Hello,
I see there have been a few threads posted about this. I am throwing mine in because the long, twisted path our discount invalidation came about is something I want to share with others in the same boat who have been partially, but perhaps not yet fully, cheated. I joined Verizon a little over three months ago. I switched over from Sprint due to what ostensibly was a better deal on Unlimited Plans through on Verizon. If that were the case though, I wouldn't be writing this.
Verizon posts and promotes about its various employee discounts to bring in customers, and has active pages up for more information. We were eligible for a specific employer-related discount of 21%. When we signed up with Verizon, it was our understanding that the employee discount would apply (because it was clearly on the website). Within a day of us activating our service on the Unlimited Plan, in March, we uploaded and sent in the request of employee documents to verify our status for the Verizon discount. We received a confirmation email from Verizon, along with a confirmation number, several days later, which seemed like a great sign. This email acknowledged the receipt of the employee documents and said that those documents had been reviewed and that the discount was applied - and that the credits would apply in one to two billing cycles. With our latest bill arriving this past week and it not having the discount applied, I checked in via the online chat, and was told that the employee discount didn't apply to Unlimited Plans. Here's the reply:
Now forgetting for a moment that the last statement is not true, how is it that Verizon "validated" the employee discount, but it was simultaneously not applicable for the Unlimited Plan? Wouldn't an in-applicable discount be, like, not validated? And might that have been noted in the email they sent, instead of directly implying that the discount went through. We were never told this discount would not apply with this plan, at any point during the sign-up or validation process, nor was it readily apparent in any of the disclosures or during talks with the customer service reps we worked with. And it took me following up after three months (again, I waited just because the email said it takes several cycles for the credit to appear) to even know it didn't apply. So, in the meantime of thinking the employee discount was active and going to be applied soon, I spent an extra $65 a month for three months (our 21% discount came to this amount off), and a current bill, bringing us to about $260 in overcharges. So then, in raising this to the online rep, I received this condescending note:
Verizon, this must be fixed. It is one thing to just not read the fine print and then be stuck with the non-discounted service. It's another for Verizon to very broadly promote a discount and ALSO validate and approve it for a customer, and then not honor it (or bother to tell them it doesn't apply). Give your customers a firm, clear confirmation immediately about employee discounts, and stop "validating" submissions that aren't applicable.
