Employees pay for their phones every 20 month, usually it's the same price as consumers, sometimes there is a discount like when the ONE launched it was 150 with and upgrade. Employees can only get a discounted price every 20 months like a normal customer.
The free phones employees get are part of the advocate program where each store gets a phone model to train on. After a month the "advocate" employee who is suppose to be the expert gets the to keep that phone. For a example I got the HTC ONE and my friend got the galaxy 4 phone. Most of the high end phones get an advocate except the iPhone's. Here is the phones I recall seeing get an advocate over the last year.
HTC ONE
Galaxy 4
Kyocera torque
Note 2
Optimus g
Galaxy 3
Evo lte
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