Win-back blues

[honey-badger]

I'm sharing the following in hopes that it might help others who find themselves in a similar predicament.

In February of this year, I was presented with an offer from AT&T that was too good to pass up and I switched from Verizon. It didn't work out with the other AT&T - despite cutting my monthly bill in half, they didn't make good on their initial promise to pay off my account (and free phone) with Verizon. When I realized this, I decided to return to Verizon. My local store gave me the Winback number and I was told that since I was within the 30-day window, I could return to my prior account and the original terms therein.

Unfortunately, it did not work out that way. Instead of reinstating my original account, the customer service agent created a brand new account when he did the win back. What that did was make it look like we were bringing my own device to Verizon. The original Verizon account closed - in the process, billing out my phone for $950. On top of this, he didn't port the phone correctly and I was without service for nearly 24 hours. I had to make another trip to my local store to get that resolved.

But it wasn't resolved entirely. I was still on a new account. That fact was made abundantly clear when I received a massive bill for a phone that was initially free - and still should have been under my original plan. This resulted in another trip to my Verizon store, where they were unable to help me in person and instead put me on the phone with Verizon customer service, where I had to re-explain the situation. The rep claimed at the time that there was no recourse, but that he would have someone from customer service call me that evening and that I should make myself available for the call. Which I did, but the call never came.

A few days later I received a survey invite from Verizon about my customer service experience. I made it known that my issue was not resolved. Again I was promised a phone call from a customer service rep - this time within three days. And again, that call never came.

Today I returned to my Verizon store hoping to get the issue resolved once and for all. After explaining the history (yet again), I was told there was nothing they or I could do.

I never set out to leave Verizon in the first place. I just happened to bump into some AT&T reps at my local grocery store who made an appealing offer to me that convinced me to switch. Unfortunately, AT&T didn't live up to its promise. However, given Verizon's lack of customer service, I have to wonder if it really was worth the switch back - especially since they haven't done anything to "win" me back. In fact, quite the opposite and I'm now left wondering if I should continue with Verizon.