upgrading kin for FREE help

[zachkinjo]

I recently received a letter from Verizon stating that I am able "To Upgrade my Kin to any 3g smart phone for FREE".  I'm curious to know why none of the Verizon stores have no Idea what I am talking about when I ask them about this, and if this is true about Kin users being able to trade their Kin in for a new phone for free.

[fisharefriends]

I am assuming you are an owner of the 'old' Kin? With the studio, spot, online backup, etc? Because that phone wasn't a big success (in fact, it was a failure..less than 60,000 units sold), my guess is they are trying to move those owners to 'regular' smartphones, and between microsoft and verizon, are going to shut down the kin studio online service sometime soon. They don't want to just cut off service to those 60,000 owners, and i'm no lawyer, but i'm assuming they are under contract to provide that service, so the only way they can avoid a large settlement is to have all the users willingly switch from that phone and then close down the service. Or they could possibly just be closing down the service soon anyways, no contractual agreements looming, and just giving out hte free phones as a 'customer support brownie points' deal. After all, they make near nothing for the 1-time purchase of phones and devices; from each customer, they make more a month than half of those devices do with their up-front cost. But i am not bashing on Verizon, they do have the best service out of any of the providers out there. This is purely speculation, though. For actual facts, perhaps try contacting verizon directly (and getting a tier II, tier III rep, not just a salesman), or if you go to a store, bring the letter with you.

They have since released the Kin Onem and Kin Twom as feature phones, with the studio, spot, social networking features removed.  Most of the topics on this board are now talking about those phones.

If i read your post wrong and you are talking about the 'new' Kin Twom, they also have the 'New every Two' upgrade deal. With a 2 year contract, if you renew the contract for another 2 years, you get the new-contract pricing on phones, plus $100 towards the primary line on the contract (if a family plan, you can transfer that $100 to one of the other devices, but can't split it between 2). the Kin Twom is listed as $50, so it is free after that discount. That is actually how i got the kin twom for free.

Hope this helps.

[michaelslw]

http://www.phonearena.com/news/Verizon-to-shutter-The-KIN-Studio-next-month-offers-users-a-free-3G-p...

according to phonearena, seems like you are getting that free smartphone cuz you were the original kin user.

well, if i were you, i would totally get to bestbuy and get that white samsung fascinate right now!

[cutienerdgrrl]

(I already replied on your same question in the upgrades forum, but for the benefit of other readers I'm cutting & pasting the same response. We are discussing the original KIN phones)

Yes, I got the same letter yesterday. Let me tell you MY story.

So in the letter it states that the offer is only redeemable at an actual STORE. So today I went to my local store and was told that THEY could not honor the offer because they are an "independant" store, and that I had to go to an actual "corporate" store. My nearest corporate store is TWO HOURS drive away from where I live. Oh, joy!!

So the poor sales guy there said to call customer service to see what might be done, but that there really wasn't any way that his store could help me because they would not get refunded by corporate for the cost of the "free" new phone, that it would be a loss of money for them, and I completely understand that.

So I called customer service who had no idea what was going on, and they put me on hold for at least 20 minutes. I imagined the customer service gal running around the office looking for some memo or frantically searching inter-company emails. By the time she got back on she said that she was going to have to forward me on to online sales to see what they could do. On hold for another 10 minutes. The woman at online sales said that they ALSO had no idea what was going on and that she was sending her manager (who was not in the office "yet") an email and that they would call me back. Well, that was around 1pm Central Time. I've not heard back from them.

Tomorrow I'm going to contact the corporate store and see what they can do so I don't have to drive 2 hours and waste a half a tank of gas. Basically, they've offered us appropriate customer service, but I'm getting the feeling that the letter was sent out by whatever department the KIN (original) was handled by without actually notifying ANY other department, or without ANY memos being sent out to the stores (or customer service, for crying out loud!).

I'm also very concerned about my data plan. I pay $100 a month and cannot afford to have my data plan tampered with. I had the plan set up specially for almost no talk & text because I have a cell phone through my employer that eliminates the need for that stuff on a personal phone, which I basically use as a mini-computer. I'm really put out by the fact that I most likely WILL have to make the two hour drive to ensure that they don't eff up my data plan, as it was like pulling teeth to get it set up in the first place.

Gee, it sure would be nice if a Verizon employee could throw in a littler bit more information for us here on this thread!!

[NorrathReaver]

Hey everybody. I have some information that should make everyone in this thread happy.

1. You can order the new phone via calling Verizon directly.  I did this tonight and have the Droid R2D2 edition headed my way with delivery by 12/15 7pm guaranteed.

2. You need to tell them to look under KIN promotions, and need to make sure that they note the date you activated the KIN device as being before the release date of the KINm devices. For some reason (and it may not hold true for everyone) it's showing all existing KIN devices as KINm for some reason.

3. You really can choose ANY phone you want for free, including tax, shipping, etc.

4. You will be required to extend your contract a full 2-years in order to get this device which will reset your New Every 2/Annual Upgrade dates.

Most of the CS staff do not know where to look for this information, and by being patient with them I was able to find a CS agent who knew about it, and told me what to ask for so I could inform others.

Note, this offer is good until 3/31/2011 so that means it will work for ANY Windows Phone 7 device upon release, provided they are available for order before 3/31/2011.  The odds of that are good.

