Serious question from a customer.
I am with T-Mobile and my wife is on Verizon.
T-Mobile experience:
Last year I left Verizon and went to T-Mobile with a 1 year contract but I already owned a T-Mobile dash that a friend gave me. I told this to the rep and he said I should take a free phone anyhow since I am paying for it with my contract. He almost insisted.
Verizon experience:
My wife had a Nokia 6263i that she really liked and still wanted to use. I wanted to get her off of the limited employee plan (since 1997) and onto a modern national plan. When I told the rep that we already had a phone that we wanted to use she said that if we took a free phone we would HAVE to use that phone; we couldn't keep it as a spare. I just got off of the phone now with Veriz...
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T-Mobile experience:
Last year I left Verizon and went to T-Mobile with a 1 year contract but I already owned a T-Mobile dash that a friend gave me. I told this to the rep and he said I should take a free phone anyhow since I am paying for it with my contract. He almost insisted.
Verizon experience:
My wife had a Nokia 6263i that she really liked and still wanted to use. I wanted to get her off of the limited employee plan (since 1997) and onto a modern national plan. When I told the rep that we already had a phone that we wanted to use she said that if we took a free phone we would HAVE to use that phone; we couldn't keep it as a spare. I just got off of the phone now with Veriz...
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It is untrue that you have to use the "free phone!" Perhaps to get the deal you would need to allow them to activate the new phone but you could then either call customer service or go to the website and with the ESN number from the old phone activate it.
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So you're basically saying that I fell for it. If I would have known that, I just would have accepted the free phone anyways and then just waited a while to re-activate my wife's phone and then just said our free phone was broken or something like that.
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Dude, just because the rep told you wrong, don't get pissy. I have, on several occasions, doen the exact same thing the TMO rep did. Sell the free phone, then switched to their CPE. I te;; the cust to keep the free phone as a kind of "insurance" handset.
If the cust wants the fee phone, it's part of the deal. A year after the fact is a long time to say something about it.
You just got a bad rep. It is NOT a VZW "policy".
If the cust wants the fee phone, it's part of the deal. A year after the fact is a long time to say something about it.
You just got a bad rep. It is NOT a VZW "policy".
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I guess if the policy is not the problem, the problem is that there seem to be a lot of misinformed VZW salespeople out there. At some stores it seems you're about as likely to get a wrong answer as you are to get a correct answer to a lot of questions.
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Yes, I should not have waited a year and get angry about it. Part of the problem is that I took them at face value and didn't challenge it too much. I agree it's not VZW policy, but why can't they make it right today? What would you do if you were in my shoes? I paid for a contract but did not get any kind of phone for it, that is an imbalance against me and in Verizon's favor, is it not?
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I guess I'm confused. What do you want today and what aren't they willing to do?
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If I were in your shoes I'd use this as a lesson learned. You need to be an informed customer and ALWAYS watch out for #1.
Knowledge is power. You may have some luck, depending on who you speak to, about possibly getting a discounted handset, but I wouldn't get your hopes up.
Just chalk it up to experience. If this had happened yesterday or last week, that's something else. Speak up next time.
Knowledge is power. You may have some luck, depending on who you speak to, about possibly getting a discounted handset, but I wouldn't get your hopes up.
Just chalk it up to experience. If this had happened yesterday or last week, that's something else. Speak up next time.
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You would not even need a reason. I have at least 3 Verizon phones. As I get bored with one I'll go online and activate one of the others. You probably can still get a free phone or a discount on a more expensive phone without extending your contract since you never took the new phone to begin with.
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Well, you might have missed it in my original post but I called them today and asked just that. But after a year they said take a hike. I don't like people who want something for nothing, but in this case I feel there has been an imbalance in VZW's favor. I just want them to make it right. I should have forced the issue a year ago but the more I thought about it the angrier I got, especially after my good experience with T-Mobile.
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I am so sorry for your negative experience with Verizon. The level of expertise of their agents varies widely for some reason. I take comfort in their superior network and have never been disappointed in that regard.
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I think you should call and talk to someone else. Explain that you renewed a year ago and didn't get new equipment when you did it. Tell them that you used your same customer owned equipment that you already have. Because of that you should be eligible for an upgrade. Be sure to let them know you didn't get an upgraded phone last year. They should be able to research the account and see that you didn't get any new equipment even though the upgrade date might have been moved for some reason. At that point they should let you upgrade. They will require you to renew your contract again for another 1 or 2 years from now, but that's the price you pay for doing an upgrade, and for not getting the new phone last year when you renewed.
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I'm a little confused. If this was an existing plan and you simply did a price plan change and she's had her Nokia for that long then she should be eligible for an upgrade at this point.
If you started a whole new plan and used your existing equipment then she should still be eligible for an upgrade. If you start a plan, sign a contract, and don't take promotional pricing on a phone at that time then you are automatically eligible for an upgrade at anytime. This would be a standard upgrade, not NE2, until the actual NE2 upgrade. You should still be able to upgrade though.
Your explanation didn't really tell exactly what was done and how so it's hard to give a correct answer.
If you started a whole new plan and used your existing equipment then she should still be eligible for an upgrade. If you start a plan, sign a contract, and don't take promotional pricing on a phone at that time then you are automatically eligible for an upgrade at anytime. This would be a standard upgrade, not NE2, until the actual NE2 upgrade. You should still be able to upgrade though.
Your explanation didn't really tell exactly what was done and how so it's hard to give a correct answer.
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Yes, either way I should have been able to upgrade to a new phone. I was told that I had to USE that new phone.
We had a special corporate plan of $20 for 100 local minutes. This plan was left over from the early 90's. It did not have a contract and was month to month. After years of having that limited plan we wanted a change. With GSM providers I knew that I could still get the free phone regardless of what I already owned. However, with CDMA and no SIM card I thought that they had mandatory usage requirements of which phone was used on their system. In hindsight, I should have just got the free phone anyways. I think I didn't understand the difference between "activate" and "use". I should have just activated the new phone and...
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We had a special corporate plan of $20 for 100 local minutes. This plan was left over from the early 90's. It did not have a contract and was month to month. After years of having that limited plan we wanted a change. With GSM providers I knew that I could still get the free phone regardless of what I already owned. However, with CDMA and no SIM card I thought that they had mandatory usage requirements of which phone was used on their system. In hindsight, I should have just got the free phone anyways. I think I didn't understand the difference between "activate" and "use". I should have just activated the new phone and...
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where did you get the phone from? a corporate store? i know as a premium retailer the company i work for pays quite a bit more for customer owned equipment (we call it a service only agreement) say we get paid $10 on $9.99 add-a-lines with a phone, with customer provided equipment we get paid $40...with a calling plan of $160/month access or higher we get paid $60 with a phone, $100 without...i know i jump at the customers that bring in their own equipment, its like christmas! 😛 so either corporate stores really screw people over, or the company that i work for is not on the norm. i can't imagine they'd lock you in to a certain phone, as long as the MDN is active for at least 6 months (if they disconnect prior to that we get a chargeback) ...
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