Phone Stolen. Now what?

Didn't have insurance so there's that. I usually do and I just never got around to adding it. Lesson learned. What's the best thing to do from here? I am with Verizon and currently am still paying for the phone through the Edge program. Representative said if I want to do Edge for a new phone I'd have to add a line and thus not just adding $25+ for the cost of the phone but an additional $20 for line access and fees etc. all while still paying the $47 a month for my other/stolen phone (I still owe $487/18 months left).

I thought about churning Target gift cards to pay for the $600-$700 phone outright without a contract but that could take WEEKS to get a good discount (20-30% would be nice).

Buy an unlocked phone somewhere? Anyone know of legitimate sites that have good deals on new or very good condition phones? Looking for a newer model Android phone.

Would love any advice. Also, I want to keep my number and stay with Verizon.

Ugh. I'm sorry Here's my $0.02. Check out swappa. Look for sellers with a lot of good reviews. Also, consider ebay. I bought a locked AT&T 64gb iPhone 6 on ebay last week. I paid $450 but used gift cards so my net cost was closer to $350. Current retail price is $650. The phone looks like it's brand new and has Apple Care on it until April. I was initially upset because it's under a Next finance agreement but was assured by the seller that the phones were bought as part of a cerrtified buyback program and wouldn't be blacklisted. The seller has a lot of reviews (98.9% positive) and has been selling for 4 years on ebay so I decided I was comfortable with the transaction.

CalDisneyMomof2 said:

Buy an unlocked phone somewhere? Anyone know of legitimate sites that have good deals on new or very good condition phones? Looking for a newer model Android phone.

Click to expand...

Gazelle (.com) or ebay ... (with Gazelle as a seller)

I have bought several iphones & ipads on ebay ~ from Gazelle

I wanted to purchase from a Seller who had a *Good* Return policy.

I only buy *very good condition* and they have all been ... look-good-as-new

I purchased an iPhone 5s for dd over a year ago on swappa. I don't know anything about Verizon since I have tmobile but I bought a tmobile iPhone like new still under a warranty. While dd would love to get a newer model the phone still looks/acts new (been in a lifetouch case).

Thanks, all. I'm thinking of going the Ebay route. I have just under $400 worth of Target gift cards that I was going to turn into Disney gift cards but our cruise does not need to be paid for until May. I will just turn those gift cards into Ebay gift cards instead.

There are plenty of reasonably priced unlocked phones that don't cost anywhere near $600. I just preordered my Nexus 5X for $379. The Nexus 6 is on Amazon for $349 because it's about to be replaced with the 6P model. Moto G is $180. Moto X is $400 for the newest model or cheaper for last year's model.

A few years ago my phone was done after drowning in a swimming pool accident; so I bought one from Craigslist to replace it. I had the guy meet me at a Verizon store (near him) and he waited and chatted outside with my husband while I activated, then I paid him. I felt that was the safest way for me to buy a used phone. Luckily for me the guy had no problem with this. I think it is the least they can do if it is a legit sale when it involves that much money, mine was $300 at the time for a droid. Now I have an iPhone 6+ with no insurance (also on the edge program) and if something were to happen to it, buying a used one from Craigslist and requesting the person meet me at the Verizon store would be my first route.

I just discovered that my local Goodwill has an electronics section. They sell phones (they had lots of iPhones when I was there), computer, game systems, used games, tablets and more. The prices are very reasonable. The clerk that was monitoring the electronics told me they get lots of donations of corporate phones when that employee is upgrading to the newer phone. It may be worth checking them out!

(Background: I have always used only unlocked smart phones - I like the freedom to move from provider to provider as a better deal pops up. I am also firmly an Android gal - I don't use Apple anything. I am very price sensitive - I don't think a smart phone should cost as much as my mortgage payment! But I also think that if I am buying a phone, I should invest in the latest generation, so that it will last me as long as possible - I expect a phone to last me at least 2 years, hopefully 3 or more)

I just returned one of the new Moto Gs for a new Moto X. The Moto G was a great phone, and runs less than $250 for a new phone of the latest generation. I returned it only because Motorola ended up turning off band 12 (that's strictly a TMobile thing, not something that would be an issue on Verizon). I loved it otherwise - I liked that it wasn't a phablet, and the rest of the features worked great for me. It's not the world's most powerful phone, but for what I use a phone for (calls, texting, some basic apps like banking, shopping, etc. No gaming or anything hardcore like that) it was more than enough.

I got the Moto X just because Motorola is saying they will ultimately enable band 12 on it for TMobile users. I really like it too - but if it wasn't for the band 12 issue, I wouldn't have paid the extra $200 for it. My main complaint other than cost is it's size - I really didn't want a phone as big as it is.

If you decide to go with one of these phones, you might want to buy them from Amazon or Best Buy - it took me over 3 weeks to get an order through on Motorola and receive my Moto X. I think the Moto G took about a week and a half.

I previously used a Nexus phone. I like them too - but I ended up going with Motorola mainly because I wanted to be able to add an SD card. Marshmallow is reported to include functionality that will better merge the use of the on-board storage and SD card storage, and make it more seamless than it is today. The new Nexus 5X should start shipping any day now, and includes a fingerprint scanner (which the Moto X does not have). After reading up on issues with the fingerprint scanning technology, I decided that was a cool feature, but not a necessary one, and the SD card functionality (which the Nexus phone do not have) won me over to Motorola. Another key issue for me is speed of Android updates - since Motorola adds very little bloatware (the few apps they add are actually USEFUL and a great improvement), they are almost as fast as Google pushing updates out to their phones, so that became a non-issue.

I would definitely get the Motorola Moto G new version that recently came out. Brand new phone for $200, and you can customize it. Order directly through Motorola, that's what we do, phone is unlocked.

If you go with ordering from Motorola, you can get 20% back in Jet cash for the purchase through jet.com. It's not real money, but you can spend it at jet.com starting 30 days after your Motorola purchase. Stuff for free works for me!

Or you can get 5% real cash back going through topcashback

Ask around. You may have friends that have an old phone laying around you could use.

Did you use and of those find my phone apps/web sites? A newer iphone is harder to steal, because you can wipe it and track it.

From PC Mag, which could be cheaper than the eBay route: one old-fashioned trick that could work, depending on the person who finds it, is to offer a reward. Minimize the creepiness factor by doing it the 21st century way: from someone else's device, send a text message to the lost phone offering a cash reward if they call, arrange a meeting, and bring the phone with them.

There's also this: http://www (dot) pcmag (dot) com/article2/0,2817,2352755,00.asp