I'm merely impatient and wanted to try a Droid phone, and since it's free figured why not pick the best model?  If I don't like it I will return it within the return window and keep using either my old KIN Two, or my HTC Touch, and await a good WP7 device.

[cutienerdgrrl]

Who exactly did you talk to? Because I've spent about 3 hours today (that's not including the 45 minutes yesterday with telesales who was supposed to call me back but never did) with customer service who couldn't help me because their computer system won't push the request through. Then my "local" store, who patched me through to online sales because that's how I originally ordered it, but it actually patched me back through to regular customer service & apparently online/telesales is closed on the weekends so the bad-word person at my "local" store had no idea what they were talking about. THEY themselves cannot just ship me the phone because I have to electronically sign for it, they can't just have me sign by fax. I am getting so PEE-od!!! This is absolutely ridiculous. I pay for the service, and SUPPOSEDLY they're trying to do right by their decision to kill the studio, but NOBODY can help me without me having to drive 2 hours (four hours total, half a tank of gas) to do it in person. And even then, I bet you that I'll still get some runaround and have to spend 3 hours in the store. I will be writing an email to corporate and have some hard paper to take down with me. I'll get ugly if I have to. This is some **bleep**.

[Norrath_Reaver]

Same guy as earlier...yes I know I now have an underscore in my name.

For some reason when I tried to log in today it kept saying my account wasn't activated and none of the recovery options would recognize me for some odd reason. So I had to sign up for a new account...oy vey.

Anyhoo, the person I spoke with was at one of their contracted centers in Lacey, Washington. She said to mention very specifically that it's under KIN Promotions.

I've already gotten my tracking information for the R2D2 and it should be here by Wednesday at the latest.  The first person I spoke with had no clue.  I was on hold at one point with them and I stepped into an elevator and my call dropped.

When I called back I get this nice woman on the phone who actually knew what I was talking about, so she's the one who gave me all the details on it.

All I did when I got on the call was to press 0 (I never use the actual menu options) and when it asked what I was calling for I said "KIN". That's all I did.  There's nothing in the M&P's documents (Methods & Practices) for the KIN that says you have to do all this fancy stuff for it. They should just verify you own an original KIN device, find out what phone you want, and then get your information and ship it out. That's the workflow that's in their system for these calls.

Also just a word of advice based on what I'm seeing here in your forum post...attitude is the fastest way to get no one to help you.

This is coming from my prior experiences working in customer support at a Verizon contracted center, working at a call center answering medical calls, and years of other customer service experience.

The ruder and more 'ugly' you are, the more you just tick them off, and become a joke to them later.

I'm not saying this to be mean...but that's the facts.  The best way to get help is to be friendly, sociable, treat them like they hold the keys to the kingdom, and make conversation.

[SydneyK]

You are so right, Norrath underscore Reaver. I am always courteous to the CSRs I get. It's not a CSRs fault if a phone doesn't work or if your kid went over on data usage. I always ask how they're doing too, because I wouldn't want to start at 6 a.m. or end my work day at 11 p.m. Anyway, I've never had a CSR tell me no, that they couldn't do something for me. They have always gone above and beyond to help.

Anyway, enjoy your R2D2 ... I'm sure you'll love it.

[cutienerdgrrl]

Yeah, I had probs logging in yesterday, too but it did eventually let me log in. Plus my computer is doing this weird thing where it keeps going "back" without me asking it to WHILE I'm on Verizon's site (so I end up back on Facebook Vampire Wars or something, lol). Didn't help my frustration yesterday.

I know getting ugly won't help. I work in customer service, too and have hung up on many an a**ho**. I was angry as heck last night when I typed all that here. However though, when I talk nice to customer service reps (from ANY company or whatever) they talk down to me. I think it's just me, maybe they just don't like my nasaly voice, who knows, but I always make sure I speak nicely to people. The people at the corporate store were rude from the start (yes, I know it's the holidays and they're stressed out), but I spoke with more than one of them and they weren't listening to what I was saying and then started feeding me a bunch of crap about the new phone having to be equal or lesser value, which the letter did not state & I think they're lying to me. (plus I already knew that you, NorrathReaver, had ordered an R2D2, which only makes me believe more firmly that they were either lying, or were under some impression that they would lose money on the deal) Everybody I've spoken to (and the people at the call centers are nice, to clarify) I HAVE been sure to tell them to look under KIN Promotions, like you said, which they have, but for some reason all 3 of them that I've talked to could not get their computer to push the request through.

Anyhoo I've sent an actual email to Verizon and I'm waiting for a response. This has worked for me in the past.

NorrathReaver, I'm wondering if you were in contact with telesales, who I spoke with briefly on Saturday and they were supposed to call me back but never did. Basically, I realize in my situation this will take about 100 phone calls. I could try to get ahold of the Lacey, Washington center, but when you call Verizon's customer service line it's a crap shoot of which call center they send you to.

[cutienerdgrrl]

SUCCESS!!!

I finally got ahold of somebody at customer service (even though I dialed the number for online sales?) who was not going to give up until it went through, come heck or high water.

My Motorola Droid 2 Global should arrive on Wednesday!! And then...I have to figure out how it works. THAT'S going to be a whole other nightmare. Thank goodness for the forums!!

Thanks NorrathReaver and everybody else!!