I wanted to just file a complaint with Verizon, but couldn't find where to do that so I'm posting here to let them know about the bad customer service I received. My main complaint is that the people working for Verizon either don't understand their own plans, or consciously choose not to tell the whole story.
If you don't want to read the whole story, the short version is that I was told my wireless plan would cost less than it did when signing up, then when I called customer service to ask about the higher bill they suggested a way for me to get it lowered. When I tried to follow the representative's suggestions I found out they were just plain wrong and there was no way around paying the higher bill that I had been lied to about in the first place.
Details:
Nov. 7 - I'm in an old family plan that I want to leave and start a new joint plan with my wife who was previously not with Verizon. We sign up for the medium plan and are told it is $45 plus $20 access fee for each phone (she explicitly said it was $20 for each phone). She trades in her phone for a $300 discount on a new one and gets a Droid Maxx 2 which is about $380. So we should be paying $45 for medium plan + $20 access fee + $20 access fee + $3.50 phone payments.
Nov. 12 - I get the bill with a $40 access fee for my phone. I call customer service and they say that if you keep an old phone you have then the access fee is $40 (this was never mentioned by the sales person when we signed up). The representative says I should go back to the store and trade in the phone to get the $20 access fee. They say this is definitely doable.
Nov. 14 - Go back to the store and they say I can't trade the phone in and am stuck with the higher access fee because of the contract my phone is under (I wasn't really aware about this - I wasn't in charge of the previous plan). We'll need to wait for the contract to expire or pay $300 to cancel it.
I get that because of the old contract I'm stuck with this, but why couldn't the sales person or service representative tell me that? They both pulled up the account details and spend several minutes looking at them - is it really that hard to understand how the plan works or did they just choose not to tell me the whole story? It would have saved me a lot of time and of course I probably wouldn't have signed up for the new plan in the first place. I guess you win this time Verizon...
I can't tell you what happened while in the store, but did you go to a corporate store?
Your bill should look like this:
$45 - Data
$40 - Line Access Fee for your phone if it's still in a 2 year contract
$20 - Line Access Fee for your Wife's phone that's on DPP
$3.50 - Droid Maxx 2 Device Payment Amount (after $300 discount)
It sounds like you might have gone to a retailer, I find it odd that they gave you a $300 discount directly and not an account credit.
All carriers are advertising the price of SERVICE only.
The price of phones varies considerably
THe new pricing is much more fair for customers. Those who can afford $1,000 for a phone every year can do so. Those of more modest means can get a lower cost phone and keep it longer and still afford service.
The device payment will never decrease. The monthly price is for 24 months. A credit, if you re-word it and move that amount to the end of the 24 months, if it can be held onto that long, would save that amount, but as far as I know, the credit is used first on an account for the bill. This keeps customers from taking the credit and paying off the phone before 24 months, thereby reducing the time of service and income for Verizon. Ex: $300 credit is $300...but the form of credit, bill, card, or straight out, changes the use of the credit. I for one would, if possible, leave the $300 on the account until I owed that amount on the device, then pay it off, but most people can't afford to let $300 sit unused.
Chances are good the DPP is still the $16 and an account credit is coming, but being that I didn't notice a complaint about it, I can only assume what they said is accurate and somehow they were given $300 off the device at the time of purchase, though it's not standard practice so I can only assume it's a retailer trying to beat the system. In reality I think their bill is $121
Well, the Vzw Corp store DID give me an instant trade in value of $100 on my old Razr MAXX to go towards my (contract) $100 LG G2, PLUS $50 rebate.So, at the time I got a phone AND $50, when in reality I got a $500 phone for $450.
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