Verizon customer service
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GIven that Verizon is apparently the most expensive wireless service on the planet, how do they justify having such incredibly bad customer service? So here's my experience and why I'm leaving:
- Verizon customer for 17 years with 2 lines (apparently 1 line per person just isn't enough, as Verizon keeps trying to sell me even more phone numbers)
- Using the same phones for the past 8 years, one of which is stuck in a reboot loop, hence it's time for new phones
- Go to Verizon store thinking it would be 'easier' to get a phone and boy was that wrong. Get told that because my fully-functioning 4G phone is so old "Verizon does not want me on their network" and that I MUST upgrade but hey because I'm such an annoyance Verizon is willing to give me a free Google Pixel 9. OK, great.
- One phone is dead so we need at least one new phone right there and then. The phones on display aren't labelled with model/price so picking one isn't the easiest
- Pick a new phone, to replace the dead one and get told to pick one up from another store 10 miles away as this store doesn't actually have anything in stock and that the Pixel 9 will ship 'this weekend'
- Problems processing payment (3 tries... lots of 'hold on, let me try this...')
- Pick up new phone and get it home but, of course, can't activate it because apparently the old device needs to be functioning to get a code to activate new device (we did tell the sales person that the old device was broken--no mention of needing it to activate new device from EITHER store.) Eventually get the old device working long enough by freezing it to get the code--and it's expired. Contact support and 60 minutes of waiting and SLLLLOOOOOOOWWWWWW responses and the phone is working--for exactly 2 hours. (Why, Verizon? Why when chatting with a support bot is there a 10 minute pause between every response? Is that to make us feel frustrated and assume that we are actually talking to a 'real person?')
- New phone falls off Verizon network. 2+ hours of same garbage tech support later with multiple 'escalations' to other AI bots that somehow can't figure out the issue and I get magically disconnected from the chat session. 2 hours wasted.
- Apparently using Verizon Chat for support is the WRONG THING TO DO. Fed up and having better things to do with my life I hand off the task of getting her phone working again to my wife. And apparently calling them works better--sort of. There you do actually get to talk to a real person, who, after verifying all account information and using the 'confirmation text' method of ensuring that yes, you are talking to the real person who has a problem, accused my wife 'not being an authorized account user' because [she] doesn't sound like a man.' (Yes, that's an actual, direct quote.) After chiming in on the call apparently just hearing a mans voice was enough to 'prove' there was an actual need for tech support and that yes, she's a woman but it's OK because a man is there.
- Real support person DOES actually get the phone to work after taking the EXACT same steps repeated multiple times in the AI chatbot support attempts. Again, why Verizon? Why waste our time with 'AI' garbage?
- BUT WE AREN'T DONE YET! Remember that other phone that was supposed to 'ship this weekend.' Yea, that doesn't exist. Absolutely no record of a new Google Pixel 9 in My Verizon. I pad sales tax on it (Salesperson was very explicit that I was still 'buying' the phone even though it was free hence the sales tax) but there's nothing in my account about it actually being purchased or shipped. This isn't something I would normally check, but given the incredibly BAD EXPERIENCE of just getting a new phone activated it was a warning sign. Sure enough, that was screwed up too.
I know that this rant will be completely ignored and accomplish nothing, except some low possibility someone coming across it when trying to decide if they want to use Verizon. Maybe, just maybe I can save one person from this. The only reason I have stayed with Verizon this long is because it was 'easier' than finding a new provider. Since Verizon is making it so hard to stay with them, that scale has tipped.
