Painfully terrible experience trying to switch away from Verizon

[frustratedcustomer121]

I transitioned from AT&T to Verizon under the premise that I would have better mobile connectivity in my area.  That was incorrect, but that's not the issue for me here.  The real trouble began when I attempted to transfer my service BACK to AT&T...

It started when I received new AT&T SIM cards and attempted to port my phones over.  I made the mistake of porting my phone number over first (I'm the account holder)...before the rest of my family.  While my number ported over just fine, I was unable to get port codes for any of my other family members' equipment because "MyVerizon" became completely nonfunctional for me...except to view my bill.  When logging in with my password, it gave me the following message:

"Thank you for signing to My Verizon. Some account actions are temporarily unavailable, while we upgrade our systems. We apologize for this inconvenience and look forward to serving you more fully the next time you sign in."  

I checked back day after day only to see the same message.  It was then that I realized the problem probably wasn't a temporary system upgrade issue at all, but instead, it appeared I was permanently cut off from all self-service functionality in MyVerizon - while still a paying customer.   

I finally broke down and called.  It took hours and hours....and hours...and multiple agents to finally discover the problem: since I had purchased SOME of the equipment at issue from Verizon with purchase plans, transferring away from Verizon triggered penalties and/or buyout balances on that equipment.  

To be clear, the "balance due" isn't the problem here.  If I missed some of the fine print on the deal I made when signing up with Verizon, so be it.  I eagerly paid the balance due as fast as I could so I could move on.  The problem for me was how painfully difficult it was to even ascertain that there was a balance due at all...then how painfully difficult it was to pay it...then how painfully difficult it was to get a port code for my wife's phone.  The experience of parting ways was PAINFULLY TERRIBLE.   And it started with a very misleading "system upgrade" error message while trying to access my account details in MyVerizon and only got worse from there.  Describing it is difficult.  It felt very much like the passive aggressive actions of a jilted lover, taking revenge for an unwanted and bitter breakup.

THEN, unbelievably, it got worse.  Weeks after I paid off the balance, I finally got around to trying to port over my daughter's phone.  After waiting for over two hours with the porting department, my call was dropped...15 minutes after Verizon's porting department closed for the evening.  The saga continues.

I've honestly never seen anything like it.