My Verizon Nightmare

On December 31st I posted this letter on the Verizon Wireless Facebook page. I then attempted to tag them from my Facebook page with the letter. I was notified that I was marked as spam and blocked from posting. I have made every attempt to resolve this matter with Verizon without taking to social media. I know this is an insanely long letter, but unfortunately it doesn’t even come close documenting all of the hassle, lies and misrepresentation made to me from July 2013 until December 2013 by Verizon Wireless. Please read, share, warn others about Verizon.

Dear Verizon,

I have made every possible attempt to resolve my issue with Verizon at the corporate store level and by multiple calls to Verizon customer service. During every encounter with Verizon personal I’ve been promised that they would fix my billing error, that it was the stores fault and that it would get taken care of. Each month a new bill arrives, each month I call and lodge my complaint, each month a new person at Verizon promises to fix the problem and each month nothing gets resolved. Imagine my shock and horror when this month I got a collection notice from Verizon for the very bill I’ve been promised repeatedly would be fixed.

I have told my Verizon story countless times. This issue has been well documented in the notes on my account, but it seems that now I must tell my story publically in order to attempt to get some sort of resolution from Verizon.

In July 2013 I went to the Verizon Store at 1959 Mallory Lane, Franklin, Tennessee. I was sold a Share Everything plan under our business name. I very carefully went over the expenses of bundling our company iPhones, iPads, a Digital Phone and Home Fusion into one Share Everything plan. We evaluated the cost of leaving Sprint at the expense of over $859.30 to go to Verizon Share Everything plan. Due to the fact that we were going to be able to bundle 9 devices including our internet service into one plan we made the move to Verizon. I spent over 8 hours in the store while my salesperson Vincent with the help of Assistant Store Manager Ashley Newman worked on setting up all 9 devices on Verizon. It was Vincent’s first week on the job so as the assistant store manager Ashley worked hand in hand with Vincent.

After running into some troubles setting up the Home Fusion at my home address Ashley discovered that my home address needed to be verified by Verizon. She told me that someone needed to come out to my address in order to get it into the system. According to Ashley since my address was not in the Verizon system she was unable to set up the initial visit on the corporate account established that day. Ashley had Vincent set up an account under my name for the sole purpose of getting that initial visit from Verizon to my home address. As soon as my address was verified and in the system I was told all of my accounts would go onto the corporate share everything plan immediately. Ashley and Vincent were completely aware that we ran a business out of our home and that this bundled Verizon plan was all being sold as a business plan.

The entire process of having someone come out, getting my address put into the Verizon system and setting up Home Fusion took an enormous amount of time. Eventually after nearly a month another person from Verizon came out to put a “catena” onto my house and start Home Fusion.

A few weeks later I started getting emails that were warning us that we were close to going over our data limit. I immediately called customer service. The lady that I talked to told me that I was nowhere near close to my limit. I told her I had emails saying otherwise and she assured me that she could see the emails, but that there was nothing wrong. She advised me to put the My Verizon app on my phone. I immediately followed her directions and started monitoring the app. She told me that she would monitor my account to insure that everything was okay. I continued getting emails. I went into the store to inquire. They told me everything was fine and that I was not anywhere near my limit. I continued calling in when I got emails. I continued being reassured that everything was just fine. I checked the My Verizon app repeatedly to follow our data usage and to ensure that we stayed within the limits.

Then one day I got a bill from Verizon for $82.75. I was baffled and took the bill into the Verizon store on September 30, 2013. They looked up my account using my cell phone number and were confused as well. They then looked up the account using the Verizon bill and discovered that the store had never merged my accounts as they had promised. I waited while they attempted to merge the accounts. Herb Rosa the Assistant Retail Store Manager got involved at this point. He discovered that they could not merge my accounts since Home Fusion was not eligible to be on a business account. I had moved to Verizon for the sole purpose of saving money by merging our iPhones, iPads, digital phone AND internet into one share everything plan. I had spent $859.30 leaving our contract with Sprint who had unlimited data plans because of the promises made that I could have ALL those accounts on one Share Everything plan. Herb Rosa suggested a new solution. He determined that the store had made a mistake in selling me the Home Fusion plan but that they could resolve it by refunding me the $82.75 on my bill, taking back the Home Fusion and replacing it with the Jet Pack. I was assured by Herb Rosa that everything was fixed and that I now only had one account and it was the business account. I was told that I had been refunded everything on the erroneous account. Today I believe that the store personal did not disclose the actual amount on my bill. I believe that on that day it was over $82.75, but that no one told me.

I left the store believing that all my troubles with Verizon were over. Little did I know that in fact my Verizon nightmare would get even worse. Shortly after my visit to the store again to resolve everything I got a recorded phone voicemail that said my Verizon services were on the verge of being shut off if I didn’t make an immediate payment. I was chaperoning at a school event at the time. I immediately left my duties to call Verizon to find out what was wrong. I called customer service and told the lady that answered about the phone call I had just gotten. She looked up my account and told me that I was not behind in payments. She asked me to give her the incoming phone number. I gave it to her and she placed me on hold. She came back on the line and said that she looked up that phone number and that it was on a FBI list of phone numbers that was scamming people with false phone calls, asking for immediate payment from customers of all of the cell phone carriers. She praised me for not falling for the scam and told me I had nothing to worry about.

