Verizon blocked my Droid 2 Global

[above3]

I bought a Droid 2 Global from Best Buy on Tuesday 12/14/10, a gift for my son.  On Friday 12/17/10, I tried to activate it and Verizon had blocked the ESN!  The lady who tried to activate it said I had bought a prepaid phone; after checking the records, she saw that it wasn't showing as prepaid on Tuesday.  She advised me to go back to Best Buy and have them give me the right kind of phone.  On Saturday 12/20/10, I spent 3 hours at Best Buy, and on the phone with Verizon, and they would not unblock the phone I purchased or exchange the phone for a Droid 2 Global that was not blocked.  Even though Verizon representatives agreed my phone was blocked in error, no one would commit to helping me.

It was already activated on one of my lines on Tuesday to use the upgrade available on my wife's phone.  Verizon swapped her back to her old phone, and told me to activate the Droid 2 on Friday, his birthday.  So on Tuesday, Verizon allowed me to activate my phone, then blocked my phone sometime between Tuesday and Friday.

How can it be possible that Verizon can just terminate my phone with no way to recover if they made a mistake?  I don't believe for a moment that this couldn't be fixed in seconds.

Verizon customer service would not help.  They wanted me to take the phone back to Best Buy for a different phone.

I escalated to Verizon Technical support, and they confirmed my Droid 2 was blocked in error.  They said they could not unblock my phone while I waited; they could only fill out a form, and maybe somebody would fix it.   They also said no one will notify me if my phone is unblocked.  They said that nobody will notify me if someone at Verizon decides not to unblock my phone.  All anyone can do is to try to activate the phone; maybe it will work.  No idea how long it might take.

The Best Buy people said that Verizon had blocked all of the Droid 2' Global cell phones.  My Best Buy rep told me that he spoke to his Verizon Wireless point-of-contact. who said that after checking with "Verizon Corporate" , that they might be able to have someone take a look on my situation on Monday.  They did not say that my phone would actually be unblocked, only that someone would look at it.  They did not say it was impossible to fix right now, just that they would not even consider fixing it until Monday.  It seems that somebody at Verizon Corporate told the "liaison", I don't care if we made a mistake, he can wait.  Not, " tell him to hang in there, we'll take care of his problem as quickly as possible, and keep him informed,” This was an annoyance that somebody else would get to deal with on Monday.  Maybe.

Let's say this is a tiny problem, not something for Verizon to get all worked up about.  Let's say this is a huge problem, so big that nobody at Verizon dares to mess with it.

I do not care if they did this to one or a hundred or a thousand customers.  They did this to me, and to my son on his birthday, and are willing to take my money while they do it.

I am totally insulted by Verizon's response to this situation.  First, I do not believe that Verizon has any concern for who gets harmed when they decide to jerk Best Buy around.  Second, I do not believe that this is difficult to fix.  Somebody typed something into some computer somewhere to block my phone-I'm sure it took only a matter of seconds to ruin the birthday gift to my son. So what is in the way?   If the President of Verizon Wireless had his phone blocked in error, how long would take to be fixed?  Within the half-hour?  Within the hour?  Third, I can't believe that no one at Verizon whom I spoke with saw this as a Verizon problem.  They are all trained to say, "I'm sorry you are having a problem", but no one said, hey, this is just wrong, let's get this fixed right away.  They basically said, Verizon made a mistake, let's see if anyone will fix it.  Maybe they will, maybe not.

I paid for a phone that Verizon knew was being sold by Best Buy for whatever price it advertised.  No surprise there.  I signed a 2-year contract to triple the amount I pay for service on the line.  The Verizon people had no concern that this problem would days, weeks or months, all while I am paying for a data plan with no phone.

I have now owned this phone, paying for the upgraded plan for five days.  I have spent a total of five hours getting to the bottom of this, including a trip back to Best Buy.  If this phone is ever unblocked, and no one at Verizon will even send me a text message to tell me yes or no, how much more time will I have to invest before it is all resolved?

[david44]

 do you know you have 30 days to change that phone with out charge,take back and request a new phone......

[belome]

WOW, I can't help you... but I can certainly understand your disgust for the way this situation is being handled.

[mortb]

I may be wrong, but I think that once you signed the two-year VERIZON contract...not a 2-year Best Buy contract, it becomes solely a Verizon problem and not a Best Buy problem. If it were me, I would be on the phone 10 times a day to Verizon until they got sick and tired of hearing my voice and do something about the problem. In short, I would make a pest of myself. I also would write a letter and mail it to corporate headquarters, addressing it to the COO. Oh! Would I make a pest of myself. It would be like a fly constantly buzzing around your head. And I certainly would NOT MAKE ANY PAYMENTS until I had a phone that worked.

Not their problem any more, but it might not hurt trying to call Best Buy's customer service. I doubt if they could help, but it would hurt trying.

Good luck. Looks like you will need it.