Who I have the same questioned this topic

After 6 long years, I have decided to call it time on my Verizon contract. I cannot handle their openly lying and misleading representatives and the fact that they try to tack on additional charges to unsuspecting customers. I made the HUGE mistake of believing the chat representative when the Pixel 3XL was released. I wanted to upgrade my phone and I saw the offer of getting an additional phone free. My wife is also on Verizon and I thought it was a grand deal (what did I know?). It said on the promotion that I would need an additional line. I told the chat representative that I already had 2 lines and if I could still avail the offer. He was very eager and said it was of course possible. All I had to do was discontinue my wife's number for a month and then they could change it back. I asked if there were any other fees. He said there were no other fees and that I would even get back the buy back value of my old Pixel XL phone. I was ecstatic and made the plunge.

The phones came in on time with no return packing slip. After repeated calls they said they will send the return slip. 5-6 days go by and I don't see anything. Then we get a return slip for just one phone. At this point, my wife got frustrated and went to the Verizon store. She spends 3 hours! at the store as no one can figure out how to get her the return slip for the other phone. Finally some manager intervenes and she gets her slip. And we sent back the phone immediately.

The month after that I get a bill which has a $400 buyout fee. Again my wife makes multiple calls to the customer service about the charge. After much discussion, where they agreed that it was their fault that no one told us about the buyout fee, they said they will remove the fee from our bill. The customer call center representative outright lied that it will be removed in 2 days. We wait for 10 days but nothing happens. I call again as it is getting close to paying my monthly bill. They say that they see the conversation but the last person we talked to didn't carry out the extra step needed. They say the charge will be removed in 2 days. Again, nothing. I call them 3-4 more times and each time they tell me that the charge will be removed. They even tell me to hold off on paying my bill and they will waive off any late charge as they have documented everything. I cancel my autopay for a month. Crickets for a week.

At this point, I must have wasted 20 hours on calls with people who have no idea what is going on. I call them again and this time the representative gives me a new story. She says that the charge actually has to go the Finance department and the last representative never did it. She says she doesn't know why her colleague was so bad at her job (paraphrasing here). Anyways, at this point she says I can pay the difference sans the 400$ buyout charge and the charge will be lifted in 7-10 days. After 12 days I get the next month's bill WITH the buyout fee AND a late charge. Again I call them and this time I get the response that finance denied my request as we had to return the device within 15 days but we took more than that. I nearly screamed at her that we have been begging to return the device but had no IDEA where to return as no one would give us a return slip. At that point she said she will call me back if she can find a solution but I haven't heard from her and I doubt I will.

It is sad that such a big firm resorts to outright lying and harassing their customers. I have been loyal for over 6 years and our bill averages 200$ a month. This is the way they treat their customers for a little instant gratification. I doubt my diatribe will have any effect on them but I will be making my comments heard on various social media and would dissuade all my friends from getting Verizon and falling for their malicious practices.