The Verizon Run Around

[df78]

Here is my saga so far.

First I called tech support to figure out what was wrong with my
phone and they were unable to trouble shoot because I don't have another phone
line to call them from (in the market for job currently, so I can't even call
from a work phone). They suggested that I go to the store to have a tech look
at the phone. The first time I went in to have a tech look at the phone they
told me that the problem was with the update and not the phone and there would
be a new update soon that would fix all of the problems. They told me to just
wait it out a few more days get the new update and if that didn't fix the
problems to come back to the store for a switch out. This is the point that I
started researching the problem and found this forum.

The new update came out and I still had problems so I went back
to the store for a second visit. The store told me the three switch out options
were X, Incredible and Charge, then told me that the Charge wasn't in stock.
They keep trying to push the X and Incredible instead and I keep telling them
that if I had wanted a Motorola or an HTC that I would have picked one of them
when I bought my Fascinate. They told me to try another factory reset and see
how it works over the next couple days and if it still has problems to come
back the following week and hopefully they would have Charge's available.

After the factory reset and still having the problems, I went
back the next week for a third time with the same issues and the manager spends
10 mins staring at a computer screen and say the Charge still isn't in stock, I
then asked when they would have more and why they were available online and he
then told me "its not like really even an option anymore".

After wasting my time and flat out lying that he was actually
checking on the Charge (he was just staring at the screen because he wanted to
look like he was attempting to find one) he then tried to tell me that it
sounded like it was a problem specific to my phone. When I told him that this
is and has been an ongoing problem since the first update and that his trying
to tell me that it must be in the wiring in my phone was insulting my intelligence,
he was dismissive and told me that he had done all he could and I would have to
call their customer service department.

I called Verizon again and tried to get tech support to help me
through an online chat support or any other method, both the tech and he
supervisor suggested that I go to a neighbor’s house to use their phone or have
a friend come over so that I could use their cell phone. At this point I have
wasted time and gas money making 3 separate trips to the store (mind you I am
not employed every penny is being watched and I need to have a reliable phone
for my job search and networking), am now being asked to go door to door asking
other people to let me in to use their phone, make yet another trip to the
store where I want to cuss out the manager or wait until I can trouble a friend
to take time out of their life to hang out with me while I trouble shoot this
stupid phone.

Sadly I have been with verizon for over 15 years, pay over $100
per month for their service and am ready to drop them over this incident. They
seem to be of the opinion that this is my problem and I should waste my time
and money trying to fix the screw-up, with the only other option being to
accept a phone option that I had no interest in to begin with. I had a Samsung
and I want a working Samsung in return, but I refuse to continue to be used as
a beta tester or guinea pig while they fix the Fascinates.

[AnAngryPole]

I fully understand where you are coming from; see my post in this forum(An open letter to VZW....).  My recommendation is to persevere and move higher up in the chain of command!  I personally contacted through email my regional VZW president with all my detailed information on this situation.  I received a personal call back from VZW Corporate and two new Droid Charges to my home!  As loyal customers we deserve better treatment by the corporate stores in general;though through the years there have been some truly helpful and caring individuals that I have dealt with!  Good luck and God Bless!

[DBJohnston0104]

What email address did you send it to cause I've talked to about 10 different people both on the phone and in-store and they all say something totally different.  I'm very aggravated!!!!

David

[rcschnoor]

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DBJohnston0104 wrote:

What email address did you send it to cause I've talked to about 10 different people both on the phone and in-store and they all say something totally different.  I'm very aggravated!!!!

David

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At the top of the Verizon Wireless page, click on "About Us".

On the page that comes up under "Verizon Wireless Overview", click on "Leadership".

Find the President of the area in which you reside and click "View Profile".

At the end of the profile, there will be a "Contact : <name of person>.

Click on the name and an email form will pop up to which you can send you correspondence.

[SFObrien]

As I have stated before it seems the manager of each corporate store is allowed to run it as they see fit.  Guess if they don't like some policies they just make their own, and yes I HAVE seen this first hand.

[Doughdaddy]

DF78, here is my letter I just sent them. Now to wait for more run arounds.

