On black friday, we visited a Verizon Wireless store at 1311 Johnson Ferry Road, Marietta, GA and then after spending close to three hours in store, we signed up for a new Verizon service. I was feeling happy with my purchase and the deal I got until yesterday when I realized that it was not so good after all. The main reason was the lack of communication and walking over important terms and conditions by the store associate.
During the set up and discussion of the agreements not one time did he mention the following to us:
1. There is a $35 restocking fee for any phone you return or exchange during the 14 day period.
Primarily, we were interested in Iphone 6 but since the 64 Gb was not in stock he let us know that we have 14 days to try device we decided to avail benefit of the black friday sale and get the two galaxy S5 phones. If we had known about restocking fee, we would have given a second thought and may be not signed up with S5 or order iphones on that day.
Now, we have to pay that fee to exchange them for Iphones.
2. Biggest blunder: For the ellipsis tablet, no time did he mention that there was:
a $35 activation fee
a $70 restocking fee
a 3 day window period to test device and return to avoid being charged for activation fee
3. He did not even give me a copy of receipt which mentioned the above terms. If I had I known all these conditions, I would never have gotten the device in first place or walked out with it. Now, due to this lack of communicating the terms clearly, I am stuck with a 2 year contract on a mediocre tablet. Either I cough out the $70 restocking fee or live with this for two years.
I was assuming that with phone activations, the tablet activation was free too and with lack of paper copy, already tired with waiting for two hours and the sale crowd in store made me overlook the facts on your tablet. I feel terrible on my decision to get that tablet and sign up service for two years.
4. Yesterday, I went to store with no knowledge of these terms and spoke to the rude manager who would not want to help and kept saying that my associate can never do this and he always takes time with customers and explains them the details before signing the contracts.
After waiting for more than two hours, the manager touch based with him regarding the issue and he never had a courtesy to come up and talk two minutes to clarify this. All this time, he pretended as though I did not exist and kept chatting with a new customer.
This was utterly disrespectful behavior and I was terribly upset with this service. How can you not have a few minutes to at least let your manager know what had happened or clarify if you had walked me through all the conditions and handed me the paper receipts.
I work out of town and have a limited time to spend with family and kids and for three occasions, I had to spend a minimum of two hours in store with not much benefit but leave frustrated. I would rather have ordered phones online from comfort of home but that day, I decided to may be engage with a decent honest store associate and get good service.
My experience has now proved me wrong. This has really soured my relationship with Verizon for a mistake for which mainly the associate and store manager is responsible.
I hope someone in Verizon team can hold them accountable and cancel all the fees associated with this sale. Also, want to warn other customers that to not fall for the glamour of device or the deals with hidden catches. The store associates earn commissions on our backs and offload the devices to us without informing clearly the main terms and conditions.
