The "customer service" I have experienced through interactions with Verizon employees over the past week has been nothing short of terrible. Here are a few of the best examples:
1. Went to Verizon Store in person to upgrade my broken iPhone (2 months after eligible for upgrade). Salesperson sees me in vulnerable state and informs me, "In order to process your upgrade, we require that you purchase our 'Upgrade Pack', which includes great stuff like a case, screen protector, headphones, and speakers." They would NOT allow me to purchase a new phone unless I spent an additional $160 on accessories I did not want. Worst of all, they were only willing to replace my broken iPhone 4s with a downgraded 4, which they wanted to charge me $199 for, when the online price was FREE for that unit with a new contract. Salesperson claimed this was store policy at the Glendale, CA location. They attempted to extort me for profit as they knew I needed a phone immediately. I walked out.
2. After the in-store disaster, I purchased a new phone using Verizon's 1-800 number last week. I was told that my order went through, they charged my credit card, and was informed that the phone would arrive in 2 days. That was a week ago. My order was held up in "processing" for over a week, with no explanation as to why. My credit card was charged TWICE for the same amount, yet I still have no phone being shipped to me.
3. In order to understand why my phone had never been shipped, I had to call customer service upwards of 20 times, with no resolution offered after any of these phone calls, some of which lasted over an hour. One of the men on the phone asked me if he had resolved my issue. After I told him "no," he called back 5 minutes later and attempted to offer me a resolution, all the while laughing at me. I could hear that I was on speakerphone, and I heard his co-workers laughing in the background at our conversation. He could barely even speak he was laughing so hard. I found this very disrespecful and embarassing. A paying customer is frustrated by YOUR service... why is this funny? Was tickled by his own ineptitude? I was NOT laughing. The fact that Verizon would promote a culture of abusing customers among their employees is disgusting. This account pays upwards of $5,000 each year, and has been with Verizon for many many years. Is this how you treat a loyal, long-time customer? ABSOLUTELY NOT.
4. I was transferred to "customer care." After holding for about 25 minutes, one of the associates started looking into my order, decided it was a difficult issue to resolve as the order was, for some reason, not attached to my account in their database, and then mid-sentence, transferred my call to another, unrelated department - device tech support - just to get rid of me. At that point, I was done.
I CANNOT WAIT until my contract is over so I never have to deal with the ignorant people working for this organization EVER AGAIN.