Ms. Clark,I am writing you in hopes of getting some kind of assistance with VZW's terrible customer service and the constant run a rounds I have recieved. Here is my latest experience I have had with your company. On June 14th I bought a Samsung Fascinate via telesales, the rep was very nice and assured me that I was getting a great deal on a very reliable phone. I commented on a friends warning to me of how he and his wife do not get calls on theirs. He again assured me the phone was very reliable and had no known issues, and in fact, that he had one and did not have any issues with his. I recieved my phone the next day as well as the extras I purchased and activated it. I did not seem to have any issues immediately but noticed after a couple of days that many of my calls went directly to voice mail and that my phone never rang. During a casual call with VZW I was advised that a recent update (ED04) had caused an issue with calls not being recieved and that an update was coming. I was told this a couple times. 
I had been getting more upset with the consistant missed calls and on July 22nd I had enough. My father died that morning and the first two calls my family placed to me went directly to voicemail. Since it was 6:50AM I could never wake up to a missed call. The third call rang, woke me and I went to the hospital. After that I was again advised by VZW that an update was coming and it would fix the issue. What I was never told was that VZW had a replacement plan set up to replace my device with a different one that did not have any issues. I was never given that option. 
On July 29th the update was pushed to my Samsung Fascinate and my troubles got worse. My battery life decreased and my missed calls increased. I again contacted VZW and talked to tech support who advised me that the update fixes the issues but I told them it didn't. They performed several tests including calling my phone, of which a third of the calls went to voicemail with out ringing. A comment the tech made angered me when she said "Gee, if you had called the other day I could have sent you a new Droid X2 or HTC Incredible2, but they stopped that yesterday. All I can do is send you a new Fascinate". This angered me because that information was withheld from me earlier. Instead, they wanted me to wait two days until Monday August 1st before they would do anything while they waited for the update to finish rolling out.
On Sunday, July 31st I called back because I was having too many problems and the tech this time (V. Montemayor) tried to help but wanted to do what VZW loves to do which is to force a reset of the phone (erase all data). During this the phone froze and she requested I pull the battery which "bricked" my phone. I had to stay up most of the night fixing my phone myself. She also had advised that VZW stopped the swap program and the only thing she could do was to order a used Fascinate and send it overnight. Since I had no choice I accepted.
My used Fascinate arrived Tuesday August 2nd and I activated it on my line. I noticed that this one had half as many service bars (only one actually) as my previous one and that after 90 minutes had killed my fully charged battery. The same battery that lasted almost a whole day in my original phone. I was told that if I had any issues I should call right away which I did. I went through this whole story with the tech (P. Diviness) and after about 20 minutes of trying fixes and complaining, I was told that the supervisor (B. Dyer) had authorized a Droid Incredible 2 to be sent out to replace the defective Fascinate I had. I was told it would go overnight and arrive Thursday. 
On Wednesday, August 3rd (today) I had not yet recieved an email about the shipment so I called. I again had to spend 15 minutes rehashing my entire saga with the tech (Peter Muller {edited for privacy}) and was told that the order for the phone was cancelled and no one called or emailed me. He advised me that they would not be sending me another phone and that the whole problem I was having was all related to my SD card and the third party apps I have on it. He insisted that I use the phone in safe mode for 48 hours. When I questioned this and how my SD card was at fault he said he has seen it many times and that most issues are related to 3rd party apps and not actually the phone or VZW's fault. So now I have a smart phone that is not smart, a phone with 2gb memory that is not supposed to be used for apps and I pay for data which I can only use to browse the web with and not use any of the 150,000+ apps in the Android Market that VZW advertises on TV, web and print which is the basis of a smart phone.
My issues are these; I have been lied too from day one, the telesales guy knew of the issues (VZW knew since ED04 went out) but lied to me when asked; I was missled when I questioned the missed calls and told only of a pending update not a currently running swap program; I had my phone bricked by tech support which I had to fix and received a worse phone than I had; I was again lied too when told they would swap my phone for the DInc2 and was told tonight that I would never get another phone and would only get used phones if these continue to fail.
I can't believe that VZW would treat people like this. I am not a new customer, I have been one for about seven years and spend an average of $210 a month. Why do I get lied to, treated like a child and misled continuously? Is this SOP on VZW's part? Do you train your people to treat clients like this? I assume you do since it seems to be so wide spread on VZW's part. I am asking for the last time to have another phone sent to me; either a Droid X2 or Droid Incredible 2. I do not want a phone that VZW knows is not right and has not worked correctly since I bought it.
Please let me know what you can do to assist. I will wait 24 hours for a reply before I assume you don't care and forward this to others.

[JoeL_VZW]

@doughdaddy

I will be sending you a PM to resolve your situation.

Thank you 

[Doughdaddy]

Joe,

Thank you for your call. I will update this forum message on Friday if everything works out the way you said.

