No more Mr. Nice Guy.

The cell phone is an indispensable part of our lives. Hardly a genius observation. The camera in that cell phone is not only a fine photographic tool, always with you, but it’s also used for scanning QR codes, reading bar codes in the supermarket to detect unhealthy ingredients, and taking pictures of the minuscule print on product labels so you can actually read the text. Why, you can even use the cell phone to, you know, make calls, not to mention receiving spam messages from our Russkie friends inviting you to share your credit card information because of all the toll charges you owe and suggesting you fend off the Dobermans at the IRS with Comrade Ivan’s assistance.

I have been a loyal (read ‘stupid’) Verizon customer for the best part of two decades, when the other day I received this email. It’s hard to conceive of a more crassly worded announcement. Translated, it reads “Thanks for being a loyal customer, chump. Now bend over.”:

Corporate greed redefined.

That’s a 13.5% increase on my current rate in an economy whose inflation rate is below 3%. That’s not going to happen and triggers Dr. Pindelski’s New Year’s resolution: Any rate increase over 3% results in immediate dismissal of the provider.

A while back, speaking with my sister in West Sussex, it transpired that the UK has many cell service providers and her monthly rate of $19 covers two lines. Hardly a new economic concept – all competition drives down price. My new Verizon rate would be $127 monthly.

So I searched the web for a lower cost provider with good coverage and found Mint, whose coverage map you can access here.

Here’s the map – use the above link and you can enter your address for a more granular reading:

Mint coverage – a few holes in the West.

It’s similar to T Mobile’s, suggesting that Mint is buying excess capacity from T Mobile:

T Mobile coverage.

The Mint service provides for a 3 month $15 monthly teaser rate for two lines, whereupon the rate rises to $45 monthly. That’s a full 65% less than Verizon’s, an annual saving of $984. Heck, two years of this and I get that Leica M for the home theater.

Both my iPhone 12 (physical SIM) and my son’s iPhone 15 (eSIM) are ‘unlocked’ versions, meaning that Greedy Apple got $10 more for each phone. This premium was paid with the distant thought that a carrier change might be made sooner or later. If your phone is tied to a specific carrier you cannot switch, but at a $984 annual saving you can afford a new phone when you do.

There are two aspects to the switch. The easy part is getting an eSIM download from Mint, which arrived in the email 30 minutes after signing up. Secondly, the physical SIM for my iPhone 12 arrived one day later by overnight FedEx, along with the little pin to open the SIM door in the phone’s side. Impressive.

The hard part – you guessed it – is first you have to get the crooks at Verizon to release you from their usurious charges. You are meant to get a ‘Number Transfer PIN’ which you enter in the Mint application but, shock news, the link from Verizon is broken. Fortunately there are several ways of getting this Number Transfer PIN, and one of those worked for me. See below:

How to get the Transfer PIN.

My son’s iPhone was up and running on Mint within 10 minutes and my service was transferred 24 hours later when the new SIM was installed in the iPhone 12. Here is the happy result:

Up and running on Mint.

The only caveat is that the physical SIM is tiny and it took my son’s deft fingers and excellent eyesight to get it installed in my phone.

Tiny new SIM.

The service works well and all that’s left to do is to make sure the crooks at Verizon cease charging me while I enjoy the savings.

Because the transfer process is non-trivial and Verizon will make sure it’s as opaque and as difficult as can be, few will bother to make the change to a cheaper carrier. They already know that the integrity of cell carriers is right down there with that of cable TV providers and big banks. So they will bend over, grin and pay up. Thus the 13.5% increase to suckers (like me) will mightily boost the income of a business with a very wide ‘moat’ (meaning prohibitive costs of entry for prospective competitors),

So I did the only thing logically possible. After firing the bastards I loaded up on Verizon stock. Little competition, oligopolistic pricing and a very safe 7.2% annual dividend. If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em.

Reaping what I sow.

Other providers? I expect that the insurance company crooks and the gardeners will be the next in the firing line. This is too much fun, replete with schadenfreude.