Verizon Wireless Phone Recycling, Rebate, Purchase Scam

[ESPN14410]

I have been a Verizon Wireless customer since 2000 (roughly) except when I moved to AT&T for a year in order to get everyone in my family on one plan and I could pay for everyone.

Last July I saw that Verizon was offering up to $300 per phone if you switched to Verizon so we made the move the first week of August.  We were told by our customer service representative that we would get  a credit on our first month's bill.  We didn't see the $900 credit.  We called, they said it would come in the form of VISA gift cards after 60 days.  We called again and they said it was in the mail.  We called again and they said we should have signed up for the VISA gift cards through a link that we would have received in one of the welcome emails (one of the emails that had the 666 pages of disclaimers I am guessing).  We tracked down the link and we eventually got a notice that we needed to do all of that in the first 60 days and they denied our claim.

Today (11/16/2016) I went into talk to the sales rep who signed us up and he came out of the back room after talking to his manager and said that we needed to work through the third party vendor that Verizon signed up to handled the VISA gift card (rebate) program.  He also said that in one of their recent regional sales meetings that one of the regional managers said that this was the worst thing Verizon has done.

This is a scam.  It is a bait and switch.  I started doing some research (Google) on this (and the similar programs that Verizon has had) and there are hundreds and thousands of links and complaints on the web.  All the Verizon people who signed us up for sure knew that the phone recycling / rebate / purchase program is a scam. 

I have high up law enforcement connections and I am going to have a conversation with Lori Swanson, our State Attorney General.  In the meantime I am going to make another go at getting the rebate.

In my opinion this is an intentional scam, it is a lie.  I told the Verizon Representative that I spoke to yesterday that I am suspecting that this is a bait and switch and after coming home and seeing all of the other posts on the internet there is no way that this is an isolated incident.  This is purposeful.  Verizon has the third party handling this in order to be able to throw their hands up and say that it isn't them.  Also, the complaints on the web go back to 2014 so for sure the customer service reps who we called, and who told us the rebate would show up soon or told us that the VISA gift cards were in the mail, were only delaying to get us beyond the 60 day deadline that the third party vendor has.

It's a lie.