I'm a long-time Verizon customer who tried to complete my first warranty replace ever. The HTC One was not charging almost a month after purchase. NO VISIBLE DAMAGE and troubleshooting didn't help. Verizon sent a replacement and I packaged the phone up in the box from that. Sent it away. A few days ago, I was informed that I had incurred a $299 damaged device fee. The picture I was sent shows a very visible crack across the bottom right corner. It didn't leave my possession that way.
Basically, what recourse do I have with Verizon? I would have been a complete idiot to package up a clearly broken phone expecting a warranty replacement. I also have more things on my plate than spending an hour plus on troubleshooting, then packing the thing up and driving to the post office. If I had broken the phone myself, I would have just bit the bullet and paid the insurance deductible, done the claim online and saved myself a ton of hassle. BUT that wasn't the case here and the phone was legitimately faulty with no apparent physical damage.
The more I read these forums, this whole situation is starting to smell like a scam.
I've been working my way up through customer service people, but they keep telling me a complete waiver of the fee is out of their control. I don't believe that line for a minute. I'm really disappointed that nearly a decade of being a good customer doesn't mean a thing to Verizon. Anyone have any ideas on who within Verizon I need to contact to resolve this? I'm not paying this fee, and at this point I'm ready to cancel all four of my lines. I'm not in the business of throwing my money at a company who treats its customers like dirt.
Do you have any proof that the phone was not damaged when you sent it off? How does the shipping box look? They should have sent you pictures of that as well as the phone.
If you're gonna cancel and port the numbers I would do it before the account becomes delinquent, which it will if you don't pay the fee portion of the bill. I don't understand why you didn't handle this in store or insure the device for the return. It's your word vs theirs. They don't know if it was broken in transitor nnot . insuring the device is a lot cheaper than 300 bucks.
Best wishes.
I just used the same box from the replacement and their shipping label as per their return instructions. They told me I could take it up with the post office - but I actually can't since they were paying the postage. If I had brought it to the store it wouldn't have mattered. Still would've had to be sent in. A telephone customer rep, even had the gall to tell me if I had taken my own pics of the phone and the packing it wouldn't matter. If you search around here, sounds like others have actually had the damage (or lack of) documented in store, yet the phone mysteriously ends up broken and they get charged a fee. Not saying every post on these forums is 100% truthful, but there sure seem to be a lot of people complaining about the same treatment.
And no, I never for pics of the box from the customer service rep, nor any identifying information of the phone. You'd think they'd take pics of the phone with a service tag, date etc.
I have printed this so many times I think I will make a script!
Send a certified return receipt letter to verizon and dispute the charge. After the green card comes back to you, file a small claims court case in your city and have verizon served.
However make sure you save everything such as tracking info etc. Verizon telling you that they have photos means nothing. The package could have been damaged by the post office. Only verizon can deal with the post office and not you since they paid for the return package.
Once filed verizon will remove the bogus charges off your account. It costs them more to fight the case than it's worth.
Good Luck
That's what I am saying. They should send you pictures of the box, the damage and identifying infer from the device.
Well I want to give a big shout out to the rep, Kathe in Boise. I missed her call and only got a voicemail, so I couldn't thank her for getting the fee completely overturned. If someone for Verizon wants to chime in, is there some way I can drop her an email to thank her personally? I really think she went above and beyond. She was so pleasant to deal with that it has restored my faith that there are still some good, customer-oriented people in your call centers!
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