Planning on switching our 4 family lines & numbers to TMob taking advantage of the ETF reimbursement. For 1 family member, I understand the drill...she'll turn in her Samsung SIII (for credit) and buy an S5 (new phone, full retail) & keep her number. But for other family members, we're considering something a bit more shifty. From talking to a phone rep, there is no restriction as to which phone one "buys" from Tmobile on the swap. Assume we then just buy whatever phone is cheapest (refurb model w/ price promotion...so somewhere between free and $72) and get credit for our Verizon hand sets. Then we buy 3 new Tmobile full spec phone from somewhere else at a price well below TMobile's own pricing for same phone (example, Nokia 925 which TMob sells for $408 or so and can be found easily for around $200). When those new phones arrive we put our sims from the refurbs into our 925s or whatever is bought w/ full TMob spec. Shouldn't this leave us good to go but saving roughly $150-200 per phone better off? In a perfect world TMob would just offer this old flagship phone cheaper than $408 here in April of 2014, but probably not as cheap as $200 because they don't need to be the lowball seller. Am I missing something? Please answer assuming that all phones are fully purchased because I don't want the discussion to devolve into something where apples are not oranges. I'm not trying to answer the question, "will I save $ with TMobile service plan?" I'm just wondering if doing the phone end-around will create any problems, while saving me probably $500-600 if allowed. The arbitrage seems to be staring me in the face. Thanks.
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