How do I file a complaint with the Verizon Executive Staff?

[ljm307]

I bought my first pair of cell phones in about 1987, from Cellular One, which either became, was taken over or bought out by Verizon. I was a single parent servicing in the US military and had to be reachable to the greatest extent possible. Up until now, Verizon has been my only cellular provider. The customer service has always been outstanding and for that reason, I have remained a loyal customer and recommended Verizon to many of my friends, family and business associates. With all the options available,  I have never - until recently - considered changing providers. I have just had the absolute worst customer service experience in my entire life.

For years, I have had various Verizon employees tell me that I should change from a personal account to a business account, so I decided I should finally change my plan to take advantage of a dedicated business account. On about August 7th, 2003, I went to my local Verizon Wireless Corporate Store, in Cheyenne Wyoming to look at my options. The Business Rep was not available, she was with another customer, so another associate helped me, but she frequently checked on us.

I had all my lines switched over to a business account. I specifically said that I needed to keep insurance on all my devices(First Time), and the employee said it was not a problem. They had many problems transferring one of the lines to my new account, but said they were working with the “Back End” people, and they would get it taken care of. I never received any communications from Verizon that the problem was either on-going or resolved. On August 11th, 2023, I received an email from Asurion stating that my insurance had been started on my business account. See attachment.

In September or October, I received a notice that I had unpaid bills on my Verizon account. I called Customer Service, and I was told that it was probably a mistake because my account was current, and my previous account was closed. In November 2023 I was contacted by a Collections agency because of an unpaid Verizon bill. Apparently, even though we had closed my personal account, and had supposedly transferred all my service lines, Verizon had still not transferred one of the lines. I paid the outstanding balance, and again had them transfer the remaining line and closed the personal account again.

In December 2023 I believe, one of my employees said they had a cracked screen. I told them to bring the phone in, and I would take care of it. While waiting on the phone, I logged into my Business Account to see how to file a claim. It showed that I had no insurance on any lines. Frustrated that the insurance had dropped, I selected the multi-line insurance policy and to have it start effective on that day (Second Time). It turned out that the “cracked screen” was the screen protector.

In April 2024, my Samsung GalaxyS22 started getting hot. Anticipating that I may eventually have an issue with the phone, I called the Business Customer service on April 6th. The representative I spoke with said that I did not have insurance on my phone. I asked them to verify it because there should be insurance on all my lines. They said there was no insurance at all. They said they would start the insurance (for the third time) making it effective immediately.

In the second week of May or so, I noticed the back of my phone starting to swell. On May 24th, 2024, I took my phone in to a UbreakIfix by Asurion in Fort Collins, Colorado to see if it were something they could repair. My phone was still working fine at that time. I came back after several hours as they had advised, and I was told that when they took the back glass off, they broke several sets of wires. The technician said that he checked all his suppliers and with Samsung, and the parts were not available. My Phone would not turn on and was not repairable. I am the President of my company, and my primary business phone did not work.

As soon as I got back to Cheyenne, I tried to log onto the Asurion site to file a claim. Asurion could not find a policy for my device. I drove to the closest Verizon corporate store, and explained what was going on. The business rep was already gone for the day, and I worked with Branden.

Branden had me authorize access to my account and reviewed everything. I said he could not see any insurance in effect on any of my lines. He did say that there was a note on my account from when I called before (in April) saying that I had previously started insurance, but it did not appear on the system, and they were starting it at that point. He showed me the screen that had the note, even though I could not in fact read it. He made a few calls and told me that he was sorry but there was nothing he could do about the insurance, and that I would need to call Customer Service the next day. While he was in the system we tried to verify my pin, but it did not accept it, so we reset my pin there.

The only thing he could offer was to sell me a new phone and to transfer the outstanding balance on my S22 to another line, so I did not have to pay the remaining balance it on the spot. I bought a Samsung Galaxy S24 as I absolutely must have a phone for my company. Before I left, he showed me that he (for the fourth time) started the insurance for all my service lines. Then he logged out of his tablet and logged back in and verified that the insurance was still showing as activated. I left at 8pm and returned home to start re-installing everything on my phone.

My primary company deals with IT Security and Business Consulting. We deal with several State clients, and I must have a phone. The backup through my Google account  wasn’t able to restore anything, so I spent the next four hours manually configuring my new phone.

