Verizon rant....... with some knitting

OK so I have been dealing with my cell phone company since I got the plan back in February 2009, I am at ends and I am tired of dealing with them. I want to get out of my contract, but I would have to pay $310 to do that. I want to get the iPhone cause I get a discount on my service with at and t if I am with them.


I recently started a new 2-year contract with Verizon Wireless in February of 2009. My service worked well until it hit June, that's when I began having service related issues. It began with my service cutting out for around 6 hours. During this time my messaging didn’t work at all, I had few to no service bars, and my voice calls became unreliable. After that point I have repeatedly called Verizon Tech Support at least once or twice a month. I really had questions about why I was having these issues since I never had an issue with service when I was on my Mother's Family Plan. First I went to a Verizon Wireless Store and the representative told me that it was my phone, that the internal antenna was broken and that it would need replacing. I promptly did this and I got a new phone from Verizon. This phone was the LQ Voyager VX1000, and I had an issue because the touch screen did not work. The next day I went into the same store and talked to a representative, he asked if I calibrated it and I told him that I had done so on multiple occasions. As a result, he called over the LG representative that was present in store that day. He took a look, asked me the same question. I explained to him that I just got the phone the day prior and that I already calibrated it. He finally admitted a while later (in his exact words), "Yeah it's broken." I had already told them this and they proceeded to send me a "new" voyager. In the meantime I requested my old EnV be activated until I receieved the replacement (this is the phone I used prior, on my Mother's account previously). The replacement phone I received also had the same issues that the other two voyagers had and so I went back into Verizon. Once there, they told me that it was my phone because it was so old, however I had already called Tech Support and updated my software. I finally negotiated a new phone, the EnV Touch as a replacement and for the trouble I was experiencing. Once I replaced my phone, my service began to work again until a week later my service was acting up yet again. I had maybe 2 calls dropped my whole time with Verizon, I do not get a reliable signal anywhere, calling quality on all of my phones were terrible, I loose service randomly, when I send a text message sometimes it never sends, delays them for up to an hour, I get "send failed would you like to retry?" on a daily basis, and I also get "Cannot send, no signal. Would you like to resend in digital?" I have called probably 50 times since June, with everyone having me update my roaming, my phone software, or saying that they have no idea. In July 2009 I had a trouble ticket opened for the signal and it came back as "the towers are perfect in your area, so it's not that." As a result, I went into the Verizon wireless store on Prospect Rd and was told by the representative in store that it's my service. I questioned how can 4 phones (1 that worked perfectly on another account) all could not work and was told that it was a problem with the various phones. Soon after, I had another trouble ticket opened for picture and text message issues, they traced the text saying that once it got to the other provider that they couldn't track it anymore. I feel that this is a poor response because it has occurred with not just other carriers but within their own Verizon network. Finally I talked to a friend of mine and he took me to a different Verizon Wireless store. There I spoke to the Manager and he has appeared to try and rectify the situation. At the store, we opened a 3rd trouble ticket, which was escalated to a higher level. I got a call much like the first one a few days after calling in the trouble ticket, saying that they don't know yet and that they would get back to me. I called a week later and the phone representative told me she had no info on it, wanted me to try to update my roaming and told me it was my phone. Two days later to give them more information about it and they were just dumfounded just like all of the calls I made so far, she told me I needed to buy a new phone. One solution that was recommended by the representative was to wipe my account clean and get rid of my number and give me a new number. They said that someone with the same problem came in and they did that and her service was fine. I really don't want to do this because it’s a huge inconvenience, my number is associated with a myriad of places, my job and all other locations have my number, my bank, all of my friends, my school, etc. and to change all of them seems ridiculous.
On 12-1-09 I finally received a call from Verizon, I couldn't answer because I was working The message said that they checked my service area and that it's perfect and that it's my device and have a store update it's software. No direct call back number was left to discuss the issue and when I went to the store to follow their directions it did not rectify the problem.
After all of this I decided in March to upgrade to the Droid, which I was told incorrectly by the Target representative that it would not extend my contract. It in fact did and when I talked to them about it they told me that I was told incorrectly and that there was nothing that they could do to help me. I then contacted Verizon and they told me the same thing in store. I called later that day to ask about canceling and if I could get the fee waved because nothing was done about all of the problems that I’ve had beforehand. The supervisor I talked to said that he couldn’t/wouldn’t do anything for me. I called back multiple times the next few days, with people contradicting the other, but they all said no they can’t/won’t help me.

So I'm going to try again tomorrow and get to the highest manager I can speak to and make them do something. I already contacted the Better Business Bureau and I will drop it if Verizon fixes this.

Knitting wise I got new yarn, for my birthday coming up on the 13th, thanks to Green Planet Yarn and their birthday discount. I got 2 sweaters worth. Knitting is going along slowly, but I'm at least getting out of the slump.