Is anyone out there fed up with the fine print on phone upgrade costs?
I'm a long time Verizon customer (8+ years). I'm looking at upgrading my phone after 2 years and in big bold red letters the advertised price is $99 with 2 year renewal. Great right?
In the small print to the right they tell you that the price includes a mail in "rebate" of $50, which means you get a prepaid visa card back after 6 weeks. For the finance savvy folks out there, it's essentially an interest free loan to Verizon worth about $5 in profit to them. (Plus there's the handful of folk who loose the rebate card or forget to use it before the 1 year expiry date = Pure profit for Verizon.) Kinda shifty but, OK, fine.
Next I see in very small print ($30 device upgrade fee.). The explanation says "Fee when purchasing a new device and extending contract term"There is no way to avoid this charge, so why don't they list it in the actual price? Very shifty. The price should actually say $130. (not including the 50 bucks you loan to Verizon for 6 weeks. Next page they tack on a "Line Access fee" for $10 - um don't I already have line access with my current phone?
Price in cart is now 179.99 ( 99 + 30 "fee" + 10 "line access" + 50 "rebate" )
Fine, you bite the bullet and add it to your cart. A few pages later, they tell add on more "taxes and fees" for another $55.50
Which means the actual price is $235.49
BOO! Verizon; I call shenanigans: This is very deceptive advertising. Maybe this is a good time to post this on Facebook and look at other carriers. (Credo?)
T-Mobile full retail price of the phone + taxes
Sprint contract price + $38 upgrade fee + taxes or full retail price of the phone + taxes
AT&T: contract price + $40 (I think. It was $36) + taxes or full retail price of the phone + taxes
Are you sure that the other carriers will be less expensive or not have the same policies?
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Anyone else fed up with the 14 day Policy, I am. Lets do something about it.
I posted this in the Motorola forums also and now that I can finally post in the Verizon forums, I’m posting it here too.
This phone (Droid Bionic) worked perfectly the first 14 days accept for one glitch where it toggled to 3G while in the same place and I called into Verizon and they said to take out the battery and SIM card and restart it and it seemed to work fine for the next few days, until the 15th day, past the return point. I wonder, do these companies try to stall us past the 14th return policy so they can lock us into new contracts and equipment?
Now after the 14th day the phone toggles from 3-4G all the time no matter where I am and disconnects me from the internet with I get an email notification. I call Verizon on the 16th day and they give me the canned rhetoric about the 14 day policy and that they will send me a replacement BUT can’t guarantee that it will be new, more likely it will be refurbished. WHAT THE ****. I just paid for a NEW phone not a used one and within 30 days they want to send me a used one…NO WAY IN HELL is that acceptable. The car lemon laws are better…you get a new one.
Well guess what, they tell me that THEY and Motorola are the ones that made these policies…SO, I’m here to ask everyone else that is also fed up with this **bleep** to lobby, boycott, raise hell if you have to, to get these **bleep** policies changed to at least 30 days, like any other product we buy in the USA.
It’s real interesting that the phone worked fine for 14 days and then it went to crap. If I want 3G I have the HTC Imagio that worked fine for many years and was still working fine when I got the Droid Bionic, I don’t need a new phone to get 3G. I think the manufacturer and Verizon are in this together, knowing that their products are built like {word filter avoidance} and won’t last past 14 days, thus the policy.
After 15 days of gripping to Verizon, they are having me purchase a new Droid Bionic (so I don’t have to get a used one) and will re-start my contract for 2 years, then when I send the crap droid back to them they will credit my account…this is doable, ONLY IF the new phone works. But it is a {word filter avoidance} hassle. We are the consumer buying YOUR product, we should be treated better.
According to Verizon, Motorola is coming out with a patch or software upgrade…sometime in Nov. that is supposed to FIX this **bleep** service.
Well Motorola, if it doesn’t, I’ll be under a new 14 day return policy until the last day of Nov. and if the “Fix” doesn’t work, I’m taking this worthless piece of crap back to Verizon and I’m going back to my 3G HTC.