About 10:30 am (Mountain Time) on May 25th, 2024,  I called the Verizon Business Customer Service line. I explained to the first rep exactly what my situation was and that I was upset that my insurance was not activated, and I had to buy a new phone to be able to conduct business. The person understood and said that the insurance is active. I explained again that the problem was that it was not activated the first three times I had previously activated it. She said there was not anything she could do, and I asked for a supervisor. My call was dropped, and I waited several minutes, and no one returned  my call, so I called back. As there is no way to re-engage with the same rep, I went through the entire process of the auto attendant system, transfer to the business side, account verification, wait for an available rep and explain everything again. I again asked for a supervisor and had my call dropped again. I called again, and again and again. My call log has TWENTY-FOUR (24) calls to and from the Verizon Business Customer Service Center today. Twenty-Four! I cannot imagine any business model where you force a customer to call over and over again if you actually want to keep the customer.  Sometimes my calls were dropped, or I was hung up on. Sometimes they could not get the verification text to send. (Ironic that Verizon cannot send a text message). Several times your system would not accept my PIN that I had just reset 15 hours before.

While I was talking to Jannella(sp?) a customer service lead or supervisor, she repeatedly tried to send messages for me to verify with my pin, but she kept getting a reply that the system could not verify me.  Janella then asked me to go to a Verizon Store and said she would call me back. I was an hour away from home in Fort Collins, so I went to the Verizon Corporate store that I had previously been to, and apparently it had recently closed, so I called back to Customer Service and asked where the nearest CORPORATE stores where in Fort Collins. The person told me there was one at 316 South College Avenue and one on East Mulberry. I drove up College Avenue and scoured the 300 block of College, then the 200 block, then the 300 North block, then the 400 block. No Verizon store. I went to the Mulberry Store, because I knew where it was, and Janella called me back while I was in the store. Even though Customer Service said it was a corporate store, it is in reality a partner store (Victra). The person in the store said the nearest corporate store is at  3300 South College Ave, (not 316 S. College Ave.)  about 10 minutes away. I told Janella that I was on my way, and she again said she would call me back. By now I had spent more than three hours calling customer service and repeatedly explaining my problems.

I got to the store at 3300 South College, and had to explained to two different associates why I was there and that a supervisor from the Business Customer Service was going to call so they could verify that I was actually who I said I was. On of the associates verified me on his tablet with a text message. Janella called and asked that I pass my phone to the associate. I did and when she was talking to the associate, he hung up on her. She called back, and he told her that in his nine years with Verizon, he had never heard of him having to verify my identity and sending her an email through his Verizon account and hung up on her again. Then he called a number, handed me back my phone and said “Here, they will take care of it.” and walked away.

I spent another 20 minutes on hold, explaining my situation, and waiting for a supervisor. Finally, another supervisor, Francis,  got on the phone and asked me to explain everything to him. I asked if the fist-line rep had explained everything to him. No. I asked if he had looked at the notes from the multitude of calls, I had already made and all the reps with which I had already spoken. No. I asked if he would review the notes, and he said he would be right back and put me on hold again.

Finally, Francis came back on, and told me that I did not pay for any insurance, so he saw no problem. I again asked him to  review the notes and see that I had, in fact, started the insurance three separate times, and he told me he did look, and that I had not started the insurance until the previous day. I informed him that I had an email from Asurion from August 11th, 2023, when the insurance was initiated. He said that was not possible because it was not an Open Enrollment Period. I told him that the person at the Verizon store the night before actually read me the note in the remarks section explaining that the insurance was being restarted and he told me that there was no such note, and that again they could not have started the insurance because it was outside the Open Enrollment period. I asked why they told me they did start it and he said that “sometimes they will just say whatever”  I said so you are telling me they lied to me, and he said “Yes.” I told him other reps had said they has seen the same note today, while I was on the phone, he said they could not have. I asked about the employee in Cheyenne that said he saw the comment in the remarks, was he lying too, and Francis said “Yes, there is no such note anywhere in the remarks.” I told him that I had seen the note in the remarks section. Was I lying too? He said there were no remarks. I said that if so many people had said they had seen it maybe the problem was him. He said he had been a supervisor for a long time, and he knew what he was doing. I asked again if all the other employees were lying and if then I must be lying and he said that yes, I was lying. AN OFFICIAL REPRESENTATIVE OF THE VERIZON CORPORATION CALLED ME A LIAR.

I hung up and once again called Verizon Customer Service as I drove back to Cheyenne. The automated system had me verify again. I asked for Janella, explaining that I had been speaking with her previously. He pulled up my account, then asked if Janella was the most recent supervisor with whom I had spoken. I told him no; I had just hung up on Francis after he called me a liar. He checked and said Janella was available and he would connect me with her. 

