My Verizon Nightmare - Be weary of poorly trained Verizon employees in the Costco kiosks

Question

A few days ago my week old HTC Droid Incredible 4g LTE that I purchased at Costco developed a circular blob of yellow discoloration on the lower-left portion of the screen in the area right above the micro-USB port. It seemed to get darker while connected to the charger, but never disappeared entirely.  It got progressively getting worse and, if it wasn't my imagination, another spot started to form on the lower-right hand side of the screen.  Called the Verizon kiosk at Costco (where I bought the phone), they said to bring the phone, the charger, and the box back immediately and they would exchange it for a new one on the spot.  The sales associate said he had not heard of this problem before.  I originally posted this problem in the Android forum and some helpful community members suggested it was the charger port overheating.
Update: Ugh! What a nightmare! So, I brought the phone back to Costco within my 14 day exchange period.  The Verizon employee who had sold and set up my phone a week earlier was, unfortunately, not there this day.  The guy who was at the kiosk was a complete !@%hole and, worse, an idiot.  At first he refused to exchange the phone because I didn't bring back the free bonus Costco "accessory package" (a car charger and a couple cheap generic screen protectors) that they give away with every cell phone purchase.  I tried to reason with him that the two were completely separate, only the phone needed to be exchanged, and it didn't make sense bring back what wasn't part of the HTC phone package.  I also told him I called first and was told to bring only the what came in the phone's box.  He wouldn't budge and actually wanted to argue about it in the middle of the store.  I told him there was no way in hell I was driving 20 miles back to my house for $5 in junk that didn't even need to be returned and he better get a manager. After about 15 minutes, he finally came back and said he was told to do the exchange without the "accessory package," which just seemed to make his attitude all the worse.  Then things got really bad.
This guy didn't know the difference between a SIM card and an SD card.  In fact, he didn't even know where the SIM and SD card slots were on the this phone!  When he finally found them (I wasn't giving him any hints, it was too funny to watch stumble around , especially since he still had a bad attitude), he was going to leave my SIM card in the old phone, thinking that I only needed the SD card.  I tried to explain the difference between the two and why I needed both but that just made him more confused. I then asked if he realized we also needed to sync the old and new phones so all of my apps, data, ringtones, settings, etc. would be transferred. He said he didn't know anything about that and they only had that kind of "equipment" at the "corporate stores" (the nearest of which was 15 miles away).  He said the only option was to factory reset the phone to make sure my personal data was erased.  Long story short: I got the phone exchanged and the screen on the new one seems to work alright. But I lost all of my apps (free and paid for), data, settings, and paid ringtones that weren't on the SD card.  Once I got home, I called Verizon corporate customer service to tell this story.  For the most part, I got an attitude of "what do you want us to do about it?" and that they could care less.  The rep even tried to tell me the guy in the kiosk wasn't a Verizon employee, it was all Costco's fault (I called Costco to clarify this and they said the kiosks ARE owned by Verizon and operate independently of Costco; Costco is only responsible for selling the hardware).  The rep tried to walk me through recovering my paid ringtones from the MyVerizon site, but right after the tones were sent to my new device, the site informed I was being billed for them AGAIN.  The rep had no solution to offer for this and suggested I call back in a month to complain again when I get my next bill.
I plan to write both the corporate offices of Verizon and Costco to complain again, but since my data is lost, I wonder if I'm just wasting stamps....

Answer 1

Well, another update I feel obligated to post.  A very nice Verizon customer service rep called me this afternoon after reading these posts (I sent a link in an email) and sincerely apologized for something not personally his fault and, perhaps, not directly Verizon's.
First, the rep explained that the cellphone sales kiosks in Costco stores are owned neither by Costco nor Verizon, but by a third-party, a company called "Wireless Advocates."  I researched this a bit online and it appears to be the case.  Regardless, if I were Verizon, I would not want such a company representing and peddling my product with such poorly trained and disagreeable reps.
Second, the customer service rep patiently took the time to walk me through the process of recovering my apps (while the kiosk rep basically told me I was screwed).  Unfortunately, each of my 30 or so apps has to be reinstalled manually one by one, but at least they're grouped together in one place in my Google Play account.  However, the data associated with those apps is still lost as many of them cached their data locally on the old phone (not on the SD card).
One final note to confirm the kiosk rep's lack of knowledge, I happened to come across this today: Verizon's own website specifically states that to exchange a defective phone within the 14-day period, one need only "return the merchandise (including device, charger, battery, instructions, and any other components) in the ORIGINAL box" and, further, "for exchanges for the same merchandise make and model, only the item to be exchanged needs to be returned." (emphasis added).  http://www.verizonwireless.com/b2c/globalText?textName=RETURN_POLICY&jspName=footer/returnPolicy.jsp  The rep being a complete jerk and insisting that I drive 20 miles home to bring back the free (i.e. junk) Costco "accessory package" that didn't need to be returned is just inexcusable.
I guess I should edit the title of this thread to read "Be Weary of poorly trained 'Wireless Advocates' employees peddling Verizon products in the Costco kiosks."  But that's a bit long-winded.  Thanks for everyone's input, much appreciated.