You Manufactures need to get it right, OUT OF THE BOX, not have the consumer pay for the product, give them only 14 days and then have them locked into a 2 year contact then you fix the problems. That’s BULL**bleep**. And I hope others will join me in lobbying,, call your local TV news channel, boycotting and if we have to, raise hell with all these companies, like you, Verizon and all the other phone service and phone making companies to change the 14 day return policy like Srpint and AT&T...as the Verizon rep stated about thier 14 day policy.
If you don’t change your policies, when and IF I buy another product from Verizon, if it glitches even the slightest, instead of calling in for help and getting the stall tactic rhetoric of restarting this and pulling out that to make it work right to stall me past the 14 days, I’ll send the **bleep** thing back 50 times if that what it takes to get a product that works so I don’t get locked into the purchase or the contact if I can’t get something that works.
I am furious and I’m not going to stop raising hell until you and companies like you start taking better care of consumers like me that spend their money on YOUR products.
If this next phone I get doesn’t work I’m going back to my HTC 3G. And I’m not done with you people. I’m going to do whatever it takes though legal means to see to it that you and companies like you change your **bleep** policies and stall tactics to keep us locked into products that are crap.
And another note to add: In talking with some of the reps at Verizon, when I ask that an email be sent to me to verify the conversation and I get: “Well we can’t do that”, you are lying. I did have one of your reps send me an email. The fact that you won’t tells me that you are trying to keep our conversation off the record so it won’t come back and bit you in the behind later. Your big company with all its technology can’t send an email…{word filter avoidance}. Its not going to stop me from waging legal war on you for the crap you put us through.
This was my 2nd post on the Moto forum:
I have spoken with someone at Motorola and they invited me to send in my phone to them and then 5-7 business days after they receive it they would send it back fixed or replace it. However, they would not send me a loaner phone and referred me back to Verizon for that…NOT going to happen.
We the people made these companies successful and pay them good money for their products; they need to treat us better when it is THERE product that doesn’t work properly.
I also addressed the update issue with the person from Moto, they couldn’t tell me what issues it will address or when it would be released, only that it’s going to happen sometime in Nov.
That is why I say this: If it doesn’t work right out of the box and there is 1, even 1 minimal hick up, I’m sending it back 50 times if I have to within the 14 days and I’ll keep doing it until I get one that works or finally get fed up with crappy equipment and go back to my 3G HTC and to hell with Verizon’s contract and Moto’s equipment.
Also I have learned talking with the person at Moto that it is ONLY Verizon that has set the 14 day policy and has nothing to do with Moto. Another bit of incorrect info I got from Verizon, and I quote: “We have to abide by the manufactures policies they set and we cannot change the 14 day policy…OK so who’s lying here, Verizon or Moto?
Doesn’t really matter, we the people need to take action and put a stop to this outrageous **bleep**. How? By sending these **bleep** things back the minute they don’t work, within the 14 days unless they change it to longer, like at least 30 days and don't let them stall us with their **bleep** over the phone.
And two, if we do have a glitch that we have to call in about because the product doesn’t work, the time clock starts over but our contract count down time does not if we have to have it replaced with a NEW product or decide we are fed up with the crappy product and want to cancel it all together and go back to what we had, within the 30 day period AFTER the last glitch we called in about. If we can get them to change it to 30 instead of 14.
That will keep them and the manufactures of these products on their toes and stop selling us crap that they later have to fix. It should work out of the box and if it doesn’t 30 days down the road, there should be no issue in replacing it with a NEW product (NOT a refurbished one) and the countdown times starts again.
If any of you know some powerful political people, you need to ask them to start writing some new laws about this stuff unless these company’s police their own first and take care of these issues, but because they are making gobs of money off us, I doubt they will, so we have to force the issue and MAKE them do it though laws.
To add:
I'm not done with you Verizon. If this next Bionic doens't work and the update in Nov. does not fix it I'm sending it back and going back to my original HTC and canceling the NEW 2 year contract. Your CELL server is by far the best, the equipment is not. And I will not and should not be held to a 2 year contact if you cannot provide me with a product that works.
You really need to change your policies on your own before we the people make it a law. Take the initiative and make it right.
