Seeking Litigation

[MadMethodical]

     I'm going to skip all the fluff and filler and get to the point. Being a customer of Verizon Wireless for 3 years has been the most unprofessional business experience I've ever had, and I've spent 4 years in the restaurant industry working for drunkards and alongside [removed] offenders. Not only does every other customer support representative contradict themselves, it's obvious that the associates in the physical retail outlet deflect difficult decisions to said customer support instead of providing adequate assistance in person.

     I'll be quick, as I'm a working man taking care of his family and don't have much time to spend on these things. Last year, I upgraded to an S5. I had a short amount of time to care for it, as it was quickly destroyed. Fast forward 18 months, and 4 claim numbers later, I still haven't received my replacement. I think it's a little childish for Verizon associates to immediately displace the blame on my phone that hasn't been replaced towards an insurance company that clearly does not know what they are doing. (Asurion, if anyone is curious.) It is not my responsibility to ensure that the services provided by an insurance company have a high standard of excellence. I did not choose Asurion to insure my phone, Verizon chose to partner with them. Ergo, Verizon should be taking responsibility when Asurion fails to do their job, as they clearly met the standards Verizon wanted. (By the way, the most recent interaction I had with them involved me supplying my recently generated claim number to one of Asurion's reps, and being informed that it had expired within half an hour. He then hung the phone up on me.)

       Now, on to what really chills me to the bone. Due to the fact that my S5 wasn't replaced, I began to use the S3 that I'd taken care of for two years during my original contract. It was a wonderful phone, and did everything that I needed it to do. Unfortunately, (and I've been told multiple times that these things do happen), last week it almost caused an electrical fire in my household. It's relatively frightening to wake up and realize that smoke had begun to envelope the room you were sleeping in. My safety wasn't my concern though; I personally nurture my father, who is sick in bed and has been given an estimate of 5 months left of his life. Everyday I bathe him, clean him, feed him, and nurse him to the best of my abilities. I also have a younger sister, who is an active participant and proud member of a US Junior Olympic Team, and has been representing this country for two years now. She is 19, and has so much life left to live. And yet both of them could have been taken away, due to a malfunctioning product.

     I spent several hours on the phone and talked to multiple representatives (Veronica, Vanessa, Rachel, Mark, Ophelia(?), and George), and the associates that I spoke with about the potential deaths of my family gave obligatory gasps but didn't actually seem to understand the emotional depth of the situation. They did, however, assure me that I would be able to get a replacement for the S3, as it is my primary line and covered under an extended warranty, in-store at a corporate retailer. I would simply need to ask for an overheating policy, fill it out, and walk out with a like for like replacement of the phone.

The corporate retailer is an hour and a half away from me, but I took the day off to deal with this. I show up to the store (South Burlington, Vermont), and a man who looked as though he'd been denying people helpful services his entire life asked what he could do for me. I informed him that I was simply seeking the manager, so that they and I could get an overheating policy filled out and I could get my phone replaced.

"Yeah... well... that's a pretty old phone."

"I dunno, it could be the battery. If it's the battery then it's not covered under warranty."

"Ah, see? See that?" *points to faded spot on the paint "That's not good."

"This phone is far from being considered in 'new condition'."

(Obviously these remarks aren't verbatim, but they are damn close.)

There was a burning smell continually emanating from the charging port, and he knew that, and yet he still tried to convince me that I was stupid. Anything to get him out of actually assisting a customer.

So, essentially I got told by this associate that it didn't look like I'd be getting helped at all. I waited what felt like 45 minutes (could have been more, maybe slightly less) and watched the manager walk around for awhile. I then asked the original associate who helped me (I want to call him Ron) that I'd like to be connected to customer service, which he did. I then spent some time talking to George on the phone, and yet again I was assured that the warranty would cover everything, and George seemed to think everything was in order. I also explained to him that once he talked to either Ron or the manager, Joe, that they would both try to wriggle their way out of replacing my phone. I told George that the objective of my visit to the store was to replace my phone, that's it. I told him maybe twice, three times. I wanted a replacement with similar capabilities.

George was then transferred to the manager's line, and after about one minute I spoke with him again, and his tone was completely different, he sounded meek and meager, and his helpfulness disappeared. He then began trying to explain to me in what ways I was stupid. (I.e. reasons my phone was not getting replaced.) I told George goodbye, and walked out of the store. I took a deep breath, walked back inside, and stared at the manager until he had no choice but to approach me and have a discussion.

I won't go over our talk, because it was more of the same. He told me he wanted to make sure that my needs were met, and handed me a flip phone so I could "Call and text my friends" (again, little to no exaggeration. This man thought he was doing me a favor.) He loaned me a $10 flip phone, and told me to take my time bringing it back. Well, I looked through it when I exited the store, and the messages from the previous owner were saved, and they were full of drug-related texts.

A CORPORATE BRANCH MANAGER OF A VERIZON WIRELESS STORE HANDED ME A PHONE WITH [removed] -RELATED MESSAGES.

Now, I'm not exactly sure where this post will go, hopefully in a public place, but the object of this post is to ask the community for help if anyone else has been tread upon like myself. I'd love to build a court case up with several of our complaints, and hopefully by doing so we will finally receive the help we were promised.

My email is [removed] I'm a student of Criminology and while I don't personally study corporate law, I do have mentors who would be willing to introduce me to people who are very familiar with this kind of thing. Please email me if you have similar complaints involving Verizon Wireless and [removed], disregard of human life, and pointed, unlawful customer interactions.

Thanks for taking the time to read the post! Enjoy the holidays!

- Nickolai

Personal information and profanity removed as required by Verizon Wireless Terms of Service.

Thank you,

Verizon Moderator