My Excruciating Switch from AT&T to Verizon

In the vein of posts about how to save money, this is a cautionary tale for anyone out there thinking of switching cell phone providers. My advice - don't do it. You have nothing to gain and a lot to lose! In a competitive market, I naively assumed that a rival company would entice me with an offer I couldn't refuse. So, knowing that our 2 year contract with AT&T was about to expire, and wishing to grant our daughter's desire for cell phone for Christmas (the only thing she asked for), my husband and I stopped into a Verizon store for a preparatory sales pitch. Here is what we were told:
- The Samsumg Stellar smartphone could be ours for FREE after a mail-in-rebate to recoup our initial $50 investment. The rebate would take the form of a prepaid debit card. We could get one smartphone for each family member.
- The store had a special Black Friday offer for customers to get 2 FREE accessories for each phone purchased, which they were willing to extend to us.
We left with a brochure outlining the costs of different service plans to look over and discuss.

First Mistake
I liked the fact that the salesman didn't give us a heavy pressure sales pitch and I thought it would be nice for him to get the commission for our purchase. So, I made my husband drive all the way back to Frederick, MD on December 22 - the day our AT&T contract was expiring - to do the deal.

My husband wanted me to come along, because he knew that I would ask a lot of questions, but I had another obligation that day, and told him to call me if he needed any help. He called the salesperson to alert him that he would be in the store at 11:00 am so that he could care take of business without delay. When he arrived, he sat for 20 minutes while said salesperson helped another customer. Finally, he noticed that there was a "sign-in" sheet and realized that he would not be attended to until he was signed in.

They got down to business and after 4 hours of paperwork my husband called me to say that we would owe $485! "What!?" I said, "Put me on the phone with that salesman!" The salesman explained to me that the accessories selected by my husband were more expensive than the free items they offered, but that they had been heavily discounted. He added that we were purchasing $330 worth of smartphones and a jet-pak that would all be FREE after we submitted our Mail in Rebate. He also said the bill included service charges to transfer data from our old phones to the news ones - a fee we had not been told about in the initial sales presentation. My husband reviewed the bill over the phone with me and found that we had been charged for 6 smartphones instead of 5 - so the salesman credited our charge card.

Another 2 hours later, my husband called to say that the salesperson was having trouble transferring the data because our old phones were not compatible with the new cell phones and he didn't know when he would be home. Finally, after another hour and no success with any data transfer, he had the data transfer fees credited to our account and left.

So basically, he spent 7 hours at the Verizon store, plus another 2 hours commuting - his entire Saturday - to make this purchase.



Second Mistake
My husband was tired and frustrated by this experience, and understandably just wanted to get out of there quickly, so he didn't check all the merchandise in the bag. When he got home and opened it he found that he was missing a car charger and had been given an extra jet-pak! He called the salesman, who apologized and said that he would come to Leesburg and meet us on Sunday to exchange items, so that we would not have to drive all the way back to Frederick. We had a tight schedule planned: church, followed by lunch at a restaurant and a movie for which we had already purchased Fandango tickets. The salesman said he would meet us at the restaurant, but never showed up. On our way to the movie theater he called to say he was en route from Frederick. We told him that we were now in Ashburn and he agreed to meet us at the cinema. Just as the credits were rolling, he arrived and we exchanged packages. He bought us popcorn and nachos for the trouble - which we didn't really need or want having just eaten a big lunch.

Third Mistake
My husband dutifully filled out all of the rebate paperwork and set it aside for mailing after the holidays. He also went on line and set us up for on-line bill payment. Once Christmas was over, I sat down to do the rebates and learned that not only were the Customer Agreements required, but the original UPC code from the boxes that the phones came in - all of which had been thrown away during gift unwrapping ARGGGGGHHH!!

I checked our on-line bill shortly after Christmas and it said that we owed ZERO. Imagine my surprise when our first bill came in the mail yesterday and we were charged for a month of service plus $175 in activation fees! The original sales receipt showed each phone purchase with the $50 price listed, followed by Activation Plan $0.00. Had we known that we would be charged to "activate" our new phones, we would have just stayed with AT&T, where our phones were already activated!

Final Thoughts
We received our first bill after the 10 day recission period had passed. Had I known a week ago that we were going to be charged these activation fees, I would have just backed out of the entire deal. Now, we face a penalty of $350 if we break our contract.

I have written a email to the CEO of Verizon through PlanetFeedback.com which is posted on their website, and I have submitted feedback via www.verizonwirelesssurvey.com, which I understand is read by the District Manager. I will keep you posted of any further developments. Meantime, I will be transferring data from my old phone to the new one by hand. Sigh......

See my Update HERE.