Verizon wants my defunct Droid back?

KrystinTN

I was unaware that Verizon wants our defunct phones back.  My Droid Increcible 2 crashed a week ago.  I got the "red eye of death" and it was stuck in a boot loop.  I even tried restoring back to the factory settings by doing a hard boot but to no avail.  So I went to my local Verizon Store & they couldn't get it to work, either. The phone was pretty much dead & I couldn't use it.  Since the phone wasn't even a year old yet & still under warranty, they ordered me a replacement phone.  My defunct Droid Incredible 2 was discarded (because well, it wasn't working!) prior to receiving my replacement phone.  Now Verizon wants the defunct phone back or they are going to charge me up to $500; maybe more.  What?!?!?!?!?!?!  I honestly didn't know the defunct phone had to go back!  And it's no longer in my possession.  It's in a landfill somewhere & I don't know what to do.  I don't have that kind of money.  I called & sw/a CSR last Friday.  They were of no help & told me there's nothing they can do until I actually get billed for it.  Then I'd have to speak to the billing department.  Again, I honestly did not know that Verizon would want a non-functioning phone back.  I pay my bill on time every month.  And now I'm terrified they are going to charge me $500+ along w/cutting my service off.  I've never had this problem before so could someone shed some light on this if they have gone through something similar?  And please, no smart-alleck answers. 

Thank you in advance.

silver6055

Unfortunately, this is pretty standard.  When insurance replaces something, they own the replaced item. This is to prevent insurance fraud (otherwise you could just say "My phone is broken" when it isn't, and then you sell the "replacement" phone) and they can examine your returned phone to make sure that the damage is covered, i.e. no water damage, no rooting etc that voids warranties.

So, you have to plead your case with Verizon, and maybe you will get a break.  However, don't be too surprised if they say that you should have known (which is true as the above reasons aren't obscure!) and worse, you probably signed something agreeing to this in the long user agreement.

Good luck