I am writing this letter to bring attention to a matter I feel is very important. I have been a Verizon Wireless customer since the spring of 2002. For many of the 12 years that I have been a loyal customer there had been two phones on my account. It seems over the years Verizon’s prices have continued to rise and their customer service has continued to decline.
In July of 2013, my boyfriend (also a longtime Verizon customer) went into the Middletown, New York, store at Orange Plaza to upgrade his phone. The employee who helped him/us was a young man named Rene. As the charges were being shown on the screen, I saw a $30 upgrade fee. I questioned what this fee was for, considering my boyfriend was signing a new two year contract, guaranteeing he would pay his bills for 24 months or have to pay an early termination fee to cancel the contract, and purchasing a new phone. I thought the fee was a little ridiculous and wanted to know what it covered. Rene became very rude when I asked what it was for; stating to me that Verizon makes no profit off the phones sold at the “two year contract” rate, because they buy phones at full retail value from manufacturers and this fee was a profit for them. I stated to Rene that I do not believe for one minute that Verizon pays full retail prices for phones due to the fact that they sell so many. I’m sure the manufacturers give discounts on the amount of phones sold to Verizon. Verizon makes a profit some where along the way, or they wouldn’t be in business anymore. Plain and simple. Rene continued with some more rude remarks. Unfortunately I can no longer recall due to this being over a year ago. None of those comments included what that $30 fee covered, may I add. He then walked away from his station to get my boyfriend’s new phone. When he returned, he slammed a small piece of paper on the counter and told me I needed to go to that website and educate myself on the cost of phones. For a Customer Service Representative to speak to a customer like that is absolutely uncalled for. I informed Rene that I am educated with a Bachelor’s Degree and that evidently he is not educated in how to treat customers considering those same customers are the ones enabling him to collect a paycheck from Verizon. My boyfriend was quite infuriated, and if he hadn’t already signed his new two year contract he would have walked out. He told Rene it was not necessary to speak to me like that. Rene didn’t budge, didn’t think twice about how rude he had just been. I did not even think about speaking to a manager because I was so upset about the whole matter as could be expected, and I wanted to get out of that store as soon as possible. On my way home I became more offended by the situation so as soon as I got home, I called the Verizon Customer Service number (1-800-922-0204). I spoke with a young gentleman and I explained the whole situation, and he entered everything under my account. He then told me he wanted me to speak with his supervisor. A female supervisor got on the phone with me and had gone over the whole event with me again. She explained to me something called a 360 would be done, and the complaint would be sent to Verizon’s corporate office and they would be contacting me. I want to also add, these two employees were very apologetic and felt horrible.
Well to date, a year and three months later, I have not received ONE phone call from Verizon, offering an apology or trying to make amends to a loyal customer of 12 years. This issue was swept under the rug by Verizon in hopes I would forget about it. This is quite disheartening and shows that Verizon doesn’t really care about their customers. I am well aware I am only one of millions of customers, but that should not matter. I was spoken to very rudely and as though I was a piece of rubbish.
I was able to upgrade my phone in May 2013. However, I had been waiting until after I had gone out of the country during the summer of 2013 to upgrade, because I did not want to take a brand new phone on vacation and risk losing it or causing damage to it. After that incident, and not even receiving a follow up phone call, I decided I would not upgrade my phone and renew my contract.
I have continued to stay on a month-to-month basis/contract with Verizon, due to the fact that I had no problems with my phone and could not decide what carrier I wanted to switch to.
Unfortunately, two weeks ago I dropped my phone and the screen shattered. At this point it is either pay an insane deductible (even though I have full insurance coverage on my phone) to get my phone fixed or put that money towards a new phone.
I hesitated for days before calling your customer service line because I do not want to continue to give my business to a company that doesn’t care about their customers. However, I have been a customer for 12 years so I called to see if Verizon was going to finally do the right thing and attempt to rectify this unfortunate matter. My customer service representative was a young lady; I told her I was hoping she’d be able to help me. I informed her that there had been an unfortunate incident I was involved in back in July 2013 and that I’m sure if she pulled up my account she would see all the notes. She asked me to explain the situation to her; I gave her the short version. When I stated about the 360 report going to corporate she told me that it goes to “corporate at the store where the incident happened”. In my mind that would not be the Corporate Office, that would be the Store Manager at the Middletown location. The Supervisor that I spoke with in July 2013 was very adamant that it was forwarded to the Verizon Corporate Office. To me “Corporate Offices” are where the big bosses are, such as the President of the Company, Vice-Presidents, Director of Operations, and such. I highly doubt each Verizon location is considered a “Corporate” location. Regardless of where my report went, I should have been called and apologized to. Her response to me was “if I was so concerned with the way I was treated, I should have called and followed up”, why should I have had to follow up? I was the customer who was spoken to like I was dog poop on the bottom of someone’s shoe, and I should have called and begged Verizon to apologize and rectify the situation? Absolutely, no way would that have ever happened. And shame on this employee for stating such. At that point, I asked to be transferred to a Supervisor.
Kirk then assisted me, and although I can say he was nice. He also did not apologize for my past incident, or for what his subordinate had just said to me on the phone. He stated once that he would hate to lose a customer with tenure but could do nothing to stop me. He told me that if I decided to stay with Verizon he would waive the $30 upgrade fee. He also changed my plan and gave me an additional discount of $10 off a month for the next year. I did not upgrade at that time because the phone I want is currently on backorder and Kirk could not process a pre-order.
When I called the customer service line on October 26, I was willing to give Verizon a chance to make things right. Unfortunately, I was let down and thinking about it now I am glad I was not able to order my phone. I feel that once again my issue was swept under the rug and that the way these Verizon employees spoke to me was being condoned.
As I stated prior, I may be only one customer, but if Verizon continues to treat all their customers like this, it will soon begin to backfire. Customers do not want to pay money to companies that don’t appreciate them; especially with the price Verizon charges. Customers do not want to be treated as second-rate, they want to feel appreciated.
Verizon has grown a lot since I first signed a contract in 2002; they had a small little kiosk in the middle of the Middletown Galleria mall, with not many employees and probably not many customers. It is unfortunate that I signed with Verizon when they were a small wireless company and stayed loyal to them over the past decade and when I was treated unfairly, my issue was ignored.
I am quite certain if my boyfriend had questioned Rene as to what the $30 charge was, he would not have slammed a piece of paper down on the counter and told him to educate himself on the price of phones. He spoke to me in that manner due to the fact that I am a young white female; there is no doubt in my mind.
I am writing this letter in the hopes that finally my issue will be acknowledged and addressed. I understand that I am writing quite late about the issue that occurred in July 2013; however I feel I was forced into a corner after the response I received from the young lady I spoke with on October 26th. In addition, I shouldn’t have had to “follow-up” on the incident from July 2013, Verizon should have acknowledged what occurred and contacted me. I am on my last straw with Verizon and at this point I have no qualms about walking away from a 12 year relationship and taking my business to a competitor. I also have no issues telling everyone I know and anyone that will listen how horribly I was treated by Verizon.
