the article is about verizon, not verizon wireless. In my limited experience with verizon wireless (called twice for a friend) they have not tried to sell me anything. didn't even ask if i wanted to add insurance (i was doing an esn change to a brand new phone). they were helpful and even called out (something most call centers do not allow) to the primary account holder's home phone line (not verizon or verizon wireless) to verify security information.
additionally cricket loses a ton of money on the phones, so you can complain all you want. do you really think that verizon gets all thoses phones for free they are giving away? not they are heavily subsidized and recouperate the money by over pricing the service and locking you in on a contract then charging you for overages etc.. just take a look at leap's financial statements and you will see how much they loose from sales of equipment. that's the reason they had to bring activation fees back because they were loosing too much money.
