How to replace my iPhone 4 without renewing my Verison contract?

The back of my iPhone 4 is cracked very badly and I'm afraid the phone won't last me until I'm due for my upgrade in about 6 months. I might need to get a new phone before that but I do not want to renew my contract with Verison. Can I just order a used iPhone from a site like Amazon or ebay? And if so, how do I activate it etc? Any suggestions are appreciated.

Since you are 6 months away from the contract expiring you probably can't change to a new phone and the only way to do so now is to pay the rest of your contract now. Yes you can buy a new phone off Amazon and eBay but you can't activate it and use it to call and text or do whatever. The only way you could use it is if you go to a different provider such as AT&T and setup a contract but then you would be paying for both contracts.

You would have to buy a used Verizon phone WITH A CLEAN ESN. This is difficult and expensive because most of the used Verizon phones being sold do not have clean ESNs although most are being sold as clean.

If you get to the point where your phone is not usable, i think you should talk to Verizon and see if you can upgrade early. At worst, you could pay the early termination fee which shouldn't be that much at this point in your contract and then, either re-up with Verizon or go elsewhere.