Why Does Verizon Keep Sending Me Bad Phone Replacements???

[kathyw105]

I'm currently getting a 5th "refurbished" phone sent to me, and I'm extremely annoyed by Verizon at this point. After paying a lot of money for the original Droid by Motorola, why does your company keep insisting on sending me bad phones? How many times is this going to happen before someone from your company fixes this pattern? I don't feel like you guys want to keep us as a customer, even though we've been with you for years now. What's going on???

[RonAnderson]

Number 5. Really? You must not be nice when you call, because after number 3 or 4 phone you should've been asked if you wanted to be upgraded.

Now to your rant. They don't have ESP nor can you just look at a phone and tell it has a problem. They don't say, "its such and such again, lets grab this phone here out of the 'BAD' pile and send it to them!"

Try to be calm cool and collective, you will find that will get you in a lot more doors that yelling cursing and stomping. The VZW reps do write notes everytime you call in, and when they see in big letter at the top this guy is a yeller your not getting very far.

[avtech]

Mr. Anderson,

Who do you work for? I would be willing to bet you work for Verizon.

First of all, if you work in customer service, and you get a call from a customer that has a legitimate problem with a phone, you should expect them to get upset when they are told their only resolve is to get a crappy refurbished phone as a replacement. And after you go through several crappy replacements, you're told you have to upgrade or pay for a new phone. Now, I work in the Audio Visual industry and am constantly dealing with many types of electronic devices. And the reliability of that equipment is representative of the manufacturer. Although Verizon does not make their own phones, they must stand behind those products with their customers and deal with the manufacuter or supplier to resolve the issues. And crappy manufacturing is the most common problem that Verizon has to deal with, I'm sure. Probably followed closely by software/firmware issues. Whatever the case may be, Verizon should take care of the customers that are paying for their service.

I've been with Verizon for over 20 years. And in the past, Verizon was head and shoulders above all other providers in all categories. They had better coverage, customer service and pricing. However, that is no longer the case. In the past couple of years, Verizon's customer service has gone down the toilet. And if that does not change, I will not renew my contracts. I'm sure there would be quite a bit more posts like this if more Verizon customers were on this forum. Most people I know who have Verizon are constanly complaining. The folks I know who have AT&T and Sprint, don't have many complaints. Although I still hear a few complaints about Sprints coverage.

As far as the reps making notes when you call, I'm sure they do. But what that note should say in most cases is, "this person is a yeller because they have a phone service they can't use and we won't do anything to make it better". I know there are quite a few folks out there that like to play the system and try to get a new phone just because they've grown tired of their existing phone. But for those of us that have legitimate problems with phones that don't work, we expect the problems to be resolved without having to resort to "yelling".

I think Verizon's main problem is they have grown too fast to keep up with the small details such as customer service. But what they need to realize is that they have an advantage when dealing with manufacturers such as Motorola and LG just by the sheer volume of phones and portable devices they buy from them. So they should use that power to insure they get quality equipment that their customers can get good service from.

Just my $.02

[PJNC284]

I will say that Verizon's quality control  on their certified "like new" devices is subpar at best. I went about 8 months without a single problem on my OG Droid and ended up having to get a replacement after losing data signal and a factory reset caused me to not be able to reactivate the phone.  I ended up having 3 replacements sent: one wouldn't turn on, another felt like the keyboard was going to fall off and the last had wifi issues.  Coincidence? Possibly but a lot of other people have reported similar incidents so there's an obvious issue when they're reshipping faulty devices.  It's like they get the broken phone in and then ship it to the next person in line for a replacement.  For some reason I was eligible for an upgrade and just went ahead and got the Fascinate when it was released.  Best decision ever.

[akrawiec]

I'm currently on my 7th "like new" replacement, went through 5 driod X's, one driod X2 and now on a droid 3.  So far the droid 3 has been ok but i've only had it for less than one day.  Can you believe that customer service and the retention department tried to actually get me to buy a new phone instead of sending me a better one to replace the crappy ones they are sending me??  I was told I had three options, to cancel my contract and pay the fee, get another refurb replacement, or buy a phone and extend my contract.....i felt flat out insulted and disrespected as a customer.  Regardless of if this phone works well or not I plan to take legal action against verizon for the cost of my time and frustration.

[nathandoty]

I'm on # 11 or 12, I've lost track.  Started with a D2 that I made the mistake of trying to use the WIFI, and found it didn't work.  Spent about 2 hours on with tech support, sent me a 'like new' phone, a D2.  Same exact problem, returned and given 'like new's.  Since then they sent me a couple D2G, all with varying problems.  Then they sent me I believe 6 (as of getting another one today)D3, all broken.  Some have non-working wifi, some have non-working gps, some have non-working bluetooth, some seem to work ok but go from full charge to dead battery in 2 hours of standby.

The record so far has been 6 hours with a D3 before sitting on my desk it fried itself and wouldn't power up.  The one I'm returning today has a mix of the above plus a keyboard that only comes out 1/2 way.  I can get into tech support without listening to any options.  I can program the phone without listening to any of the recording.  I'm a pro at this point.

It takes me less than 10 minutes to find why the deffective device was sent to verizon in the first place.  The extent of what they do to 'check' a phone before 're-certifying' as like new is to 1.  Check the box.  2.  Make sure there's a phone in it.  3.  Make sure it powers on.

Then it's repackaged and mailed to the next person in hopes they don't use the same features as the previous owner so they won't know their phone doesn't work correctly.  In theory these phones are 'like new' in the thought process that they didn't work correctly when brand new, and they don't work correctly now.  Therefor, it is like new.

I have been offered upgrades, downgrades, sidegrades and of course the option to buy a new phone for the bargain price of $400.  Which I've already spent when I bought the first new phone and I have no desire to spend again to get another new phone that doesn't work correcty and buys me a $400 ticket back into phone hell.  I'm given the option to have the new replacements sent for only $15 overnight, or for free in a few days.  I choose free, I would have an additional $165 in shipping charges at this point just to receive broken phones.

I have given up, entirely, on the hope they will ever by accident send me a fully functional phone instead of someone elses broken junk.  But I have no problem in sending them their stuff back and rotating stock.  I should start noting the phones serial number just to see how long it takes before I end up with one of my old phones. 

I don't even add an account or  an app anymore since I know I'll just be doing it again in a few days.  Having all my contacts backed up is however a lifesaver in my business.

I'm not angry, don't mean for it to appear to be so.  I'm just resigned and mildly amused. 

FWIW I activated my newest phone before beginning this post.  As of the end of this sentence the GPS doesn't work.

Back to verizon it will likely go once I see what else doesn't work.

[nathandoty]

Again FWIW the customer support people have been friendly, most of the tech support that I'm invariably transferred to have been friendly.  1 has been apparently angry about something, last was indifferent.  I do find it funny that the tech people almost always have never heard of my problem (whicher one it is that day)  being a recurring problem with the phone (whichever one it is that day) although a google search turns up thousands of people with the same issue with same phone.  I realize that this is common customer support speech but honestly in the days of the internet it's not hard to find out that you're not all alone. 

Exactly how I found this original post, nice to see I'm not alone in revisiting bad phones over and over again

And still no GPS, WIFI either.  They should be paying me to troubleshoot at this point.

I am glad that I have unlimited data since I can sit next to a router and not be able to connect, so the 3g gets used a lot (no 4g in my area).  My wifes phone is an original droid and I have no issues connecting with it no matter where I go.  It's not getting upgraded to anything at this point, old and usefull beats new and doesn't work every day of the week.