YES Recycle program is a COMPLETE SCAM!

Strongus

To echo all the other complaints on this board. I received an appraised value of $200 for my wife's iPhone 4s which was in perfect working order. I followed the instructions to the letter and factory reset the phone. She never enabled Find your Iphone in the first place, however after I send the phone in, I get an email back saying our credit is just $36! No explanation whatsoever in the email. I call in, get transfered to be told that I didn't follow the instructions correctly and that the phone was still associated with my wife's email address (how that is possible after a factory reset is beyond me, but whatever). The crazy thing is, when I bought my new phone a week earlier at the Verizon Wireless store, the store rep could not even after 45 minutes properly deactivate my old IPhone 4s and just manually entered the recycling info in and I got the $200.

Verizon Wireless you should be ashamed to treat a 15 year customer like me this way. You have virtually guaranteed that the moment I can get out this relationship, I will. You disgust me frankly with your absolute sliminess in this recycling scam of a program.

Strongus

So I got this lame email from Verizon in response:

"Good Afternoon,

In regards to your submission your device was inspected twice and both times came up with the same conclusion. We do not make adjustments lightly but because our intention is to refurbish and recycle as many devices as possible the phone must be accurately identified in the appraisal process and must be in proper operating condition.

Your device was adjusted because the "Find my iPhone" app was not deactivated. This feature prevents necessary access to the device in order to be properly recycled.

Please see the photo taken of your device when it was inspected by our device recycling team.  This photo shows that when your device was received and inspected by our device recycling team that the Find My iPhone app was not disabled per the instructions we supplied to you when you submitted your device for trade-in and that were also included in the device return kit we sent that you used to mail your device for trade-in. If your unable to view the picture please switch your email settings to HTML.

If you need further assistance please contact customer support at 877-247-3846, which is available 24 hours a day.

Kind regards,

Your Verizon Wireless Device Recycling Team"

The problem is that a) there is no picture at all in the email (and yes HTML is turned on and I looked at the source code of the email because I am a web programmer just to be sure). They have no evidence is what this tells me and this an elaborately designed scheme to defraud customers of the full value of their trade-ins. It is simple unconscionable to treat a 15 year customer like this Verizon.

Given all the other messages on this forum of people about the exact same problem, clearly there is something wrong with your recycling program. GIven that your Verizon Store rep had a terrible time preparing my other phone recycle that was completed a week before this one in question, it is obvious that something is wrong with the process. And mind you, that other phone was still associated with me Find my Iphone account (because it was turned on on that phone) until YESTERDAY and I still got the full credit for the recycle because I did it in the store.

SHAME SHAME SHAME ON YOU VERIZON!