Trade in issue - phones lost during transit

[cazambre]

Dear Community

After several back and forth with Verizon customer service and trade-in team (via chat and on the phone), I think it will be easier to handle my current issue through an extensive, documented message.

Long story short, I ordered in December 2021 three new phones / lines using the Verizon Holidays deals promo. Two of the phones are iPhone 13 that I’m supposed to get for $0 thanks to the trade in of 2 iPhone I had on hands.

I went through the process on the Verizon website and two trade-in transactions were created on December 13th.

Shortly after placing the order, I received one UPS return kit (linked to order 39869817)

I reach out to customer service on December 20th and was confirmed I could use one kit to send both phones.

On December 26th, I dropped the package (with both phones) in an UPS Drop Box in Brooklyn (where I live). UPS tracking # is 1Z4E9W380670041877

On January 6th the package was received by Verizon return center, which is a longer delay as usual.

On January 13th I received the package back home, but unfortunately with no phones inside. Obviously, it was returned by Verizon return center because it came in with no phones.

I strongly believe the phones were stolen during the initial transit. I have no evidence of it though.

The problem is that I now end up with two trade-in operations that will never be finalized. The net loss id $1,600 since the associated credit ($800 each) will never be applied to my bills. This is a significant amount.

I reached out to UPS but clearly there is nothing to expect since they properly delivered the package to destination even if there is a high probability the phones were stolen during transit.

I only have my good faith to bring here. Clearly, I need Verizon to support me because I cannot afford to lose $1,600 for something I’m not responsible for.

The only evidence I can bring are captures of the phone’s settings screen that I did to capture the IMEI. I can also provide the packing slip of one of the phones and the invoice for the other one.

I hope you will trust my good faith here. I’m ready to study any proposal (including providing additional phones, I have an iPhone 7 and an iPhone 8 on hands). But I cannot just renounce to the trade-in value which was the decision trigger to take the new lines at Verizon.

Any thoughts on how i could/should proceed here? So far i have not been able to speak to anyone at Verizon who can help on this. I feel pretty lonely with this issue

Thanks in advance for your support 

Cyril