I needed to upgrade my phone and the only Verizon location with the phone I wanted to upgrade to was this one. Turns out, this is an "authorized dealer" and not an actual Verizon store.
I ordered my phone for online pickup at 4pm on a Thursday. At 10:30am Friday morning I hadn't heard if my phone was ready for pickup. I called and was told it was, but never got an email or text confirming this.
I went to the store, only to be told by Camren that their system was down, so they couldn't charge me for the tax on the phone and release it to me. His workaround was to have me cancel my transaction and then we'd do the sale in-store as "an in-stock purchase". Fine - that makes no difference to me. I cancelled my order, and he started the new transaction.
At this point, I've been in the store close to 40 minutes. Camren informs me that it's going now going to take well over an hour more and asked if I wanted to come back for my phone. I asked why and he said he had to transfer my old phone to my new one in order to charge me the tax and release the new phone.
At this point I told him I didn't have two hours to spend in the store. I use my phone in the course of business and also can't afford to be down for that long. Camren then copped an attitude and told me I could make calls from my Apple Watch. I wasn't amused.
While I was waiting. an elderly man walked into the store. He overheard me saying that I needed my phone for work. He asked me what I did for a living. I said, "Investor Relations". He says, "oh, so you have relations with investors?" Then asked me, "do you want to have relations with me?!"...to which Camren laughed. Real nice - don't stick up for women when they are being harassed, just laugh!
I wait for my phone to transfer since I didn't have much of a choice after he started the process. Once he was able to charge me, he gave me the total, $127 and change and said, "that's just the tax." I stopped for a second because I knew what the tax was going to be since I ordered this online the day before. The tax should be been right around $100. I asked him if that included the activation fee or something, and he said, "oh, there's a $25 in-store setup fee."
At this point I was angry. I ordered in-store pickup, their systems are down, THEIR workaround is to setup my new phone (which I NEVER wanted them to do, nor did I ever ask them to do!), and now I'm getting penalized for their systems being down?? Camren told me he couldn't waive the fee. He called his manager and said, "yeah, you have to pay it." I told him to cancel the transaction and give my phone back.
I went home and called Verizon. Since this store was the only one with my phone in stock, I had no choice but to buy it through them. Verizon assured me that paying for everything on the phone would make the pickup a hassle-free experience, since there's nothing for the store to do but release the phone. I said okay and paid.
The next afternoon, I go to the store to pickup my phone. The same two gentlemen are there. They again tell me the system is down, and this time, even though my phone is fully paid for, they tell me they still cannot release it to me. They had me cancel the transaction and do the sale again. I told them I didn't not want my phone setup in store, and they said okay - but I'd still have to pay their setup fee. SERIOUSLY????
They called the manager, Jeremy, who wasn't on site. He was EXTREMELY rude towards me. He told me, and I quote, "you didn't want to wait for your phone yesterday". I told him, "it's not that I didn't want to, I DID NOT have time to! I have a job and this was supposed to be a 10 minute pickup that went on for over two hours!" Then he sarcastically said, "well, you didn't want to pay the setup fee and I can't waive that. You have to pay it." I told him, "why on earth would I ever pay a setup fee solely because your system for pick-ups was down?? That's not the customers fault, that's the business' issue and they need to absorb that cost, not the consumer." He got angry and told me I wasn't listening to him. Then he said it was his fault either, and therefore I had to pay the fee. WOW.
I went outside and called Verizon and they were so courteous and in as much disbelief as I was. The rep I spoke to said that practices like these are just taking advantage of their customers. He applied a credit to my account for the the setup fee so that I could get my phone and finally be on my way. I requested this to be escalated so that others that aren't as keen or willing to fight for what's right don't get taken advantage of as well. He said he would definitely take it to his superiors.
Lesson learned: AVOID THIS STORE AT ALL COSTS!!! Especially if you are female, because they will treat you like you are an idiot and try to take advantage! read more