Best place to buy?

RadioShack, bestbuy, and Walmart. These are the places I would look into

 

I've bought a few from craigslist... but I insist on meeting at verizon and having the phone transferred onto my account before I hand the person the cash for the phone.
Had a couple people flake on me this way, so it has certainly paid for me to do it that way vs just meeting anywhere....

Essentially the phone has to have the balance on their account current and paid up to date, and they person selling the phone has to replace the slot on their account of the phone you're buying with a different phone. Basically, they need a new ESN to fill the line before they can release the ESN of the phone you're buying, so even if you were to just swap SIM card's and the phone worked with your SIM, it's still tied to the persons account until they replace it hence why it's necessary to meet at a verizon to take care of the transfer. And if you werent to do this, and the SIM is tied to their account, it would look like they phone was stolen and someone just popped a new SIM in it to use it and it could thus get shut off and marked with a bad ESN.

Those would be my tips for buying used...


As for new, well I would look into some of the stores listed above. Walmart seems to run slightly cheaper prices than, but their service has proved pretty crappy in the past when it came to the cell phone dept just FYI. I'd say you get what you pay for.


Was her phone still in contract, or is she out of contract?

 

never heard of swappa. Looks pretty cool, wish I'd known of it a few months ago. I've bought 2 phones in the last 5mo.