Customer BEWARE! You could have this happen to you.

[M-B-D]

Customer BEWARE! You could have this happen to you. Be careful believing in-store representatives too because apparently they can be misleading and a bit deceptive in order to gain you as a customer. Unfortunately, Verizon does not have a formal complaint department such as an email or mail address to file complaints so posting on the forums is the only option aside from speaking with a supervisor over the phone. Read the rest of this complaint to see why the latter option we already tried, may not be best choice.

To start, my son and I, have experienced the worst customer service while trying to pay off his phone (Google Pixel Pro 6 500 GB) for months and still have not had our issue resolved! To begin with, I decided to switch to Verizon last November, leaving my old carrier. One of the main reasons I switched to Verizon, was for the bring your own phone special deal that involved receiving $350 gift cards for each of our phones. Two of the phones were denied this deal for being “too old” or exempt from the deal by the in-store sales rep. They were also not compatible with their network, despite working on my old carrier’s network. So, we decided to purchase two new phones from Verizon so we could use their service and network.

This decision to make these purchases and start service were under the stipulation that the remaining 3 phones in the plan would receive the $350 dollar gift cards that we could use towards the purchase of the Google Pixel Pro 6 500GB and any remaining balance be paid with other means in the near future when they were in-stock again. The in-store representative assured us that this could be done and would not be an issue. We waited for the gift cards to become available and the phone to return to in-stock. Once they were in-stock again, we then tried to order the phone through the Verizon website using the gift-cards. This did not work and something went wrong with the order and it was canceled by Verizon.

This led my son to 2 hours on the phone with Verizon representatives, being switched between multiple departments and having to re-explain each time the reason for calling. The outcome of these conversations was that we could not use the multiple Verizon gift cards to buy the phone online ourselves.  We were told we had to order the phone in-store to be able to use the multiple gift cards towards the phone payment. So, we went and ordered the phone in-store and attempted to buy the phone using the gift cards. We were then told by the in store representative we could not pay off the phone because they had to order the phone and they could not charge us without us having the phone.

So, the in-store representative then said we would have to wait to receive the phone, comeback to activate the phone and then we could pay off this phone using this method. We asked yet again to make sure this payment method was possible and we were told yes, again! We received the phone a few days later and then went back to a Verizon store to activate it and pay it off using said method. We were then told that we had to wait 30 days from activating and receiving the phone before we could pay it off. After waiting the 30 days, we went back to a Verizon store to pay off the phone. We were then told we could not use two different payment methods to pay off the phone at one time. This was the first time hearing this and was contradicting what was told to us multiple times by other Verizon representatives. We were told to contact customer service as there was nothing they could do.

So, on February 21st 2022, my son and I contacted Verizon again trying to finally get this issue resolved and the phone paid for using the method we were original told was possible. My son spent another 2+ hours on the phone yet again trying to get this resolved. He was transferred to multiple different departments and had to explain the situation every time again. He also had to receive authorization from me to talk to the representatives multiple times. This process was very time consuming yet again. After about one hour and a half, my son was able to speak to a supervisor. My son, after all the back and forth, speaking with multiple representatives, having to explain himself every time and spend so long on the phone was losing his patience and rightfully so. The supervisor rudely tried to talk over my son at one point saying the same thing other representatives already stated. This tension was unnecessary and out of line from a supervisor and showed a lack of empathy for how frustrating the process had become at this point. After this, the supervisor offered what he called a “forced buy out” option that would let us finally pay off the phone using the originally discussed method. He then transferred us to another representative to initiate the payment method.

My son then, yet again, had to explain the situation to the new representative. She was unaware of the situation and was confused on how to resolve the issue. My son mentioned that the supervisor had said something about a “force buy out” at which point she said the supervisor didn’t give her that ability to do so. She then spent several minutes trying to resolve this issue but it seemed she couldn’t or didn’t know how. At one point, she placed my son on hold and he was then transferred to another department. I think the new department was the technical issue department. After having to explain to the new rep the situation, yet again, she was confused as why they transferred my son to her department when there was nothing her department could do to resolve our issue. She then placed my son on hold and transferred him to the “right” department. At which point, my son received a voice message saying this department is closed and was hung up on.  After 2+ hours on the phone, nothing got resolved and my son was hung up on.

This is completely unacceptable customer service. I want to be clear though, my son and I, believe the majority of the representatives were nice and friendly but the issue here is the overall experience and the constant back and forth. Except for the supervisor, his handling of this situation was very poor. It should never be this difficult to pay off a phone using a method originally stated that was possible by Verizon’s own representatives. It has been over a month from then and this issue is still not resolved nor have we heard anything from Verizon. We are still waiting for a resolution to this issue. This experience definitely has negatively called into question continued or future service with Verizon, and should for any future customers as well, especially if not resolved.

[vzw_customer_support]

I sincerely apologize you have gone through this type of experience. I will be more than happy to turn this around for you. Please share with me some details on why the agent could not force buy out the device remaining balance? Also, share with me what happens when you attempt to pay off the device online or through the app by selecting check upgrade options?

-Rodney