Trade in label issues

[MaximoMI]

I have been a customer for about 13 years, and this is my first time trying to trade in a phone, so please let me know if this is common dealing with Verizon's trade in.

Around September, when the new iPhone 15 came out, I was getting many offers to switch to AT&T to get the new iPhone 15 pro for free ( I have fiber through them). Instead, I called Verizon to see if they had any deals for the new iPhone. They stated that I could trade in my old iPhone 12 pro in for a value of $830 which would cover the price for the new iPhone 15 , non pro, plus fees and activation of course. I was good with that deal, so I agreed with the trade in. I chose to pick up the new phone at the Verizon store. They also mentioned over the phone that they will send a package in which I could send my old iPhone 12 pro to them.

I picked up the new phone at the Verizon store as planned, and asked if I could drop off my old phone at the store instead of going through the shipping process, they said that I had to wait for the package, which was fine. I never received the package to return the old phone with.  I called in November to verify the status of this package. At this point the person on the phone confirmed that they had an old address in the system, and that she will send me a shipping label over email because my time to return the phone was running out (I did not know there was a deadline until this point). I shipped the old phone within 2 hours to make sure there were no issues.

When they received the package at the warehouse, I received an email from Verizon stating that instead of the agreed upon $830 my trade in was only worth $230 due to the package arriving late (the phone was in great condition, no scratches or broken anything). I then called Verizon's customer service and they stated that the package had arrived 2 days late at their warehouse and that the promo for my phone no longer applied. I explained how I did not received any other emails or phone calls stating that I had certain amount of days to return the phone,  and that the reason why I did not know the address was wrong on their system is because they did not confirmed the shipping address before sending the package to return the phone. I tried speaking with everyone on customer service, I was on the phone for over 2 hours, and they said that they could not help me. I am stuck with the $600 bill.

This honestly seems like good business practice to me. I can't get my old phone back and return the iPhone 15 because they say they cannot send it back. They also cannot honor the agreed upon price because the phone arrived 2 days late to their warehouse. Before all of this I was going to trade in another phone with Verizon, I in fact have a phone waiting to be picked up at the store that I am thinking on cancelling, because I do not want to go through this horrible process again. I also cannot switch to another provider that would give me the phone for free until I finish paying this one. 

Is this a common experience with Verizon Customers? while browsing this forum I noticed a few other posts where some other people were having similar issues. If this is common occurrence how can we bring better awareness to more customers? 

[vzw_customer_support · Accepted solution]

We want to make sure you're getting the trade-in you signed up for, and we want to thank you for your long time tenure with Verizon. We're going to send you a Private Note so we can gather more details and get to the bottom of this.

~Jesse

[dellaroo]

MaximoMI -- could you please reply with the status of your issues?

I'm curious if Verizon has actually helped you?

[MaximoMI]

Hello, sorry it took so long for me to reply to this question. I am not as active as I would like to be in this forum. To answer your question, they did help me, and gave me what was originally promised over the phone. It is unfortunate that I had to spend so much time on the phone and chats to get what was promised, but at the end the honored it.  This forum was great help, and I hope it keeps helping everyone else.