I have been a loyal Verizon customer since the old Bell Atlantic Mobile days. Recently Verizon Wireless turned their backs on me and are requiring me to pay for a service that simply does not work. Please take a moment to read my experience with Verizon Wireless so you can make an educated decision before deciding on a wireless service provider.
I currently have a family share plan with five phones total with the main line being my business phone. In June I renewed my contract with Verizon and purchased the Blackberry Bold along with with 3 other phones. The use the Blackberry Bold for business purposes in my office in downtown Pittsburgh, PA. My office is on the first floor and I am seated close to a wall of windows with full view of PNC Park and Heinz Field. I get absolutely no signal at all in my office with Verizon. I have to get up and walk outside to make or receive calls of any kind. However, several of my colleagues have either AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile or Cricket and routinely walk around my office with almost 5 bars of signal strength. So I contacted Verizon tech support to resolve this issue.
Tech support had do the usual *228 to update roaming capability and did numerous tweaks to try to improve the signal. Nothing worked. So now here I am with a phone that can't make or receive calls for 8-10 hours a day. This has been going on now for 3 months. What was Verizon's solution? Pay for a $250 signal booster to install at my office which “might” help. Next I get a voicemail from an agent following up on my numerous calls for service. She stated clearly that Verizon technicians ran connectivity tests outside my building and the signal was weak by Verizon's standards and that is most likely the reason I cannot get a signal in my office. Again, their solution was to offer me to pay for the signal booster now a $100 discount to $150 my cost. So I called again and was escalated up the ladder to a head technician who told me the exact opposite. He claimed the signal tests came out strong and Verizon's policy is they are not responsible for providing a signal inside buildings as stated in the fine print of my contract. He said I could not be released from my contract and that I have the offer to buy the signal booster to attempt to fix the problem. The next day I called customer support and asked for a manager. This time they offered the signal booster for $100 my cost and that was their final offer. They said I am obligated to them by contract until June 2012 and that is my only option and it's not even guaranteed to work!
Through this whole ordeal I continued to ask one simple question to which they did not answer yet. Why do all they competitors have a strong signal in the same office Verizon cannot even get a single bar of service. Same response" we're sorry you are having so much trouble, but we can only offer you a discount on a signal booster at this time." Most disturbing is that Pittsburgh is a major city and to think Verizon cannot even offer a single bar of service at my location is unbelievable. I am now trapped by contract and huge termination fees to moving to another provider who can provide me service bsic cell phone service. Verizon proved to me I am NOT a valued customer, but yet another number who they do not support when their service fails.

Please make sure you have a signal before buying from Verizon Wireless!

Been with Verizon for about 15 yrs. Alway's paid $87.00 a Mo...till last Mo. Then got bill last Mo...it was over $800.00 for Data Usage. That needs to be checked out. That's not right..what they're doing. Why would all of a sudden...after 15 yrs...it would jump up to $800.00.

On August 14th, I went into the PASADENA store to get my phone checked out. It’s true that my phone is a bit older (Blackberry World Edition 8830) but it is still in good shape and well loved by me. What was happening is that the hourglass symbol kept coming on, then going away, then returning. This was causing MAJOR lagging on the phone, as well as an extreme battery drainage, and had been occurring for the past 48 hours. I was unable to send text messages, check directions while going to meet a friend, or even make phone calls, once the phone finally died. It wasn’t an issue of lack of battery charge, I had charged my battery till full the night before, and had been doing the same thing for the 3 years prior (with my old Blackberry World Edition 8830 for the first 1.5 yrs of that period).

When my name was called, DALIA was the one that assisted me. I asked if I could get some phone charge, and she supposedly plugged in the phone and then stated that it wouldn’t charge. She totally misled me into thinking it was unfixable and permanently unusable. She even continued the farce by going to get a computer charger to try and “charge” it in that manner, but nope, still no charge. I can’t help but feel a bit skeptical now, being that the EXACT.SAME.PHONE works perfectly now, after simply plugging it into my phone charger at home, and doing a 5 minute hard re-set. True, it’s been a pain re-entering all of my contacts in, but I’d much rather deal with this than the nightmare that then ensued.

