Bad experience

[greg_odessa]

The events are over three months old, but they may be interested for all VERIZON customers.

Anyone knows by now that the worst possible customers’ treatment and service comes from AT&T – I also had very bad experience and that’s why I’m with VERIZON now. But based on my recent experience, I have to say that VERIZON is making huge strides in beating AT&T in this area and may, before long, become an undisputed leader.

Here is the story: in the end of December 2019 we decided to spend our vacation in Puerto Rico. At that time we had “pre-paid 3G” plan and we liked it – inexpensive and we had all we needed. That’s what we though until we landed in Puerto Rico and found out that our phones don’t work. It took me some time to figure out how to get in touch with Customer Service with the not working phone, but finally I did. Talking to a lady, explaining my problem. Once she hears words “I’m in Puerto Rico”, she immediately goes “Oh, you need to buy International Pass - $5 a day.” “Why would I need International Pass? I’m in Puerto Rico.” “Exactly. Your plan covers US and Puerto Rico is not United States.” For a second I thought that I was mistakenly connected to the Oval Office… “No, Puerto Rico IS the United States!” “No, it’s not. We don’t have transmitting towers over there.” It appears that for VERIZON, presence of their transmitting towers is a must have pre-requisite to be considered part of USA.

It was obvious that further arguments about Puerto Rico being, in fact, US were useless, so I tried a different approach. “Listen, on Verizon website in my plan description it says that pre-paid plans, in addition to US, also cover 200 international destinations.” – “Puerto Rico is not included” – “But Puerto Rico is on your coverage map - included! Clearly visible that Puerto Rico IS covered. On your own coverage map! Take a look!” (for those who wants to verify, here is the link to that map: https://verizon.cellmaps.com/?t=prepaid ). “Not included!!!” “It’s on YOUR OWN COVERAGE MAP! AND IT IS USA!” - “NOT INCLUDED!!!!!!” That was a dead end, so I asked to talk to a manager. Manager was a little more reasonable, but still was insisting that Puerto Rico is not the US – at least, not REAL USA – you know, what he meant, right?  Finally he admitted that VERIZON’s website plan description was “a little misleading”. “A little misleading”?! That’s false advertisement, fraud and “bait and switch” wrapped in one! Then out of curiosity I asked – why $5 a day? With my plan I was paying about $30 for each line - a month! And if I buy their rip off “international pass” for my wife’s and mine phones, I would pay $150 for just TWO WEEKS we are on vacation! Manager went again through the absence of Verizon towers garbage, but unfortunately for him I’m an engineer and have basic knowledge of how things work. To further undermine this “no towers” garbage - the need for “international pass” magically disappear if you switch to “post-paid” plan – I guess, Verizon has specialized towers in PR capable of receiving signals only from “post-paid” phones…
So, he stopped that nonsense and said that he wants to do me a HUGE favor – he gives me $15 credit, so I will have three days to make calls… Some favor!!! Instead of having phone calls included, as it was declared in their plan description and coverage, I should be thankful to him for giving me lousy $15?! I ended buying a local CIM-card at WalMart for $25 or so and had no problem for the rest of our vacation…
Bottom line: all those companies are basically the same – once they have you as a customer, they try to rip you off and they have no problem by what means they do that: if it takes changing terms of agreement AFTER you signed under it – they have no problems with that. They feel free to define themselves what belongs to US and what does not and feel similarly free to say “It doesn’t matter what our plan description and coverage map say – we do what we want. Tough luck, sucker!” Well, now you know…