Cell Phone Discounts for City Employees

Important Information for City Employees with the following cell phone service providers: Verizon, Sprint(Nextel), AT&T(Cingular)

I recently found out that the many major cell phone carriers offer discounts of cell phone monthly access charges to City of New York employees. See Page 6 of the article by the Public Advocate at
http://home2.nyc.gov/html/records/pdf/govpub/2707cell_phone_savvy.pdf

" City employees can sign up to get 20% off with Sprint, 20% off with Cingular, 19% off with Verizon, and 10% off withNextel"


City Employees will only get the discount if they apply for it. For City Employees that have Verizon or AT&T cell phones and an email address from their city agency there is an online application process.

Verizon
https://b2b.verizonwireless.com/tbmb/rylEnterEmailAddress.do
When you go to this page they ask you for your employee email address.
Verizon will send you an email. The email from Verizon might be routed to your junk folder. If you don't see the email right away look in your junk folder or add this email address to your contacts: customerserviceb2b@verizonwireless.com

After opening the email, click on the link that says CLICK HERE to view the email online.
Follow the instructions as best you can.

If you are successful you will get a confirmation email that looks something like this.
Sample confirmation email from Verizon Wireless Dear John Doe:
Thank you for contacting Verizon Wireless.
This confirms that we have added the CITY OF NEW YORK EMP discount to the monthly access charges for wireless number XXXXXXXXX on 11/15/2007 19:14:54 EDT.
Our records indicate you previously received a 0% discount. Your new discount is 19% based on the current agreement with Verizon Wireless. This information will be reflected under the "Monthly Charges" section of future statements. Your reference number is XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX.
If you have additional questions, please contact us by choosing "Contact Us" on your employee website (if applicable). You may also contact Customer Service 24 hours a day, 7 days a week by dialing *611 from your wireless phone or call 1-800-922-0204 from a landline phone.
We appreciate your business.
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Cingular AT&T
https://www.wireless.att.com/business/authenticate/ The email went to my inbox from premier.order@cingular.com
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Sprint
Sprint proved to be particularly difficult to obtain the discount but thanks to New York City's Department of Parks and Recreation Computer Resource Coordinator Danielle Goldfarb's persistence and determination we now (12/14/07) have the procedure.

This is for adding the discount to an existing account:
STEP 1. Since you have an existing Sprint account, contact (888) 788-4727.
STEP 2. Follow the prompts, when asked to speak a command, say "Employee Discount."
STEP 3. Provide the representative with Node #: GLLNY_NYC_ZZZ_P2. or provide your company name. IMPORTANT: Make sure you request the discount as "City of New York" This is the exact way that the 25% discount is listed for you in their BAM (Business Account Master)
STEP 4. Ask the representative to inform you of your new billing cycle and any other account changes. They will email a confirmation of the applied discount.

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Sprint's(and Possible Other carriers) Loyalty Discount...also from Danielle Goldfarb
another 5% can be saved if you have been with Sprint more than 4 years under the same cellular phone number. You have to call it in seperately from the City of New York Employee Discount or they will claim that this 5% "loyalty" discount doesn't excist but it does.

I would also encourage other Parkies with other cell phone carriers to ask about a similar discount based on loyalty to that carrier.
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Please send details of your experiences to albert.davis@parks.nyc.gov, and I will update the instructions with the new information. Many, many city employeess use their personal cell phones for work related calls. The discount is only fair. The phone companies have some hurdles that make it a technical challenge. Also it doesn't seem to be widely known amongst City employees that the discount exists. I found out by chance from an AT&T salesperson when I was considering switching carriers from Verizon to AT&T and then found out from the Verizon salesperson that Verizon offers a similar discount only after I told him about the AT&T discount offer.

email: albert.davis@parks.nyc.gov
Albert Davis, Computer Resource Coordinator
New York City Department of Parks and Recreation