My family and I switched over to Verizon from T-Mobile(Sprint) in November. We had been customers of Sprint for nearly 15 years and were not happy with the merger with T-Mobile. After service degradation and other issuess we decided to switch to Verizon.
We went to the local Verizon store (not 3rd party) and the store manager has helping us. We told him we needed 5 lines. Myself, my wife, our 2 daughters and my mother-in-law. We wanted to upgrade as 4 of our phones were Note 10 Plus's. The manager said they had a promotion going where we would get a $500 Verizon gift card for each phone brought over to Verizon ($2500 total). The only catch was we had to wait 45 days until the gift cards were issued, then we could use them to upgrade our phones. After some discussion, we agreed.
The first 2 months were great. Better service in our area, faster internet on the phones, overall were were happy we switched. Then the gift cards were issued.
We went to another local Verizon store (different town, they were larger than our store in town, and had more of a selection) and asked about upgrading. We were told the the gift cards COULD NOT BE USED to upgrade phone on the account. upon receipt of the gift cards, we were locked into the phones we had brought with us FOR ONE YEAR. If we upgraded our phones befroe the year was up the gift cards were nullified and, if we used them already for something else, we would be charged for them. We argued that we we not told this and the manager at the store we had originally switched at told us we could use them to upgrade. He had made it a selling point. The people at the larger Verizon store said there wasn't anything they could do.
We went home and the next 4 weeks spoke to several different agents from Verizon via chat AND phone. Some said sure you can use the gift cards to upgrade. Most said no we couldn't and there wasn't anything they could do. I finally got a definitive No from a customer service rep yesterday. Again she stated sorry nothing we can do. You are stuck with the phones you brought.
That is where we are at now. My wife started looking at AT&T last night. If nothing is done on your side, we will be taking our business to them. We were loyal customers of Sprint for almost 15 years. It took a merger with T-Mobile for us to switch. So far, Verizon is not wowing us with Customer Service or Bait and switch Business practices.
We came over from sprint after 24 years, and while the service appears to be much better, the customer service is NOT. We are fighting for a single $500 BYOD rebate we earned currently. I do remember when researching it, the rules about losing the gift card value if you leave within a year though. That doesn’t excuse them from not giving it to you though.
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