buying a new phone at target vs cell phone carrier

[Sagginit]

has anyone bought their new smart phone at target vs. going to verizon or AT&T? i was going to get a 5S this week at verizon. its 99, target has it for 99 with a cartwheel for 25% off and then i get my 5% off with redcard.

will there be any complications? if i have any issues with the phone can verizon still help me or is it target?

 

[3boymthr]

I did it. There were a couple of minor complications - for example when you buy the phone with your red card you have to actually buy a target gift card equal to less than 5% of the cost of the phone then pay for the phone there were one or two others. But they warned me about all of them when I bought the phone. I also had complications when buying the phone online so it was no more difficult than that.

To help discount the cost of the phone I was also able to use Target rewards gift cards to pay for my phone (you know those $5 gc that you get when you buy x or y) and the gift cards that I got for trading in my old ipods and some dvds.

 

[Sagginit]

thanks! i'm a bit confused about the giftcard. so are they not allowed to apply the 5% off from the redcard to an iPhone? i will take their deal anyway as the cartwheel will make it $25 cheaper, plus a target near me only charges 3.5% sales tax, much lower than the 8.875% i would get charged at a verizon store in nyc near my office.

also will they move your phone numbers over like they do at the verizon store? oddly enough i did not want them to do this, i have way too many old numbers in my phone, but i tried that once at the verizon store and they did it anyway somehow (i used to work in retail and would store employees numbers in their and never deleted them all).

 

[antmaril]

I used my Target Red Debit card to buy an iPhone 5c for me and a 5s for my son in April. Verizon is our carrier. I had no issues at all. The 5c was $29 and the 5s was $99 (plus the extra 5%). The cost of the upgrade ($30 each) appeared on my next Verizon bill.

They were unable to transfer the phone numbers from my old phone to my new phone for some reason, but I was told if I went to a Verizon store they could do it. I just put my phone numbers into my new phone. It wasn't a big deal.

 

[3boymthr]

thanks! i'm a bit confused about the giftcard. so are they not allowed to apply the 5% off from the redcard to an iPhone? i will take their deal anyway as the cartwheel will make it $25 cheaper, plus a target near me only charges 3.5% sales tax, much lower than the 8.875% i would get charged at a verizon store in nyc near my office.

also will they move your phone numbers over like they do at the verizon store? oddly enough i did not want them to do this, i have way too many old numbers in my phone, but i tried that once at the verizon store and they did it anyway somehow (i used to work in retail and would store employees numbers in their and never deleted them all).

They are allowed to apply the 5% discount but because of some silly regulation (which may be a local regulation that wasn't made clear) they can't apply it directly to the cost of the phone. I bought a $200 phone. They applied the discount to a $200 GC - According to my statement I paid $190 for a $200 gift card - then when they completed the phone purchase contract they used the $200 GC to buy the phone.

 

[powellrj]

I bought my last iphone from target and liked buying it from them better than the att store.

 

[CoolDisneyCat]

With a Verizon phone you can move your phone numbers over yourself. Just put the app back up assistant on your old phone and back up your numbers.

After activating your new phone, but back up ***'t on it. Just follow the prompts oh the app and your numbers will move right over.

 

[leebee]

DD bought her phone from Target, but it's a Verizon contract. She wasn't able to transfer HER phone number to her new phone. Target said, "Just call this number and it'll happen, but we can't do it for you now because we are a 3rd party server." It didn't happen and wouldn't work, and Verizon said too bad, so sad, can't transfer your old number to a phone purchased 3rd party. It was a royal PITA and involved trips to 2 different Verizon stores. She finally found a sympathetic Verizon employee who cancelled the existing contract, gratis, then sent her to Target to return the phone. Once that happened, she went back to Verizon and bought her phone there… and voila, her phone number was available on her new phone. Royal pain doing all this; I think she was lucky to not have to pay an early termination fee (I guess it helped to be a cute 20 year old woman when going to talk to the techno-geeks at Verizon!)

 

[dpswift]

I must have bought at least 10 phones from Target(large family) Never had a problem. It has been far easier than dealing with the Verizon store.