Verizon Wireless, You Suck

This is Things That Annoy Me Thursday. Normally I’d have that in my blog title but I wanted to be sure this post could come up if people searched for Verizon Wireless.

I am not happy with Verizon.

It all started a few years back when Tom and I bought new phones. Thunderbolts. Their first 4G phone. I wasn’t going to get one but the salesman was all, “If you both get one now, you’ll be grandfathered into Verizon’s unlimted data plan. For life.”

I remember the “for life” bit because I thought it was kind of dramatic and was amused.
Tom and I decided to go ahead and get the phones because hey, for life? Awesome.

Fast forward to last month. I got my new iPhone 5. I kept asking the salesman if anything would change.

“No,” we were told.

No indeed.

We get home and everything is okay at first. But then as time goes by, I start getting texts like, “You are using 50% of your data plan.”

Come again?

I should be using NO percent of my data plan as I had unlimited.

So I asked Verizon about it.

“Oh!” they said. “You weren’t told? If you get a phone on discount you are no longer in the unlimited data plan. You have to buy our phone full price or bring another phone in, like one you’d buy from Craigslist.”

??????!!

“So let me get this straight,” I answered through clenched teeth. “You wanted me to pay SEVEN HUNDRED DOLLARS for my iPhone 5 in order to stay on the unlimited data plan that I was meant to have FOR LIFE?”

“Yes.”

“So the discount I got…the discount I get because I’m a loyal Verizon customer? The one I got because I signed on to be acustomer for TWO YEARS…is now not a GOOD thing?”

“Well, no….we appreciate your loyalty but Verizon changed their data plan back in…oh, I think it was June?”

So that makes it OKAY?

“Well, we were told we’d be grandfathered in to the unlimited data plan for LIFE. Not until Verizon decided to change things,” I countered.

Basically I got the whole read-from-a-sheet speech. That Verizon has the right to change their policies blah, blah, blah.

“If you want your unlimited data plan back, you can return your iPhone,” I was told.

“I sold Verizon my old phone,” I replied.

“Oh. Oh dear.”

“Yeah. My husband is up for an upgrade in January. I’m not sure if he’ll be signing with Verizon. What you guys did was wrong,” I said.

It was back to the read-from-a-sheet speech after that. You can’t get anywhere with customer service.

I hung up feeling upset and cheated.

So warning Verizon customers if you have the unlimited data plan: if you don’t buy their phones full price, you’re losing it.

You can’t try arguing it. They don’t care. They just want our money.

My husband will NOT be renewing his contract in January. For now he’s keeping his old phone that still has the unlimited data on it.

Verizon Wireless, shame on you. I understand that cell phone companies like to change the rules but it’s wrong. You don’t treat loyal customers like this.

You suck.