iPhone 5 and Verizon customer Service Nightmare Please help!
Dchill
Enthusiast - Level 1

I need help with Verizon customer service. I would like to know if I am being unreasonable. Here is my story. I ordered an iPhone 5 from apple to add to my Verizon account. This will be my fourth line of service with Verizon. I spend over 200 dollars a month with Verizon. I ordered the iPhone on the first day it was available to order. I received my iPhone on Tuesday 9/25/12. The nightmare begins. I call Verizon customer service to activate service. I get bounced from department to department because they are unable to activate my phone. This goes on for about an hour. I then get to a nice young lady that was very friendly and worked hard to try to help me. We spend for hours on the phone speaking to all of her different departments and even calling apple care and apple directly. The problem is Verizon set my new line of service to start in the middle of October. After about 4-5 hours on hold with customer service I am told they can't activate my new phone until the middle of October because when the order was placed they set up my activation date wrong. They went on to tell me they could do nothing more and transferred me to apple as they said only apple can fix the problem. I spend the next two hours on the phone with apple. Apple class all their tech support and calls Verizon back and explains my phone is a working phone and Verizon is the one providing the service so this is definitely a Verizon issue. I am advised by apple that I need to call Verizon back to fix. At this point Verizon is closed as I have been on hold with reps past closing time. I call back to Verizon and get a really helpful customer service rep the next day. Spend two hours on hold with him and he gets my service turned on. He states they should have been able to help me with this yesterday and apologized to me. He advised I would have to call back the next day to change my phone numbers around. Total time invested today 2 hours. Total time invested so far over 8 hours. I call back the next day to get my numbers moved around. Takes about an hour. When we are done I ask if I can get a credit on my next bill for having to spend over 8 hours on the phone to fix Verizon's mistake. I am transferred to a very condescending manager who laughs at me and tells me in essence they don't care about my time. He offers me one day of service credit. I advise him this is unacceptable. He gives me an analogy that this is like me getting my electric turned off for not paying and then wanting a credit for the time it took to turn back on. He even laughed at me on the phone and told me he wasn't going to do anything. When I asked to speak to a higher up manager I was told no. My question is who do I advise to get this rectified, and is it unreasonable to expect a credit when I spent over 8 hours on the phone with Verizon to correct their mistake?  Pleas help!

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Re: iPhone 5 and Verizon customer Service Nightmare Please help!
Not applicable

I can vouch as a very long time customer, that what kaebfly says, works in actuality.  I have had bad bouts of poor customer service at one time or another at a variety of places, in my 3 decades of my adult life.  I have worked in the regulatory industry and have had legitimate requests on my desk that others should have resolved before they got to me.  I also come from a long line of entrepreneurs, and I was raised "old school" when you had to face every customer and there was no internet.  I know exactly what you are referring to about the laughing incident  - it is reasonable to expect someone to treat you fairly, listen to you, and respond with respect for all requests.  Period.   So it sounds like a combination of things got you flustered -  just keep good notes - and stay focused for now. 

I've been reading through the thread, and the only question I'd say to ask yourself:

a) what is the credit you're seeking, and

b) can you quantify and iterate why you are due the credit, that is above the recompense for the day of service lost?

I'll add a third thing - just a guess, but I'm thinking in your mind, you're having to beg for what you'd consider usual customer service - yes?  It's important - but it would need to stay separate for the above request.  Unfortunately respect and not having to beg is just nothing that can be reimbursed.

If I did the right thing, provided facts, stayed on target, I still sometimes didn't get the due result - so then I had to decide - and carefully so - do I change services, etc?  Do I shop elsewhere?  Do I write letters to Corporate Offices, Attorney General etc (I have a list on standby from over the years, depending).  I'm not saying do that hastily - one always needs to think about why they make a change (and making sure it's for the right reasons and not just because the grass looks greener elsewhere - it will come back to bite you down the road).

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Re: iPhone 5 and Verizon customer Service Nightmare Please help!
mrpearsoy
Contributor - Level 3

What exactly do you needrectified? A credit? In all honesty, yes it took time, but your issue was resolved. A days credit (which 8 hours is a working day) is fair. If you dont like it, you do have 14 days (now 13) to make your voice heard and just cancel the line. theres nothing unreasonable here.

Re: iPhone 5 and Verizon customer Service Nightmare Please help!
papertarget
Enthusiast - Level 2

This issue is by far a Verizon issue NOT Apple because like Apple said they provide the equipment but Verizon provides the service and billing.  With that out of the way Verizon currently employs some pretty bad employees.  Employees who in some situations require MUCH more training and some employees that feel as though they have gotten every type of training known to man and are in fact extremely arrogant and unprofessional.  Unfortunately we consumers get the privilege of having to deal with this nonsense. 

Verizon screwed up your activation and no doubt put you through the ringer with BOTH types of employees I mention above.  But for the cold honest truth.  Does that entitle you to discounts? No.  Unfortunately in this country the sense of entitlement is becoming status quo.  What we are entitled to as consumers with Verizon is the reliable service and larger network than any other competing carrier.

Re: iPhone 5 and Verizon customer Service Nightmare Please help!
Dchill
Enthusiast - Level 1

A day credit is like 5.00. If you spent over 8 hours on hold to correct someone else's mistake you would be satisfied with 5.00 for your time. Doesn't seem reasonable to me. Thanks for your input.

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Re: iPhone 5 and Verizon customer Service Nightmare Please help!
Dchill
Enthusiast - Level 1

Papertarget I don't feel entitled, in business if you make a mistake you should make it right. Just my opinion.

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Re: iPhone 5 and Verizon customer Service Nightmare Please help!
papertarget
Enthusiast - Level 2

Oh no doubt! Has Verizon not corrected your issue?  I understood that they did after all that.

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Re: iPhone 5 and Verizon customer Service Nightmare Please help!
rcschnoor
Legend

Since you asked, yes, it is unreasonable.

Re: iPhone 5 and Verizon customer Service Nightmare Please help!
mrpearsoy
Contributor - Level 3

Dchill wrote:

Papertarget I don't feel entitled, in business if you make a mistake you should make it right. Just my opinion.

They did make it right. Your service was activated nd you were offered a credit for the time your service was not available. YOU however, want more compensation. So the issue now is not verizons, but yours. So yes, to answer your question in your original post, you are being unreasonable.

Re: iPhone 5 and Verizon customer Service Nightmare Please help!
silver6056
Specialist - Level 1

Yes, don't feel it is as black&white as other posters here, but it is impractical. 

What is the value of your time for example?  If you are not self-employed, were you still being paid during these 8 hours.  A court would consider actual economic loss, did you lose money during these 8 hours?   And do you/your employer pay customers in similar situations?  In my experience, you get credit based on the service (e.g. the 1 day credit) rather than being paid for your time.

And on the flip side, if I call up Verizon complaining that my phone doesn't work, and it turns out that I had forgot to charge it, do you want to be billed for the rep's time when it was your mistake?  (Of course, wireline DOES do this, if Verizon dispatches a repair tech and the fault is inside your house etc (without a wiring contract) you do get charged)

Certainly the one day credit is the minimum they should provide.  As others have said, your real recourse is to return the phone.

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Re: iPhone 5 and Verizon customer Service Nightmare Please help!
Dchill
Enthusiast - Level 1

My family has owned our own business for over 30 years and we would never do this to our customers. I appreciate all of the responses and value everyone's opinion even if I disagree. If I put one of our customers through this nightmare I would do anything I could to keep their business and make things right. Thanks.

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