I'm writing this review in gratitude for the excellent service I received from Joseph Arce at the 700 Waiale St, Wailuku Verizon Wireless Store.
Joseph went above and beyond make sure I went home with a working phone.
Verizon's corporate customer service could learn a lot from Joseph.
His can-do attitude and relentless commitment to finding solutions for his customers is a breath of fresh air in this world of corporate phone trees and automated sales.
Once they had my money Verizon was content to leave me stranded without the phone I had paid for; and without any way to contact someone to help.
I could have saved myself many hours frustration if I had walked in the store and bought my new phone from directly from Joseph.
Instead I called Verizon first, and this is what happened:
Due to Covid-19 social distance rules, I called the Waiale st. store several times to set up an appointment to get a new phone. Each time my call was directed to Verizon corporate.
Each time I was told that they could not make an appointment and that store employees would not be able to show me the new phones.
At this point I was down to 15% power, I needed to be available for important business that day, so feeling pressured, I relented and followed Verizon's instructions to purchase a new phone over the phone from them and pick it up at the local store.
I was told this was the best and maybe only way to get the phone I wanted and that it "would be no problem"... all I would need was my photo ID and the credit card used to buy the phone.
When I arrived at the store I was told that I needed the PIN for the account to pick up the phone. However the pin I used to purchase the phone was not accepted to pick up the phone. The pin had to be reset.
Verizon would not reset the pin without having a phone to send a text message to confirm. By this time my phone battery was dead and unable to charge.
Through no fault of my own Verizon had put me in a position where I had no way to reset the PIN and I could not access the phone I purchased.
After calling Verizon corporate from the Waiale store I drove to the kahului official Verizon corporate store, only to be told that they could not help me reset the PIN with out a phone to send a confirmation.
If I needed a working phone they suggested I cancel my order for the new phone, open a new account, and buy a new phone from thier store. Of course canceling would have been impossible to do with out a phone, and anyway; I still wouldn't be able activate the phone or use my current phone #.
After hearing that I was so frustrated with the situation I thought my head would explode.
I went back to Joseph at the 700 Waiale store. He stayed late, after closing time, trying different strategies until we were able to turn on my old phone and get a number off it to send the confirmation code to. Lucky my brother was still awake when we called, at 1200am (NY time).
Big mahalo to Joseph Arce. I couldn't have done it without you! read more