You want to be the best company out there, then don't follow Sprint or AT&T, be your own company and don't tell us on the phone that "All companies are doing that"...are you as lame as all the other companies out there or can you stand on your own and be the best?Update:
The “CS supervisor” at Verizon still cannot arrange for me to take back $100 of worthless accessories if I send the 3G Bionic back…
So, as the last poster stated, I did cancel my other two lines with Verizon and went to AT&T (I’ll save $400 per year) and canceled my Hot Spot (a saving of $360 per year); A loss to Verizon of $1,236 per year, so I will recoup my expenditures if I send the current 2nd 3G Bionic phone back. I get 4 bars with AT&T and only 2 with Verizon at my location...hum...imagine that.
I may just be a little cog in the big wheel but if enough of us did this, and we should, it would get their high and might attention that we customers are not going to let them Lie to us or as the CS super said, “miscommunicate” pertinent information that effects our buying/spending decision and drags us out past the 14 day limit.
The final word on any update is that there isn’t one anyone can talk about or knows about, but it seems that all the techs at Verizon have the same problem with their droids; they activate the Airplane mode, then deactivate it and the 4G will come back. That’s all dandy unless when you get disconnected from the internet it closes out important things you were in the process of doing…isn’t that special. Very lame Verizon, very lame.
I’ve done a lot of research on Version’s Androids and it appears that ALL of them since they’ve been out have this same problem with the flipping from 4 to 3G and other connectivity issues…so it’s not a MOTO thing unless MOTO has built a problem product…it’s Verizon’s towers or signals etc. No one has figured it out and neither has Verizon or we wouldn’t have these issues.
And the "jargon" I get from Verizon that MOTO is being very “secretive” about the update is laughable...the real reason I believe they say this is because there isn’t one. Every other company out there in the tech world that knows what the problems are let people know that they are going to release an update and the issues they are working to fix…the “it’s a secret” is a sly way of putting us off because they don’t have any freakin idea what the problem is and how to fix it.
I will say that WHEN this Bionic works like it is supposed to, it is awesome. My biggest issue with this company is there deceitfulness and not telling us the true story up front and their lame 14 day limit...but I understand why that was put in place, their equipment only works for 14 days then takes a dump. So I doubt they will ever change it back unless they grow a pair and start selling good equipment that works out of the box.
They should be very up front about these issues BEFORE the customer signs on to a new two year service contract; miscommunications like these that have a bearing on money the customer is going to spend and contractual requirements they will be bound by…in other professional occupations, is considered a criminal offense and the sales people that commit this offense are dealt with by imprisonment and loss of licenses.
Why should Verizon be treated any differently?
So for future buyers, beware that when you sign on to a new 2 year contact and put out some bucks for this 3G Bionic, it will work sometimes but don't look to Verizon or MOTO for any solution, they don't have one.
Enjoy the phone, when it works, but expect significant problems that WILL happen regularly (flipping back and forth from 4-3G, disconnects from the internet when you get notifications or when it flips from 4 to 3G, battery not charging when you are connected to your computer, etc.), returning the phone will not fix the problem because the problem is not known to Verizon or MOTO. The techs will tell you do disconnect the battery, the SIM Card, get a new SIM card, restart and/or do a hard factory reset. None of this works.
And if you don’t want to get locked into another 2 year contact, understand that your 14 day count down starts the day they send the phone to you, not the day you activate it, so that means that you really only have 12 days to try it out before you return it the post mark on the fed ex return package cannot be one day past the 14th day or you will be on the hook. And don’t forget to also return the accessories to store before the 14 day marked on the receipt about 12 inches from the top (it is not in bold so look very close at the date at the top also) if you buy them at a Verizon store.
If you replace the SIM card, as I did, don’t let some rep that isn’t paying attention to your file notes tell you that your 14 day count down is later than sooner, they (the reps) get confused or whatever they do, but they look at SIM card activation and not when the phone was sent to you or for that matter when you activated it.
I’ve been under a lot of “miscommunicated” information from the start with my first 14 day 3G bionic so although I’ve done a lot of ranting here, I hope my information helps others not get stuck or at least you will go into this with eyes VERY WIDE OPEN.
It has been 2 years since I looked into any new phone and I was not aware of all the NEW scams, trickery and deceptions Verizon has taught their reps and supervisors to use on us, but it makes sense, their equipment is so faulty they had to figure out how to keep the money coming in.
DO NOT TRUST VERIZON to be helpful, they are there ONLY to lock you into contacts and stick you with equipment that they and their manufacturer cannot and do not know how to fix. -
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