Does anybody have ideas on the best place to buy a replacement Verizon phone, just a plain phone without any bells and whistles?  And, any thoughts on a model.

Costco has the best prices for any Verizon phone - smart or otherwise.  They cover it with their own extended plan which is a hell of a lot less expensive than Verizon.

They will do the switch over for you in the store if you already have a plan. 

 

If you are stuck, you can purchase a "refurbished" phone from Verizon without renewing your contract.  They prefer selling you some kind of discounted phone rather than see you abandon the contract.

Don't try it in a store, you have to call customer service.

 

Good luck!

If its a cost thing then check out Craigslist.org, you can often find good deals from people selling phones that they have upgraded from.  Just meet them at a Verizon store to make sure the phone will activate before you pay them as there are many scams with stolen phones.  I have done this twice with great success.

Whatever your do, don't go to a Verizon store. Worse than a used car dealership.

You can go to a swappa.com or mobilekarma.com. You can buy phones off contact there.

 

I bought a phone off of swappa.com and I got it for a great deal.

My brother bought one from cowboom.com

In order to avoid extending my contract I bought my latest verizon phone used via ebay.

Thanks for all of your tips...

 

As an unrelated question, can you convert a verizon phone over to prepaid, or are they different phones/setups, etc? 

In order to avoid extending my contract I bought my latest verizon phone used via ebay.

 

 

This is exactly what I want to do, as I am not sure if i want to remain with Verizon, although I have been generally happy.

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As I only use voice and text, I just ported my two Verizon phones over to Page Plus Cellular.  PPC uses the Verizon network.  250 voice minutes and 250 text messages for $12.00 plus tax a month.  You can setup auto replenishments for the plan.  Pretty much same as Verizon as you always pay one month in advance anyway.  Only net difference I can see is you can't go over, have the money credited in advance or service stops.