Jannella took over the call and said that because I had verified through the automated system, she did not have to re-verify me and could continue trying to help me. I spent the next hour on the line with Janella, and to be completely transparent, she is the only reason I may remain a Verizon Customer. She offered a discount on three of my lines. I told her that at this point that is not acceptable. I asked for an email address to the corporate office because I needed to formally file a complaint. She put me on hold and said that she had written everything up and it would go to the ”back end” and they would get back with her in “24 to 48 hours”  It’s now nearly 5pm. So, twenty-four hours is late Friday afternoon, and I said I know I will not get a call back until Monday at the earliest. She said she could not promise anything because 24-48 hours for a response is the “corporate policy.”

I asked again for an email for a Verizon executive. Again, she put me on hold and came back and said that they do not have corporate email addresses. She provided me with a Post Office Box to mail a complaint to. Verizon, one of, if not the biggest communications company in the country, will not take emails from business clients. She said that she was told my only other option, as a business client and a Verizon customer for what must be more than 25 years is to have my lawyer file a complaint through the Verizon Legal Department. She repeatedly apologized for the way Francis had treated me and promised she would call me as soon as she heard anything. I thanked her for all her efforts and explained that Verizon has failed me as a customer and would be exploring other service providers. She again apologized and promised to call me.

I was now back in Cheyenne and went to the Verizon corporate store. I asked for the Business representative, and she came out to speak with me. She told me that Branden had already explained to her everything that had happened the previous evening. I asked her if she had a corporate email that she could give me and if she could give me a screen shot of the customer service notes with the remarks saying that I had called to get the insurance started again from April. She asked me to give her a few minutes and when she came back, she told me that she had called and given all my information to her (regional?) manager and that he was going to call me back. She also said that she could not give me a screen shot of the remarks or allow me to take a picture because of Verizon corporate policy. It was now 5:15pm. I started this fiasco at 10:30am today.

Now, as I see it, there are several issues that Verizon Corporation should address: 

First,  why, when I did everything, any reasonable person would expect, and more, should I, as a very long-term, and presumably valued customer, do I have to buy a new phone when my insurance should have paid for it? Verizon’s fault.

Second, when I went to the Verizon store and had my personal account changed to a business account the “back end” failed to properly move the line that the in-store rep reported problems with. Why? Verizon’s fault.

Third, the Verizon rep did in fact start the insurance, or I would not have received the welcome email from Asurion a few days later. Why did the insurance drop then? Verizon’s fault.

Fourth, I activated the insurance myself using the Verizon Business app and the insurance still did not take effect. Why not? Verizon’s fault.

Fifth, When I called Verizon Business Customer Service and again started the insurance, why did it not start again? And again, your system has a note in the remarks from the rep saying that it should have previously been started and they were starting it again. Verizon’s fault.

Sixth, why was one of my lines not transferred by the “back end” and why was a closed account continued to be billed? Verizon’s fault.

Seventh, why does it take call after call to Customer Service to get anything done? Why does this mammoth communications company drop calls when transferring calls to a supervisor? Verizon’s fault.

Eighth, when calling back after a dropped call, is it impossible to speak with the same person again? Of all the calls that were dropped today,  only Janella actually called me back even though several representatives verified a call back number. Verizon’s fault.

Ninth, why is it so hard to elevate a problem to a supervisor and impossible to elevate beyond the second level supervisor? Verizon’s fault.

Then, why did your application not restore my device from my google account? Verizon’s fault.

Next, why should I do business with a company where a SUPERVISOR calls me a liar?

And finally, if you refuse to address a customer’s problem, do you really want me as a client? If not, then it is my fault, and I will address that.

Between the time at the UbreakIfix by Asurion Store at 1pm or so on Wednesday the phone calls after that, dealing with the Verizon Store, updating, and setting up my new phone, I spent eight hours. Today, Thursday, just phone calls and trips to Verizon Stores, I spend another seven hours. Finishing the installation of applications and email accounts another three hours.  Unbelievable.

I will admit that while on several of the calls, having to deal with people that can not understand how your internal systems work, constantly interrupt my, ask questions and refuse to allow me to answer, I became more than a little annoyed and occasionally used language that I do not endorse. For that I apologize to any Verizon employee.  It is not an excuse, but the frustration of dealing with people that will not read the previously written notes and having to repeatedly go through a ten minute explanation of the problems I had encountered overwhelmed me.

While at this point, I have extraordinarily little expectations, I would appreciate an e-mail or phone call from a Verizon Corporation Executive. To that end, I will be sending this to multiple Verizon emails as well as the Corporate P.O. box, in Newark, NJ; the Federal Communications Commission, the Better Business Bureau, my lawyer’s office, the Verizon Regional manager if he contacts me and all my friends, family, and business contacts.