Verizon announces generous offer, but customers should beware | Official Website of Louis Velazquez, entrepreneur, finance guy and tech innovator

Verizon’s (VZ) continuous price hikes have left some of its customers frustrated and ready to defect to the phone carrier’s competitors.

Verizon has already announced two major price increases this year, and it’s only April. In February, it officially increased the monthly prices of its myPlan and New Verizon Plan wireless accounts due to “rising operational costs.”

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By March, it quietly added a brochure to 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 price increases, it appears that Verizon is making a peace offering to customers by announcing a generous new deal. Customers should, however, proceed with caution.

Phones inside a Verizon store in New York, U.S., on Friday, Jan. 12, 2024.

Source&colon; Bloomberg/Getty Images

Verizon’s latest offer has an unpleasant surprise

The phone carrier has announced a new three-year price lock guarantee, which is offered to new and existing customers who have myPlan and myHome network plans.

Customers will automatically be enrolled into the deal, and if they choose to change their myPlan account, the price lock resets for another three years. In addition, Verizon is also offering customers a free phone and home internet router when they trade in.

“We’re committed to delivering what our customers want and need, offering more control, value and simplicity,” said Verizon Consumer CEO Sowmyanarayan Sampath in a press release. “That’s why we’re proud to introduce this industry-leading guarantee: a 3-year price lock across mobile and home, which provides peace of mind and a free phone on every myPlan, giving customers even more value.

Despite the generous deal, Verizon warns customers in the press release that “taxes, fees, and perks” are excluded from the three-year price lock guarantee. This keeps the door open for Verizon to continue raising monthly bills by hiking fees or cutting monthly discounts, as it did with its autopay discount in October.

Verizon previously faced lawsuit over monthly fee

Verizon recently faced controversy over a mandatory monthly fee it adds to bills.

In December, the phone carrier quietly increased a monthly fee called the Administrative and Telco Recovery Charge by $0.20, which angered customers. According to the company’s website, the fee helps to “defray and recover certain direct and indirect costs” its agents incur.

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Last year, Verizon even faced a class-action lawsuit for allegedly “misleading” customers about the fee’s purpose. Customers also alleged in the lawsuit that the fee was not disclosed in the monthly price of their wireless plans.

“The first time Verizon customers can possibly learn about the existence of the Administrative Charge, or the amount of the charge, is on the customer bills, which they begin receiving only after they have signed up for wireless service and are financially committed to their purchase and cannot cancel without penalty,” reads the lawsuit. “Verizon then omits or misrepresents the so-called Administrative Charge on its customer bills to further its scheme.”

Verizon ended up settling the lawsuit in October for $100 million.

More Verizon price increases may be on the way

Verizon’s new price lock guarantee comes after Sampath hinted during an earnings call in January that more price increases may be coming down the pike this year.

“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.”

Sampath also said during the call that customers “feel very comfortable” with the company’s prices.

“We had four major price-ups in 2024 [and] 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.