Verizon Customer Service Experience

[chuck10553]

I recently had an extraordinarily bad experience with Verizon customer service. My wife and I decided to have her move over to the phone plan that I was on, instead of on the plan with her parents. I called a week or so in advance to discuss the process so I knew what to expect when we were ready to make the change. I was told adding her would be about $15 per month extra, since we would have a decrease per line, based on our current 2 lines on the plan. I understood I would need her available to provide the verification as well.

I was then ready to call and knew I had to talk to the transfer department. I told the person immediately that I would like to be transferred to the department who does that, but she said she could handle that. Eventually she decided she had to transfer me anyway. I was then transferred about 3 more times, had to get my mother in law on the phone as well to verify and sat on the phone for 3 hours. When it came time to understand what the new charges would be, she said it would be $30 more per month. I told her I had talked to someone who said it would only be $15 per month more. She said that was only an estimate and she couldn't give me the actual amount until it changed. So I could not actually find out how much it was going to be ahead of time. I had to blindly move to a new plan before finding out the final charge. Verizon had worn me down so much over the 3 hours, that I just agreed, so I could move on with my life. Then I asked about a new phone, as my wife wanted a new iPhone. She said they would give her $500 for her trade in phone but she couldn't tell me what a local store would provide as they are different departments. I told her I would check with the stores and call back if her deal was better. 

I went over to Best Buy first and their best deals were only for new lines. Since this was a transfer, that didn't apply. So Verizon is giving better deals to people off the street than a loyal customer who has been with them for 11 years! Best Buy said they could only do $420 for the phone. We went over to a Verizon store, who said the same thing, but this store also charged above MRSP for the new iPhone (620 S Colorado Blvd, Glendale, CO 80246)! With the additional fees they wanted to charge, we decided to just call and take the offer from over the phone.

So I called back in. After having to go through the terribly long automated message AGAIN (at least 5-10 minutes of that) I sat on hold for another 15 minutes. When I finally got to someone she informed me the $500 was only if I had decided right then because it was for the new transfer of the line, so she could only do $420. I explained the whole situation and after another 20 minutes of on hold and back and forth, she finally got the approval to give me the extra $80 on the trade in. All in all, this was ANOTHER hour and a half on the phone. I had it set the phone for store pickup, but as we were at the end of the day on Saturday, we decided to get it on Sunday. 

Since it is my wife's phone, we decided she could go and pick it up. I tried the online messaging to confirm she could pick it up and change the pick up name, so I wouldn't have to go through the painfully long automated messaging on the phone. The agent I spoke to said she needed to be an account manager to pick it up. I told them then make her an account manager. He said since we have 3 lines we can only have 3 account managers. My brother was also an account manager from when he had a phone on this  plan and I didn't want to take him off, since he probably still helps with his wife's plan, as needed. So the agent couldn't help with that. He also couldn't just provide her name as the pickup name (like basically every other store with in store pickup allows, regardless of the cost of the item). I told the agent I was going to give my wife my ID and I wanted her to pick it up without issue. He said ok, that's fine.

When my wife arrived, she was turned away saying that I had to be there in person. The representative was very nice, but the manager just sat in the back and was unwilling to assist in any way. So my wife came home and I had to then go with her back over to the store. When I spoke with the manager, she (Aly at 8384 Northfield Blvd #1220, Denver, CO 80238) just reiterated that the policy was the account manager had to be there in person. She was very unhelpful and unwilling to try and find a better solution or have any empathy whatsoever.

The store also stated that they charge $30 to transfer contents from one phone to another. Because of this we weren't able to drop off the trade in phone at that time. The representative over the phone said they would transfer the contents and did not mention anything about a charge. Again, Aly was unwilling to assist in any way.

My wife was able to transfer contents to the new phone without issue. Much easier than dealing with any Verizon associates. Then it came time to turn in the phone. She called Verizon to make sure she could drop it off and they informed her she had to be an account manager just to drop off her phone as a trade in. I went on the app to try and just add her as an account manager, but apparently only the account owner can do that. I let my sister in law know, which she is STILL fighting that battle with Verizon.

So I decided since I had some errands to run, I would just drop it off, since I am an account manager. I went to the Verizon store on my route (2073 S Colorado Blvd #102, Denver, CO 80222) where I was told it had to mailed in, they couldn't process it in store. So another wasted trip of trying to do something the easy way with Verizon. I called in, went through the extremely frustrating automated message and after pressing 0 about 100 times, I was connected with the best Verizon person I have worked with. If I remember correctly her name is Kapie. She setup a return box to be sent to my house (the original was sent to my brother's house which was never even mentioned when I purchased the phone) and also sent me the return label via email as a backup. She was proactive and very understanding of the frustrations I was experiencing. In addition, she informed me that the drop off had to be done at a corporate location, not a locally owned one. She looked up the 2073 S Colorado location and let me know that is a corporate location, so they should have been able to take it (the representative at that location was another very unhelpful and unempathetic individual who could have cared less about me as a customer).

I gave her a 5 on the survey, but I give Verizon a 0 for how difficult and frustrating this whole process was. For the amount of money that any customer spends with Verizon (minimum of at least $500 a year), the amount of frustrating that one has to go through is unacceptable. The only redeeming factor Verizon has is that you typically only have to talk to them once every couple years.  Any more than that and I certainly would not be a customer.