Lied to by Sales Rep - Out $1000

[Cdowd88]

I have recently had one of the worst experiences with a cell phone company/retailer that I have ever had that resulted in $1000 being mistakenly drafted from my bank account and a week later, still not returned.  In November had received texts from Verizon essentially offering me an iPhone upgrade when we renewed our contract, so my husband and I went up to the Verizon store in Winter Park (on Aloma and Lakemont) to explore our options related to this.  The sales associate David quickly jumped to helping us.  Over the next hour or so, he told us that my phone was eligible to be returned (no matter the condition of the phone) and traded in for the new iPhone with my payments being the same.  My husband and I double checked that a small crack on the back of the phone wasn't a problem, and David assured us that there was a special going on that meant it wasn't.  He quickly renewed our contract, got me a new iPhone 14 Pro, and explained how to pack up my old phone and send it in to Verizon as the trade in.  A few weeks later, I see a $1000 addition on our bill for my new phone and I received my old phone back in the mail from Verizon.  I quickly reached back out to David who assured me that I had done nothing wrong (and neither had he...) and that it was a mistake on Verizon's end and he would take care of it.  Yet nothing changed and I had not heard back…Nervous about that large of an expensive I went up to the store again and spent an hour there why I was told it was being handled in the system and not to worry. I was told the fix was being process in the system and they needed more time, but they were able to extend my invoice date so I wouldn’t have to pay the bill. So I relaxed…2 weeks after that, the $1000 was automatically debited from my bank account on the originally due date. I was blinded sided by this expenses as I was assured it was being handled and the invoice wasn’t due. I have a family to take care of and bills to pay, and it was devastating to my monthly finances to be missing $1,000 from my bank unexpectedly.  By now, we have texted back and forth with him and even gone up to the store to talk to him in person again.  All of his texts have promises of it being handled, but it never is.  When we went to the store to talk to him, we had to talk to someone else and it seemed like he was hiding from us the whole time.  This is a classic case of material misrepresentation where he wanted the sale, and made promises that he obviously couldn't keep.  Our experience with the store, Verizon, and this employee has been awful and we would not recommend others doing business here unless they too enjoy losing a grand unexpectedly.