Buying a cell phone from Best Buy is a terrible idea

This past weekend, my fiancee decided that it was time to get off of her parents phone plan (Verizon) and switch over to a family plan with me (Sprint). I was hoping to buy a screen protector for my phone and a few other things, and I had a $5 Best Buy gift certificate. So I thought, hey, let's go to Best Buy. They have all of those things and we can switch carriers there.

BAD IDEA

I pay $83 and some change for their iPhone Forever plan and unlimited data, including all the fees and whatnot. I get the newest Apple phones, and I'm able to use it as much as I want regardless of whether or not I can get Wifi. Wonderful.

Although admittedly, service sucks in many areas of rural or rural-ish Kansas compared to other carriers. But I'm paying substantially less than I did with AT&T when I made the move like a year or so ago.

The idea was that my fiancee would just add a line, get on my plan with the same features and options as I've got, bringing the total to probably a little less than twice my existing $83. Instead, Best Buy decides to set me up with an entirely different plan that is about $50 per month more expensive than what I would have otherwise and without the lease plan.

Now, I understand that if a leased phone breaks, that would cost a bunch of money out of pocket. At the same time, if an owned phone breaks, that has to be done anyways. Phones are expensive. I also get that we won't be paying equity into a phone that is leased as we would if we got it on an installment plan. But the damn things depreciate in value so rapidly, not sure that matters. For every $50 we pay on the phone, we get like $5 in value when we will be ready to resell it for an upgrade. Plus, lease payments are less than 1/2 the price of installment payments. So, like, why would I care to own the phone? That is stupid.

The entire transaction at Best Buy took about 2 hours. The employee was unable to successfully port her Verizon line over, so we ended up just getting an entirely new line - at least until we returned it the next day. The return took another 2 hours or so.

In total, I wasted about half a day of my weekend trip to Colorado standing around in a Best Buy. For nothing.

We then went to a Sprint corporate store and took care of everything without issue. Payments will be substantially cheaper, and we will more easily be able to upgrade our phones when the new models come out.

The point: DO NOT purchase phones or switch carriers from Best Buy. I strongly recommend going to the carrier's actual brick and mortar stores, or just doing everything online.