Our family has been loyal Verizon customers for more than ten years. We’ve been impressed with Verizon’s customer service throughout the years and haven’t wavered in our decision to stay on board. However, this past week has made us reconsider our continuation of doing business with your company after our contract ends. Therefore we are looking for reconciliation after reading you review our account and the notes that were posted over the week of February 4th. 2014.
I came into Altamonte Springs Verizon store with an iPhone 4 and a notification of an upgrade. My phone hadn’t been able to connect to data all weekend and I knew I had an upgrade coming soon. The store told me about an Edge program where I could upgrade outside of a contract. After transferring my contacts to an iPhone 5s, I signed up for the Edge program and was told I had a 14 day return policy. When I returned home, my family noticed a $700 charge on our bill and realized that the Edge program did not make financial sense when we had an upgrade available. It would make more sense to return the Edge program and wait one month for the upgrade available via our contract, so I returned to the store to do so. When I arrived, the Altamonte Springs store told me they had shipped out the iPhone 4 I had arrived with that morning and so they could return the Edge program but I would leave the store without a phone. For work purposes, I had to have a phone so this was not an option.
We called Customer Service three times in four days and spoke to two supervisors. The first phone call to Customer Service on February 3rd led us to believe that stores must hold phones for 14 days per the Edge contract so the store should have held on to the iPhone 4. In a follow up phone call the next day, we found that we weren’t enrolled in the Edge program but the Early Edge program and therefore the store said they had the prerogative to ship it out. Nowhere on our documents does it mention the Early Edge program or a special promotion contract.
While on the phone with Customer Service, a supervisor tried to call the Altamonte Springs store to see if we could get a resolution. The store thought full disclosure had been given and would not work with Customer Service. We feel stonewalled and each contact that was made to either a supervisor or a representative involved passing the buck.
Realizing our dilemma, we received a follow up phone call from a supervisor on Friday. He assured us that if we went to a corporate store on his next working day (Monday) at a designated time that he would help us cancel the Edge program and change the upgrade to today, fix the restocking fee and reverse the contract back because of the “worry free” guarantee. He promised to call in at 3pm to facilitate these changes. That call never came. We called Customer Service again, another supervisor got the upgrade changed to today and we were told to return to the original store.
We got to the Altamonte Springs store and dealt with a manager who said he had no authorization to do anything until a head manager came in on Thursday. I was leaving to Dallas the next day so waiting until Thursday was not an option. Once again, we got Customer Service on the phone and they called the store and the on-site manager, Chris (removed), hung up on the Customer Service rep. Fortunately, she called back and attempted to negotiate on our behalf, only to hit the same stone wall. In speaking to the Customer Service rep, (removed) stated, “This is a non-reversed transaction.” Our question is, why is there a 14 day “worry free guarantee” return policy on a “non-reversed” transaction?
We thought upon entering the store the solution to the problem would be the Trade In and Trade Up promotion. Our hope was to get the $100 for the iPhone4 as a trade in and the $99 for the trade up. Instead, we ended up paying $35 restocking fee, $199 for the iPhone 5s with no credit from the iPhone 4 and a $30 upgrade fee. On top of all the back and forth with the stores and hours spent with Customer Service, this is not a way to do business.
Unless there is some restitution, we are seriously considering dropping Verizon as our phone carrier as soon as all current contracts have expired.
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