Who I have the same questioned this topic

Ok, so I recently switched to verizon and I was planning on using my phone from my old carrier, so I ordered a sim card and then tried to have the old carrier (boost mobile) unlock the phone to switch it over to verizon.  But they refused to unlock it because apparently their policy is that you need to have the phone with them for at least a year and I've only had it for 7 months.  Well now I need to order a  phone for the plan here but the only option I can see is to "upgrade" to get a new device and that way is going to charge me the $20 upgrade fee.  But I don't want to pay that since it's not really an upgrade.  So is there any other way to get a new device w/o having to pay the upgrade fee, see as it's not technically an upgrade?