6 months of problems getting any iPhone X trade-in credit, now being charged incorrect "adjustment"

[IonBlade]

Trade-in - April

Back in the beginning of April, I took advantage of the April 1 promotion to trade in any broken / shattered phone for full credit to trade in an iPhone X with a broken back for $412 credit spread over 24 months. Due to the ongoing pandemic, I performed the trade-in with the "ship in your old phone" method, where Verizon shipped me the new iPhone 12 Mini and I used the box and an included bubble wrapper to ship back my iPhone X. The entire process was done through the web site, no humans involved - all automated through webpages. I also ran through the value calculator for the program and honestly answered the questions about the phone being damaged and the extent of the damage, and, due to the promotion, the tool confirmed I'd get the $412 credit over 24 months.

I have a PDF of the trade-in receipt saying that I should get $412 credit, and that it could take 3 billing cycles to take effect.

Call 1 - July

When I checked my bill for June - July, with no credit yet, I called up Verizon support, and was told that records showed Verizon received my phone, but that all credit was denied due to the phone being cracked. (Uh.... yes. That was the ENTIRE point of the promotion.) Therefore, I wasn't seeing the credit due to the phone having been denied trade-in.

Of course, Verizon didn't tell me this via any notification. Nor did Verizon send my phone back.  Good thing I check my bills regularly, and stay on top of things, or I'd just be giving my old phone away for free, and would never know. 

I explained to the agent the promotion under which it was traded in, and that I had proof showing my phone had been deemed eligible under it for the $412 credit. They looked up the promotion date / my explanation on their side, read me the terms and date to confirm they'd found the correct promotion, and told me that "the promotion under which the trade-in was processed was incorrect in the system." Even though the entity entering it was the system, since I did it all through the automated process for the promotion on the site, and have the PDFs output from that process showing the promotion and credit, so.... doesn't really check out. But I work with computers, and know the people that enter data into them to run things like promotion business logic aren't infallible, so I rolled with it.

They told me they'd submitted the promotion again, with the correct promo listed this time, and that I'd see the credits start on the next month's bill, retroactively applying for the ones I'd missed. Cool.

Call 2 - August

When I checked my bill for August, I found there was still no credit. I called in again and asked to escalate the issue, and was told that there was no one to escalate to. The person looking into the issue told me that the promo was again filed wrong, and the trade-in credit was denied again, even though the previous call, the guy had directly read to me the terms of the trade-in to confirm it was the right one. But apparently, per the support rep on this call, that guy also got it wrong. I explained the situation to date, and that at this point, I'd given Verizon my iPhone X over 4 months previously, and still had nothing to show for it.

(And, once again, I received no notification of the rejection.  It was on me to check my bill diligently and make sure I received the agreed upon credit, since Verizon didn't let me know they'd decided once again to keep my phone, but not give me credit a second time.)

We went through the whole process of him finding and looking up the trade-in terms again, and he promised me that this time it would be filed right, even though the computer had apparently filed it wrong the first time, and the last human to tell me it would be filed right had also filed it wrong. So he resubmitted it, again. He told me that around a minute later, he saw the retroactive credit applying to my account, and that I'd see it on the next bill.

Now - September/October bill

Well, today that bill came in, and sure enough, the last 4 months of credit were on it! Progress!

...except the bill is $89 more than it should be. The reason? There's now an $89 one-time charge of a "trade-in adjustment" listed.

I never RECEIVED any credit for the phone prior to this to adjust, so this is totally random and incorrect _again_.

I've gone back through the previous bills to verify. This isn't undoing some credit made before that's now been corrected since I'm getting the monthly credits that were part of the promotion. It's just some new $89 charge. (And no, I've confirmed it's not the charge for the upgrade fee, or taxes on the new phone - I paid those already in the May-June cycle bill.) And since the last 4 months of credits that came in together were only $68, I'm actually being charged $21 more for this bill than last month's bill, thanks to this mistake, basically wiping out the 4 months of credits I've had to fight to get Verizon to finally pay me that I was supposed to get, and then some!

I'm exhausted with this. And I'm just dreading the next call when support opens up tomorrow. If I ask for a manager outright, like I did after the first two screwups, they'll just claim they can't put me on with a manager like last time. If I explain what's going on and they try to fix it, I get to pay an extra $89 now and then wait another month to see if they credit it on my next bill, do nothing, or somehow manage to charge me even more again, since they always tell me I won't see anything reflected until the next bill. And who knows if whatever they do to fix it will break the credits I'm now finally getting?

How does one properly escalate this within Verizon's unnavigable support maze to someone that can fix it once and for all?

[IonBlade]

Update: after ~3 hours of trying to get someone on chat, and having the bot just spin on not putting me through, got a human to sort this latest misadventure out.  Apparently the trade-in department originally credited me $89 for my phone when they claimed it wasn't valid on the trade-in promotion.  But according to support, there was some breakdown where even though that amount was claimed as credited to my account in the backend, it was never actually credited to it.  So not only did trade-in not apply the correct promotion (denying the $412 credit), they also claimed they gave me $89 that they never did.   Then when I had to call in for months to get it properly fixed and credited, they tried to take back $89 that they never actually credited to my bill.  That's (hopefully) sorted out now.  We'll see if next month's bill is finally right - 7th month's the charm!

[TxToby]

Thank you so much for your detailed breakdown!  How frustrating. Talk about $89? $430? How about the months and months & hours of time and frustration you had because of their incompetence..  

I am absolutely NOT going to trade in my iPhone 11 Pro for their “$1,000 dollar credit spread out over 24-30 months“… Sure feels like a con job to lock you into 24 months of contract so if you leave you lose your credit (probably charge you to get out of the contract on top of that loss).   #SwitchingCost

[verizonsuxagain100]

I am literally on the chat with them right now dealing with the same exact issue although mine isn't cracked and worked fine. It was just 3 years old. They have said they will correct my bill and retroactively adjust the balances so essentially my first month once it kicks in will be $0, and then the left over will roll over...Yet again, here I am on Saturday from 10 am to now still waiting for the manager to take over while I spent 45 minutes explaining their mistakes until the understand. They said they made the fix, and please be patient it will kick in in 1-2 billing cycles. NO. We have a contract and agreement for 1-2 billing cycles from July.. it is NOVEMBER, no more 1-2 billing cycles. I want this fixed now!

[Frustrated2022]

Same issue but my phones we NOT broken and I gave Verizon the phone in December of 2020

[vzw_customer_support]

We want to ensure that you are able to take full advantage of any applicable promotion. I want to ensure that we are on the same page and see how we can find a lasting resolution. What is the current status of the promotion and trade-in? Looking forward to hearing back.

-Chris