[nienie]

All I have to say is-"WOW".  I also "had" a Samsung fascinate but a few weeks ago was able to have my phone replaced and so I now have a Droid X2.  I bought my fascinate in October of last year and it ran well until about March.  I then started to have some weird issues with the blue screen of death, vibrating until I took the battery out, phone would freeze and of course missed calls, texts and texts not sending.  I completely understand how frustrating this is and hope Verizon does right by their customers and swaps out this crappy pieces of junk. 

Bottom line is if Verizon sold it and stated it would work with their plans therefore it is a Verizon problem.  When you pay big money every month for a phone and data plan it better work.  You wouldn't pay for electricity if you only sometimes got it.  Unfortunately, Verizon is making this very difficult on their customers and  as I see it are not keeping true to the contract.  I do know that if you dont like to argue or don't have thick skin you shouldn't call customer service and if that is the case find someone who can call for you.  In order for you to get anywhere you have to get a technician that will listen to you.  Refuse the million resets, and refurbished crapinates- NONE of them work.  Stand firm and let them know what you expect and that your expectation is a comparable replacement phone.  Remember there are call centers all over so if you don't like the {word filter avoidance} on the phone, hang up and call again.  I just hope people keep calling and harassing Verizon  until they get a new comparable replacement phone.

Another option is to contact your attorney general.  I think what Verizon is pulling is a scam.  I feel for the customers that have been complaining and where never offered a replacement phone. Furthermore, for Verizon to still be selling these phones in June is atrocious.  They knew that these phones had major problems and should not have been selling them until they were fixed- PERIOD!!!  Unfortunately, I don't think there will ever be a fix for most of the phones.  There might be an occasional person who lucks out with a good phone but even that isn't a sure thing.  

I wish all Samsung fascinate owners the best of luck.  Stick together and keep complaining.  Maybe some national attention on the news or articles in the paper might help.  Just remember, you deserve a phone that works as this is what Verizon does is sell cellular phones.  You paid good money for your phone and most of them are not that old of phones.  It is a known problem and you deserve a phone that works.  Don't let them give you a run around.  Good Luck.... 

[DBJohnston0104]

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JoeL_VZW wrote:

@doughdaddy

I will be sending you a PM to resolve your situation.

Thank you 

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Can you help one more out?  I'm so tired of being given different answers.  From the callers end, it seems like VZs computers aren't networked together. 

I was told that I could swap mine out for a Charge by a tech even though the offer had expired because they knew that people were still having issues after the ED05 update, which I had.  So I rushed to the store and stated to them that I had spoke with VZ tech support and they notated my account.  This was at 8:05 PM, closing time.  With the store manager standing behind her, she told me that she didn't see anything like that on my account.  Frustrated, I called back to tech support and he told me that it was there and that he could see that it had been notated at 7:55 PM.  He made further notes and that was that.

The next morning, I went the VZ store and they told me that they could no longer order me a replacement.  So guess what, I called tech support again...  They then told me that the stores have the authority to make the decision and that they could call to see if they would do it.  So she put me on hold and called the store.  They came back and told me that the same the store told me, obviously.  That phone call ended with me telling them that I would try to call another store to see if they would honor it.

So I called another local store and he told me something different, imagine that.  He said that he could swap it out for a DX or Inc2 but it would push my upgrade date back one year.  That didn't sound right so I hung up with him.

So I call tech support, again.  This time the lady told me that it had expired and that there was nothing she could do.  She said that she could basically send me out another Fascinate.  So I asked to speak to her supervisor.  She asked me to hold and then immediately came back and said, "Oh I forgot to tell you, I can swap it for an Incredible 2."  Hmmm.....  Suddenly remembered that...  So I told her that would be fine and settled for the Inc2 instead of the Charge because I was just tired at this point.

About an hour later, my brother calls me and tells me that he had called in about the same issue and they are sending him a Charge!  Now I'm very aggravated!!!  It sucks knowing that you're being lied to by a company that you pay money to provide you with a service!

So I call tech support again and immediately ask to speak to a supervisor.  Phyllis gets on and I could tell instantly that she didn't care about helping me out but she was more or less just gonna get me off the phone.  Her point was that the offer had expired and that nothing could be done.  I then asked for a corporate email contact and she had her tech give me a PO Box address and said that they don't have an email address.

I tried calling back one more time and immediately asked to speak to a supervisor but the lady said that they were all in a meeting and that their computer systems were down so she couldn't access my account.  So I explained the situation to her and she said that she had just gotten an email about the offer that stated that it had expired and that they should no longer honor it.  She eventually took down my name and number so that her supervisor could call me back.  I never heard from her.  At this point, I'd say that's about par for the course.

With all that said, I'm just frustrated that I've been running all over town, took time off from work and spent hours on the phone for something that I know can be done.  It's just bad business!

David