Verizon is evil. I could list a few people right now who I know agree with me! I’ve finally made up my mind about the evilness, but I don’t think it’s just Verizon. It’s all large corporations. Verizon’s just the one on my shit list right now.
Hubby’s been having issues with his cell phone for awhile. A month after he got the thing we had to take it back because he was having problems with the front screen…black lines across it, and they replaced under our insurance. They gave him a refurb phone because that’s how Verizon works. You only get a brand new one if there are no refurb versions to give you. Normally refurb is fine with me, but I’m leery of refurb cell phones.
Monday the screen went out completely. It wasn’t dead. It was like something busted on the inside of it because light was shining through this black liquid. I guess I’ve gotten lucky with my last two cell phones. Neither have given me any trouble. *knock on wood*
I finally got around to taking it to Verizon Tuesday, and they didn’t give me a hassle this time like they normally do. I think that’s mostly because I was waiting in this long line at the tech desk, but there was no one in the front of the store so the associates started walking down the line seeing if there was anything they could assist with. My problem was simple, so a guy checked to see if they had another phone in stock while I got to wait at the front of the store. He came back to tell me they don’t even keep the enV in stock anymore because it’s so outdated (ya know touchscreen is taking over), but he’d order one if we could wait for it to come in Thursday or Friday. No big deal. Dude said he’d call me when it came in so I could pick it up, and the internal screen on Hubby’s phone still worked.
Friday morning FedEx showed up at my front door with a package from Verizon. They’d shipped a brand new phone and just removed the battery and charger from the box. When I opened the box I was pissed because the phone was just laying in the shipping box under a couple pieces of bubble wrap, and the Verizon cell phone box was laying open inside the big box. Their packaging department sucks! When they removed the battery and charger they just threw everything in the big box. If they replace your broken phone they don’t replace the battery unless it won’t charge at all. So now Hubby has this pretty new phone and this ugly scratched up paint chipped off battery.
I couldn’t activate the phone until Hubby got home from work because he needs his phone at work, so I sat it to the side to worry about later. About 4pm I got a call from the Verizon store telling me my phone had come in and I could pick it up before 7pm. What? I told them about Verizon sending me a phone, and that resulted in a ton of confusion on both parts. It would make sense if I went online and requested a replacement phone or if the store had asked that the phone be shipped to me, but it didn’t make sense that they sent one to me and one to the store in my name.
The guy said he’d check into it and call me back. When he called back he said it was a mix up and they would send the one back that was sent to the store. I said OK well I’ll come down there and have it activated and turn the old phone in. He’s like no you can’t do that anymore. Now you have to FedEx the old phone back to Verizon. There’s instructions and a shipping label in the box.
I hunted the box inside and out and never found instructions. I did find the shipping label stuck underneath one of the flaps in the very bottom of the box. There is only one store in our area that accepts FedEx shipments, and they don’t accept the express packages, so I’m glad I was able to schedule a pickup online for free. Otherwise I would have had to drive to Greenville, over an hour away, and that wasn’t happening.
I’m still not sure if I packaged everything up right. The guys at the store weren’t very helpful at all. They told me to stick the label on the box, put the old phone in the Verizon box, and package everything up. Well duh! I know that part, but what about the fact that Verizon needs to know that that phone was connected to my account so I don’t get charged for not returning my phone. The store absolutely refused to accept the old phone at all or even package it up for me.
No where on the shipping label does it have any information about my account or even my name. It shows as shipping from Verizon to Verizon! The guy at the store said they’d probably pull the MEID# on the phone, but I wanted to make sure there was some form of information in the box anyway. I called the 1-800 # and they weren’t very helpful either. I made a copy of the customer receipt they sent me and included that in the box. At least that has my info on it.
They just really need to get their act together. I don’t mind shipping my own phone back, but it would have been nice to avoid all the confusion in the first place. I’m still not happy at all about the way the phone was packaged when I received it, and it seriously would have been nice to know exactly what information needed to be in it.