Much to my surprise a few days later I got a $977.83 bill from Verizon. I discovered that the day I switched from Home Fusion to the Jet pack my accounts were in fact not merged. Nothing was fixed. The amount of the bill was shocking. I immediately called customer service again. This person told me that I should have never been put on the Jet Pack either. Since we were not downloading music, movies or live streaming anything the data usage showed that I must have terrible coverage in my area and the device must have been constantly searching for internet connection. I was 15 days into my new device and she called the store to work it out so that I could return the device and cancel the plan with no penalties since it appeared to have been using data the whole time even when we were not even using anything.

I packed up all the gear including the Home Fusion gear that Verizon had refused to pick up or have sent back to them. I went into the store and again spoke with Herb Rosa the Assistant Retail Store Manager. He apologized profusely. He told me that he had worked at a call center and that customer service people often just lie to get off the call. We discovered that in fact it had been Verizon that been calling requesting immediate payment and not some scam on the FBI list.

He told me that the store had a limit of $250 that it could refund a customer, but that this was clearly their fault and it would be taken care of. The store had dropped that ball and had not merged my accounts again. As I got emails and calls about data overage I checked My Verizon where all of my devices were supposed to be sharing data and was never over my limit. I called customer service several times to check and kept be reassured that we were not over. As far as I was concerned before I took the new device I had a zero balance AND one account. He also assured me that the bill would not go a single penny over the initial $727.83 we had gotten it down to with the $250 store credit. He assured me it would only be going down from that point forward. I made it clear that I believed that I only owed the $20 device fee on my Share Everything Plan. He agreed.

Herb promised to work the problem all the way up the line and get it fixed for me. A month later I got a new bill for $1,117.99. As you can imagine I was beyond shocked and upset. I gave up working with Verizon at the store level.

On November 17, 2013 I called Verizon customer service and talked to “Sherman Calhoun of the North Charleston, SC call center” after asking to be moved directly up the chain to a manager. By this point I was sick of telling my Verizon nightmare story over and over. He promised to work the problem up the chain of command and get it fixed. He gave me his direct line (1-843-529-6400 x1074005) and assured me that he would take care of it. Imagine, again, my shock when the next month I got another bill from Verizon. I called Sherman. The phone number he gave me did not work.

I called customer service AGAIN and asked to be moved directly up the line to a manager. Suzan assured me that she had all the capabilities to resolve a problem as a manager had. So I told her my story again. She called the store and did get $170.00 removed from my bill. She then assured me that she would take it up the line and get the rest of the bill resolved. Suzan told me she was working at the Arizona Call Center and did not have a direct line. She was actually the first person at Verizon to follow up with me as promised. She called a few days later to tell me that she was still working on it and that she would be off work for two days. On December 12, 2013 I received a text message that read, “FREE VZW MSG-DO NOT REPLY: We cannot post any farther credit on the account for your home fusion device. All credits have been posted.” I was uncertain if this meant that the $170.00 was they only credit I was getting or if another credit had been posted and I would see it on my next bill. Since I had only received an impersonal text message I assumed I would either get a phone call explaining my credits and/or a bill with my new credits. A few days after that I got a collection notice from Vantage Sourcing for my Verizon bill for $947.99 dated December 18, 2013.

I waited patiently for Verizon to fulfill the promises your company representatives made to me over and over again, instead Verizon was busy turning me into collections. I worked within your system faithfully and you turned me into collections even though NONE of this is my fault! I have 8 devices currently with Verizon that we pay hundreds of dollars per month to Verizon for and you turn me into collections over your admitted error. I left Sprint incurring an early termination fee expense of $859.30 because Verizon sold me a lie and then over billed me for that lie. This is a classic case of bait and switch perpetuated by Verizon either by error, lack of training to Verizon personal, or greed to make sales goals. Mistake after mistake on the part of Verizon compounded into a horrendous bill in my name that Verizon is sticking me with. Instead of resolving your mistakes made by your employees under your name you turn me into collections and hurt my good credit.

Verizon expects me to stay with them with my corporate account while teaching me that doing business with Verizon is a huge mistake.

I should owe $20.00 for the internet devices per month during the time that I had Home Fusion and the Jet Pack. That is it, period, not a penny more.

As far as I am concerned not only should Verizon erase the bill of $947.99 that you sent to collections, but you should reimburse me for the $859.30 it cost me to leave Sprint because your company made false statements, false promises and did not provide me with the services that I came to Verizon for. Verizon should also release my company from our 2 year contract for our other 8 devices and allow us to leave with no penalty. We were falsely lured into a contract with Verizon for services you could not and would not provide.

I do not have one ounce of trust left for Verizon. I do not want to do business with a company that will take my money with one hand while stabbing me financially in the back with the other. The entire problem in 100% the error of Verizon. Verizon did not provide what was sold to me. Verizon did not merge accounts like they promised on two occasions. Verizon representatives lied to me repeatedly when I called customer service and when I tried working with the store representatives. Had all the accounts been on one Share Everything plan as promised we would have discovered the fatal error of Verizon’s ability to provide internet service at my address before we went one MB over our data limit. This would have ended before it even started. The device would have been turned in and refunded within the allowed time frame.

In fact had Verizon Managers and Sale Representatives been properly trained regarding the fact that Home Fusion could not be used for a home based business we would not even have opened a single account with Verizon.

Sincerely,
Kayla Fioravanti

Regarding Account Numbers: 724173896-00001