Razr Fraud - Verizon Wireless

[westford111]

To whom it may concern:

On June 28, 2012, I purchased a new Razr at the Verizon store in Annapolis, Maryland. No one at the store mentioned that the RazR was due for an operating system upgrade. A few weeks after the purchase (about 14 days later), I woke up and the device required an update. The update installed and my phone was essentially useless for the rest of the day - no texting and no e-mail. The next day I contacted Verizon and they said that the update was Google's fault and they would not refund my money (for a phone that was basically dead). They did offer to fix the phone, so I spent several hours on the phone until eventually they got it to work. A few days later, I was out of town on a job and coordinating numerous contractors. This new phone, which I paid $ 299.00 for plus the package for the holster, etc., plus used my 2-year upgrade (about $ 400 total) died completely. I took it to three Verizon stores in the Philadelphia/Wilmington area and they all worked on the phone and could not restore it to working order - they couldn't even get it to turn on. I called my home store in Annapolis and they said "oh we can fix it." None of them offered to provide an emergency phone since I was out of town for a week. The two Philadephia stores both offered to have one overnighted to me, but the Annapolis store even refused that option. With no communication on a week-long job, the only reasonable option was to purchase a new phone, which I did (not the same one mind you). When I returned to my Annapolis store, predictably they offered no reasonable options. They said "well, they know how to fix it now," which is useless because I have a different phone. It's like saying they can fix the defective product they knowingly sold after you had to buy a new different one. Now that I have a new phone, of course, it's pointless to have the RazR. It's worthless. They offered to refund a small portion of the money. I left the phone at the store because the whole situation was beyond ridiculous.

The whole situation is a total mess. They sold me a defective phone, refused to replace it when it broke within two weeks, they knew that the upgrade was coming when they sold me the phone (which means they sold me a defective phone), and then when I was out of town without a phone trying to work, they gave me no options. All of those stores were sitting on investories of RazRs and could have resolved the problem on the spot, but because of their so-called "policy" of 14 days (this was about 20 days after purchase) I ended up having to spend nearly $ 500 on a new phone after spending $ 400 two weeks before that. It was impossible to change services while out of town of course.

The bottom line for the reader is that Verizon engaged in blatant fraud by selling a phone with an old operating system they knew was faulty, failed to comply with the terms of the contract, kept the $ 400 and unjustly enriched themselves at my expense, and totally failed in every way possible to do their job - communication. I pay nearly $ 3000 a year for their services.

I wouldn't touch a RazR phone - Verizon blamed Google, but that's Verizon's problem. If you are a consumer, and any portion of the foregoing is questioned by Verizon, you can contact me via Direct Message on this forum. <<Personal information removed to comply with >> The name of the store manager, and the names of two people that worked on the phone (and refused to provide an alternative means of communication other than buying a new phone) << removed to comply with ToS >> All of these facts are dead accuracte. If Verizon denies any of it, they will be compounding one fraud with another. If they do that, please let me know. I'm going to forward this issue to several class action law firms to see if they are interested.

I will also be contacting a variety of consumer protection agencies to assist with this, including the Federal Trade Commission, state agencies, and all of the elected representatives in Maryland, as well as the attorney general. If Verizon is doing this to me, you can bet they're doing it to thousands of consumers. They can't sell phones they know are faulty and then when they break soon after the purchase refuse to provide any reasonable alternative or refund a consumer's money based on their one-sided contracts.

Regards,

Jim B

Message was edited by: Verizon Moderator Full names, phone numbers, emails, andother identifying information for yourself or others is not permitted on this forum.

[NuDroidUsrr]

What were your reasons for purchasing the RAZR to begin with? It sounds by the $299 costs that you bought the RAZR MAXX? I can't second guess what you should have done about getting a working phone, but you should have held onto the RAZR, and sold it on eBay or somewhere.