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Why am I paying the consequences of my salesman's blunder?

Hello Dear Verizon Consumers and associates!

let me start by saying how i wish i could avoid making this post, but it seems i have little other recourse. After my iphone 5 failed a few months ago after roughly 22 months of dutiful service, i decided to downgrade to an old basic phone i had and await my 2 year upgrade discount. I called and called trying to find someone who could get me set up on another smartphone sooner, and the best luck i had was when someone told me i could upgrade 30 days out from my actual contract end date - which is Jan 2 2015, so on december 2nd, or somewhere thereabouts - and they said to call back when that date arrived...

so i get an email on black friday and i find out the phone i want is being offered for free that day - 11/28, and i decide to call and hopefully get an associate on the phone who appreciates the proximity of that Dec. 2nd upgrade date, who appreciates my business, and will allow me to go ahead and take advantage of that wicked deal. But the first associate in telesales, Corey, could not make it happen, so i got transferred to a sales supervisor, Jarrell, who happily discussed the nature of my request, and agreed that while he could not ship the phone until the official date on Dec 2, that he would ship the phone the following week on the 2nd of December at the promotional price. I talked with him about how they'd ship it, and he even suggested i leave a note on my door if i would be away during the day so fedex could leave the package - this was an order that i was clearly given the impression had been completed and was ready to roll out on Dec 2. As you can imagine, I was thrilled that my months sans smartphone were over... Or so I thought...

The phone never came, the confirmation e-mail never got sent, and as it turns out, Jarrell never even completed the phone order. I should have asked him for some form of confirmation, but it slipped my mind. Perhaps he couldn't follow through on his promise, and rather than call me back and let me know, he just hoped I would forget that I was supposed to be receiving a new phone the following week...

On Wednesday I started to feel concerned that the phone might not be headed my way, so i called and spoke to several customer service and sales reps for a period close to 2 hours. They try to offer me the phone i had been promised by Jarrell, except they wanted at least 100 dollars for it, and would not honor the prior agreement. Many of them stated that "the notes on my account" did not reflect the story as i am telling it to you now. But a recording of the phone call most certainly would, so i asked them to pull up the recording, listen to it, and honor the agreement. But they "couldn't" - they needed to "send e-mails and do research" and "hear back form that call center" and they were "going to be off of work until Sunday" etc. So when i said "hey im supposed to have a new phone by thursday or friday of this week, thats what i was promised" they all essentially just said "too bad" or "we can submit an order today for a higher price and if you accept it then we will do no further investigation and we will not credit you back the amount paid if the phone call indicates the story as you are describing it." That's horse excrement, if I do say so myself. So, if by some stroke of luck any of you read this, I say to you - Jarrell in sales, Ben in customer service, Shelley, tier 2 supervisor in customer service, Sharon in customer service, Khadija, supervisor in customer service --- i know you all are taking the salesman's side on this one, and i understand i was not eligible for the deal that Jarrell promised me, so stop repeating yourselves, i get that part. What's fair is that you honor what he promised because that's taking accountability for the company's actions, not blaming the misdeeds of your associates on the consumer. So here i am, at the mercy of this monolithic wireless provider, and at the mercy of these call center managers, some of whom have promised me call-backs but not followed through on them, who have talked to me, a faithful Verizon customer of many years, as though I was lying about this matter for some personal gain. My honor and integrity are worth a hell of a lot more than 200 dollars, and I just want to see that this company takes it as seriously as I do that I was, at the very lest, misled by this sales associate.

So, again I ask, why am I being made to pay the consequences of this salesman's blunder?

Comments

rcschnoor

The consequences being that you actually have to pay the amount for which you qualify to pay for a phone??? Those are certainly some steep consequences.

You tried to get something for which you did not qualify. You were not able to get it. If you want the phone, purchase it at the price available when you qualify to make the purchase.:smileyhappy:

ShrewdConsumer

You know, I really do agree with you rschooner, that i wasn't eligible for an upgrade, and i wanted one anyway, and so I tried to convince somebody that I should receive one, and I knew it was a long shot, and I would be more than willing to accept this outcome as ideal and appropriate, had it not been for the fact that the salesman TOLD ME THE DEAL WAS DONE, that the phone would be here this week, etc. So my consequence in this case is not just being forced to pay a price I qualify for, but rather being made to pay a higher than agreed upon price for a device that I was told was ordered, regardless of what I technically "qualified for" on the day I ordered it, and the outcome constitutes a break in an agreement, albeit an oral one, that was made. Do you think the salespeople of Verizon are serving their customer base when they tell their customers things that are not true, or promise them things they cannot promise?

rcschnoor

ShrewdConsumer wrote:

Do you think the salespeople of Verizon are serving their customer base when they tell their customers things that are not true, or promise them things they cannot promise?

Personally, I think that Verizon salespeople are not always versed completely in what is available. I also think that sometimes what someone hears is not always what someone else meant when it was said. I also think that when you ask for something and are told no and you continue to ask in order to get another answer, you are even MORE likely to misinterpret what someone is saying, i.e. someone will tell you they will try to do something and see if it works just to placate you since you did not accept the no as an answer. Such as someone tells you they will try something simply to make you happy and then say "There, it is done" as in they put it in the system, not knowing if it will work. Then when it doesn't work, i.e. rejected, you then say you were lied to.

Bottom line, you now have to pay the price which you were eligible to get the phone for. Yes, I think the agent was serving the customer base trying to get you something for which you were not eligible. That the order got rejected, does not mean they didn't try OR that they necessarily lied about it. Just that you were not eligible. Whether or not the agent was aware of that fact WHEN you place the order is anyone's guess.

ShrewdConsumer

The chances of my misinterpreting a salesperson telling me that yes, the phone would be on its way here this week, and yes, the price would be free, and even going so far as to tell me if I wouldn't be home thursday or friday to leave a little note on the door for Fedex so they could drop off the package, are literally zero - but i appreciate your skepticism. The salesperson perhaps should have said "No, I can't do anything for you," or even "I'll try, but I cannot be certain the order will go through," then I would have absolutely no complaint about what happened here, and I would just move on and try to get a phone this week or next week or any other time. But that isn't what happened, regardless of how far you want to read into the details and try to determine where I began to "misinterpret."

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