It all started 3 weeks ago (end of June 2013) when my original iPhone4 that I'd had for 1.5 years started making an awful screeching noise when I'd make/receive calls. I took it to the Verizon (15 mins away) and they ordered me a refurbished phone under warranty that I pay $10 a month for. Well let me tell you, that started a whole whirl-wind of problems! I should have just upgraded my phone right then are there but I wanted to use the warranty because I love my phone (before it stopped working correctly) and didn't want to waste an upgrade on the same phone. Well, during my FIRST warranty phone that I was waiting to arrive, someone in Virginia (I live in Maine) stole my phone number. My phone stopped working and some random guy in Virginia was picking up all my calls. I use my phone for work and personal life so it's not OK when my phone randomly stops working. I call Verizon at work, because like most other people in the world today, only have one phone and when that stops working, I have no way of contacting others. I call Verizon from my work phone and they give me a 2 hour run around about this and that. I finally have to leave work early to go into Verizon to deal with this. While my replacement phone was being shipped, they thought someone intercepted the package and stole the phone, getting my number and passwords to the account. I filed a fraud claim on my account, after 3 hours at Verizon, I return home to find my replacement phone sitting on my door step. It hadn't been intercepted and the whole last 3 hours were a waste of my time. I then drove back to Verizon (4th time in 2 days) to bring back the replacement phone I'd filed a fraud claim on and they said I needed to return it since I claimed it'd been stolen. It was around the 4th of July now so I had to wait until the following week for a phone to be shipped to me. Thankfully my phone still worked, just couldn't make calls. After the 4th of July, I went back to Verizon and re-did a warranty phone so I could have a refurbished phone sent to me. They sent it to the wrong address which I only noticed because I was tracking the shipping. I had to spend another hour on the phone with Verizon trying to intercept the package before delivering to the wrong address 3 hours north of me! PLEASE- for anyone reading this, do NOT bother with the $10 insurance a month. It's a scam to steal your money. They send crappy refurbished phones that will die on you faster than you know. I've had 2 warranty phones in the last 3 weeks, someone stole my phone number that I've had for 6 years, and when I go into the store they act like I'm crazy, and make me wait the hour long wait in line -or what they call the "que" - every time. Today, my refurbished phone just went black on me mid-day (the phone I've only had for a little over a week now). I called Support/Customer Service/my local Verizon store, and got the same answers. Gotta reboot. I went into Verizon for help rebooting and they assured me everything would be backed up. They said when I got home to plug my phone into my computer and the iTunes backup will automatically get it back to it's settings and apps as I had it. Well that was wrong, it started doing a new "backup" to my iTunes and not replicating the old way of my phone. Then after finishing about 30 minutes of it syncing my phone, but not really, it died on me again. Went completely black. After this already happening once today, I freaked out. I'm furious. I called Verizon but it was 8:55pm and they close at 9pm here.
I'm sick of spending countless hours at a Verizon store, countless hours on the phone with Customer Service/Support, and over $100 in gas money driving too and from the Verizon store for I KID YOU NOT - the 13th time in 3 weeks. This is not a joke. Verizon's Customer Service is a piece of shit and I'm seriously considering switching to AT&T. I've always loved Verizon and never had a problem until now, but they've proven to me that they will not go above and beyond for their loyal customers. I've been a loyal customer, paying my $300+ phone bill on time every month for the past 6 years, and when I hit a rough patch with my phone for the first time in those 6 years, they can't do so much as get me a new phone, or even let me jump ahead in line once in a while in the store so I don't have to wait an hour every time I go in. 13 times to a Verizon store in 3 weeks is completely unacceptable to me. If Verizon cared about their customers they'd do more to help us out rather than just "temporarily" fixing the problem until the next one occurs.
I will say, when I called the Verizon in the mall (not an actual retail Verizon store, one of its subsidiaries) the guy Josh was extremely helpful. He met me at Whole Foods at 9:30pm at night (after his shift) to give me his old Verizon Razr phone so I could have a phone to get me by for a business meeting tomorrow morning when mine died on me at 8:55pm at night when they all close at 9pm here. I will not be going back to that other Verizon store again and hope to find an actual review site, more official than this one, so I can let them know how awful the Customer Service is at that store. I've been given the run around for 3 weeks and I'm sick of it!! Especially after all the money I pay for this stupid phone, for them to not help in any capacity blows my mind. Sad part is, I'm heading back to Verizon tomorrow after work because the problem is still not solved. I wonder how much longer this will take me? I'm up for an upgrade in 10 days and may not resign my contract. Shame on you Verizon -- bad word of mouth travels much faster than good word of mouth, so remember that it's not all about the Sales. It's also about Customer Service!
