Two years ago verizon (who at that time was Bell Atlantic) came to my office to promote their wireless phone service, which was a great place to market their product as my office was a Real Estate Office. At that time they had a good promotion for the companion phones so I took advantage of it for my two sons. They were both in College at the time and it seemed like a good thing for them to have as it would give my wife and I peace of mind. Well I was told I would have to put a deposit of $125.00 for each phone for the first year of service, Of which I did. When that year was up I made an attempt to get the $375.00 deposit back and I was told that I would not be able to get the deposit refund until I've gone 12 months of paying on time.
We Have never gone over 2 to 3 weeks past the due date as we were always under the impression that if we went over 30 days they would turn off the phone, of which I couldn't afford to happen as I'm a Real estate broker.
A couple months after that my phone stopped working and I went to the repair service center to have it repaired and they informed me that it couldn't be fixed. So they offered me the same phone at 1/2 price if I extended my service for one more year. It's kinda like they got you where they want you! So I made another inquiry about my deposit money and once again they went through their line of I have to have 12 consecutive months of payments on time to get the refund on the deposit. I expressed my feelings of unfairness due to the fact that I have never been unreasonably late with my payments and I felt they were being unreasonable as far as their policy was concerned.
Now my son's two companion phones contract is ending on December 15th. I inquired with verizon about renewing a contract with them if they would refund the deposit on those two phones. I explained to them that now that they are going to paying a month in advance in their billing rather than a month back, in my opinion it didn't make sense to keep their deposit if I would sign a new contract for the two phones anyway.
They informed me that since my phone was the main phone and the other two phones were just the companion phones the deposit would have to remain on my phone. That means they would have a $375.00 security deposit on my phone when I'm going to have to also start paying a month in advance billing. Now if this isn't a consumer ripe off I don't know what is. Also I was told that when the security deposit is refunded to me it takes 6 to 8 weeks to get the refund.
In today's day and age of computers and technology I can't understand why the unreasonable length of time to receive a refund. After all it doesn't take us that long to get them the deposit.
So to conclude I feel they are holding me hostage for my business and they're able to do this by holding my security deposit over my head. I also feel that since my original agreement was with Bell Atlantic I feel my relationship with Verizon should be true to my agreement with Bell Atlantic.
Thank You For Reviewing My
Complaint,
Eric
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