but perhaps a freemium model could offer options to bring them back for a fee.
This is an unsurprising move given the company’s recent track record of releasing games like Pokemon Shuffle and Pokemon Rumble World as freemium options, both available via 3DS/2DS and mobile titles. Both rely on “energy” to continue playing if you run out of the allotted currency. Games like Nintendo Badge Arcade offer free plays each day and dangle additional badges to collect in the faces of those unwilling to pay further to explore, and Rusty’s Real Deal Baseball gives players the option to haggle to purchase in-game minigames.
It’s not clear how Nintendo will handle these high-profile franchises just yet, but free-to-play will almost certainly get more consumers invested than premium pricing. We’ll have to wait and see what happens.
Source: WSJ
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