Thank you verizon wireless

Question

My daughter started taking the bus this year so I had to get her a cell phone.  I added her to my plan and, when they asked me if I wanted insurance for her phone, I said no.   Since she was only going to use it one day a week and I wanted her to understand the responsibility of taking care of her own things.  The customer rep who was handling the transaction even commented on how that was a good way to teach her to care for her phone.
This was in February of this year.
This weekend I went to the same Verizon location to see if I couldn't get a replacement for my old Pre plus which has been giving me fits of late (keyboard issues, random restarting).  The guy pulls up my account and tells me I don't have insurance.  Says I cancelled it in February.
He cannot locate anything that would indicate that I declined the insurance.  He suggests I call customer service.
I go to the location near my office to see if they can, at the very least, see where I declined the insurance since I do my personal verizon visits in that location.
Nothing but he did notice that the day I cancelled mine, I added a line and insured that phone.
That's right, they cancelled my insurance and added insurance on my daughter's phone.
So, since February, I've been paying $7 to insure a phone that was used, at most, one day a week, until the end of May.  Then it went into a cabinet in the kitchen, where it has remained, unused. 
I tell the rep at Verizon that I want to cancel the insurance on my daughter's phone and I want to add insurance to my phone.
They cannot insure my phone anymore.  It's too old. 
So, they cancelled my insurance against my wishes and now they won't insure my phone.
I'm told to try customer service.
So I call customer service.
I'm told, basically, there's nothing I can do, unless I want to use my upgrade to get a new phone.  Since the pre3 is coming eventually, I certainly don't want to waste the upgrade.  I ask for a supervisor and he gets on and, after explaining the story again, he offers to let me upgrade the phone and then reset the upgrade so that I can use it again in November.  He's also letting me use some $30 discount that would trigger in November.  Very nice of him.  I thank him and he sends me back to the first rep.
The first rep runs thru some questions, asks if I want to insure the phone and so on.  Then he tells me there's a $50 rebate on the phone.  I tell him that's nice but, with the $30 discount that the supe gave me, I can't see how I will get a $50 rebate on a phone costing me $20.  He tells me the phone is $89 after the $50 rebate and the $30 discount.
The phone is $49.99 on the web. 
$89 as an apology to me for their screwing up my insurance.
Not to mention I've spent $49 for insurance I didn't need or want.
I cancelled the order.
this is the second time in 20 years as a verizon customer that I have had to call customer service.  They are now oh fer two.
The first time they made a mistake, confirming a shipment to me that wound up not going out and the phone was, then, backordered and I was told I'd have to wait a month or two for the next batch.  When I complained, I was told that the person in charge of the orders  called in sick.  When I asked how it was possible that they only have one person to handle all their orders and then followed that with a question as to how they can operate without a backup employee in case the one person responsible for all shipments calls in sick with the sniffles I was told that the employee might have died.
That's right, Verizon has used the dead employee response on me.
20 years of loyalty and they can't even give me a phone that is, in 3 months, going to be obsolete.
Thank you verizon wireless. 

Answer 1

I think you've illustrated an important lesson here.  You NEED to confirm any changes that are made to your account as soon as possible.  I like to log in to MyVerizon then next day to be sure that all of the features are correctly set up.  Had you noticed this during the billing cycle the problem occured, it would have been an easy fix.
Have you looked into getting a Pre+ from another source?  I remember there being quite a few Palm phones running around on the third-party market not too long ago (possibly from a Verizon overstock?) so it may be possible to get a phone in good shape for a very reasonable price on eBay, Craigslist, or even just a third-party retailer.  That should tide you over until your next upgrade.