DALIA informed me that I had 2 options. Wait, phoneless, over the entire weekend (as we all know, being a part of the same phone generation, that is crazy!! And I don’t have a land line!), or purchase a new phone. And coincidentally enough, I was “eligible for an early upgrade” (of course she failed to mention there would still be an early upgrade fee… OMG such nonsense…)! She led me straight to the Droid, going for $199 after rebate, and glibly informed me that I would get an HP net book free with purchase of the Droid. It was only after some pressing from me that I learned that I would also have to subscribe to their data plan of $40 per month for TWO YEARS if I wanted to get that. It’s funny, considering I already give Verizon $200 each month for our family plan. It’s never enough… they always want more… being frustrated, tired, and fed up with not having a functional phone, I was sorely tempted by the offer of having a spiffy new smart phone, and a net book to boot (never mind my lovely macbook at home, I was gonna suffer buyer’s remorse later!)! In spite of this, I held my ground, and stood strong. No, thank you I said. At that point, she led me over to the SAMSUNG REALITY, a lovely phone by other counts, but not for me. Still, it was a mere 19.99 right now, so I snapped it up (in addition to the early upgrade fee, mind you). With the 19.99, they were “nice” enough to throw in the net book (because if you think about it, they make $911.76 off a $300 semi computer which will rapidly decrease in price and value). As she was ringing me up, DALIA informed me she would be hooking me up with a car charger, phone cover, and some other mumbo jumbo. Delighted at her generosity, I exclaimed happily, under my suspicious nature got a hold of me and I asked if they were complimentary. They were not. But she would give me a 25% discount. I scoff now, because that is the discount I get with my company plan with Verizon. Like WOW. Hustler. I obviously declined those. In spite of this, I walked out, temporarily appeased with:
1. Non working blackberry
2. A functional, albeit super crappy reality
3. A net book that my apple loving family would probably never use

The very next day, I received a text on my phone (about all the capability that phone possessed), telling me I was eligible for an early upgrade (“Early Upgrade Fees may apply”)! And guess what?? One of the phones going for 19.99 was a BLACKBERRY! Now what puzzles and FRUSTRATES and upsets me is WHY DALIA would not even offer me the option of the blackberry?? ?it was the exact same price as the reality, and the same type of the with the same capability that my broken phone had!?! Was it just not as profitable to her?? Did Verizon just have too many REALITYs in stock?? Are they really that shady??

I will probably never know. So then what I did was promptly pack everything up, and take it back to the poor BREA store (because they got saddled with stupid PASADENAS’ RETURNS), where a lovely bunch of people assisted me. Special shoutouts to John, and the guy that was checking people in. they were both quite cool. I returned both the reality and the net book and was told everything would go back to normal. Well…. It didn’t.

My cell phone bill blew wwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay up, and I had to call Verizon everyday for about 4 days to fix it. STEVE gets a shoutout too, ‘cause he helped to resolve some of the issues. (Due to the urgency and constancy and just magnitude of this Verizon issue, I actually have a folder on my email acct labeled “VERIZON BLOWS ). Anyways, back to Steve. He works at the PASADENA store, and is in the managerial program. Hopefully when he becomes a manager he won’t just be super fixated on the mere monetary success of the store, but with the consumers’ happiness and satisfaction. He was always agreeable and polite, and would always call me back when he said he would. He also gave me his direct line, which ALMOST made up for DALIA’S pushiness and discourteousness. Almost. But really, nothing will, UNLESS Verizon refunds to me the $70 for the restocking fees that they charged for a phone that I DID.NOT.EVEN.NEED.

I will be posting this little blurb on bbb.org, Consumer Complaints Board, my facebook, my blog, and emailing my friends. It’s not fair that a corporate giant like Verizon can take advantage of such defenseless little people like us. Have a heart, Verizon, and don’t remember who made you the colossus you are now, and therefore who can take you down.

I bought a NEW Droid cellphone in June 2010 for $200. In August 2010 my phone was instructing me to install an update in August 2010. The update crashed my phone. I took the phone to my local Verizon Wireless store where they told me the update had indeed crashed my phone and it was common with this particular update and they would have to send me a new phone. It took 5 days to receive my phone and it was a refurbished phone. I went online and saw that refurbished phones were selling for $100. I took the phone to the same Verizon store and asked to speak with the store manager. He came up to me immediately and said that if I was loud he would remove me from the store. I was shocked! I explained my issue to him and he said that the update was from the manufacturer and not Verizon's responsibility. I explained that I had just bought the phone 2 months ago and a replacement worth half that was sent to me and the problem was not even my fault. He said again that it was not Verizon's problem. I now have a $100 refurbished phone and not a credit in sight for the extra $100 I paid for a new phone but for the 5 days it took them to give me the phone at all. I am amazed that first of all the staff is so rude and that they cheated me! I have filed a complaint with the Better Business Bureau and with Verizon's corporate office.

I have been with verizon for three years, and there has not been a day go by that im not disgusted with the horrific service they provide! My bill is outragous, phone is crap and the customer service down rite sucks. I will never sign another contract with them, they constantly give you a run around and no one there knows their job. So if you read this go to a diffrent company b/c they are absolutly horribile!