3rd party retailer posing as a Verizon corporate store

[Nlambert182]

My wife and I went into what we thought was a brand new Verizon corporate store by our house on Black Friday to get a deal for our son on the iPhone6s that was being advertised.  When we drove up the store looked identical to the other two corporate stores in our city so we assumed it was a corporate store.  Nowhere on the outside of the building was anything that mentioned the store was just an authorized retailer and there were no signs inside the building that were visible at a glance either.  We went in and met with a gentleman who walked us through the entire order process.  As we were getting ready to order the phone my wife noticed that his pricing sheet had "Cellular Sales" at the top and not Verizon Wireless. 

Having worked for Verizon in the past I knew this meant they were a 3rd party retailer so I asked the sales rep if they were a corporate store.  He hesitated for a minute and then told me that they weren't.  I advised him that we only deal with the corporate stores because the 3rd parties tend to either inflate the costs or stick extra contracts on you.  He assured me that they had even better pricing than Verizon corporate stores and that they didn't add any riders to the contract.  He then advised me that they were usually the ones showing Verizon customer care reps how to do their jobs and the customer care reps typically didn't know much about their own products.  I found that offensive since I have been a care rep in the past and know the amount of training they go through to learn their products.  I also recall that over half my calls were dealing with trying to fix mistakes that these types of stores made.

I told him their store was misleading since it didn't say they were an authorized retailer and he pointed me to a very small sign on the door (taped on and looked like an advertisement) that said they were Cellular Sales.  It was not plainly visible when walking by.

We hesitantly allowed him to place the order since we were there.  We asked about cancellations and he said we could cancel at any time by just giving him a call.   We went home and checked the website and the iPhone 6s was $60 cheaper direct from Verizon.  I immediately called the store back and talked to a second gentleman.  I told him that we wanted to cancel the order and order directly through Verizon. He then told me that I would need to call Verizon customer care to cancel the order and there was nothing they could do.  I called customer care and was told that since a 3rd party placed the order it took a bit of time to cancel.  It took 3 days and 3 phone calls to customer care to finally get it cancelled and by that time the Black Friday deal was gone.  Customer care did a great job setting us up with a Cyber Monday deal on our account which was a little better, but we ended up having to let the original phone come to this 3rd party store anyhow.  I now have to go back in there this Friday to pick up the phone and deal with this unethical and dishonest store.

All other stores in our city with the exception of this one and one other new store clearly indicate on the side of the building that they are an authorized premium retailer. I recall in the past that they had to be clearly marked as a retailer and not a corporate store.  Did Verizon change the rules for these stores?  They are completely misleading customers.

[Stay_Correct]

You said there was a sign stating that he was a 3rd party. Also he didn't lie to you when you asked him. So no. He was not posing as a corporate store like your title says. Why lie.

[acraftylady2]

I don't get why people just don't walk away if they are not happy they are not dealing with a corporate store.    2 other corporate stores in town, walk away and use one of those.  How exactly are they lying if the salesperson admitted it was a 3rd party retailer? 

[dontuseVictra]

Yes I had same issue.

The store on 1430 Second Ave in NYC has Verizon label outside and inside. No other marking. 

It looked like corporate store and I could find no other labels. The sales people were very unprofessional, threatening and hustlers.  They quoted very high cancellation restocking fees when I was asking to please cancel what we were talking about because it was all not right. Verizon headquarters could not help because they informed me this was  a Victra store a third party reseller that I could not have known. Verizon has allowed these third party resellers to look exactly like headquarters and rip off customers. The salesperson made me and my whole family feel very uncomfortable with yelling and threats of thousands of dollars of fees and all we wanted to do was just cancel the order after learning of all the deceptive behavior.  

[vzw_customer_support]

Good morning. I'm so sorry this was your experience with our Indirect Retailer. Regardless of what location/method you use to get your service, you should always get the best service, and have the best experiences. Again, I'm so sorry this wasn't the case.

How long ago did this happen? Were you able to get your order corrected with the correct pricing? Please keep us updated. -Vanessa

[Doggo]

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@dontuseVictra wrote:

Yes I had same issue.

The store on 1430 Second Ave in NYC has Verizon label outside and inside. No other marking. 

It looked like corporate store and I could find no other labels. The sales people were very unprofessional, threatening and hustlers.  They quoted very high cancellation restocking fees when I was asking to please cancel what we were talking about because it was all not right. Verizon headquarters could not help because they informed me this was  a Victra store a third party reseller that I could not have known. Verizon has allowed these third party resellers to look exactly like headquarters and rip off customers. The salesperson made me and my whole family feel very uncomfortable with yelling and threats of thousands of dollars of fees and all we wanted to do was just cancel the order after learning of all the deceptive behavior.  

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Searching "1430 Second Ave in NYC Verizon" on Google tells us in under 5 seconds it's a Victra. Verizon even has a store locator which tells you if a store is corporate or not.

Restocking fees are $50 and a standard policy. If you opened the phone, it can no longer be sold as a new phone. If you didn't open the phone, you can negotiate to get a restocking fee waived.

As for corporate or not..can you personally tell the difference between a franchise or company owned fast food chain cause I certainly can't. At least Verizon provides tools to check from your home before stepping foot into a store.