I had ordered a new phone on the internet from Verizon Wireless. The phone was an LG VX8600. When I placed my order, of course I had to renew my contract with the company for another 2 years. My experience with this company had been fine up until soon after this purchase.
My husband is the primary user of this phone, and had been out of town on business. The phone has an unconditional 15 day warranty on it, and then after that they will still replace defective phones. My husband called me on day 16 to let me know that his charger port had broken. He returned home on day 17. I called Verizon Corporate that day and asked them about the situation and if our phone could be replaced. The lady on the phone said "We'd be happy to replace your phone for you". I also asked if there would be any reason they couldn't replace it. She said "It doesn't sound like it, but that is up to the technician at the store." So, we immediately went into the store with the broken phone and our receipt.
My husband told the store clerk what the problem was. Imediately the clerk handed him the Asurion insurance brochure (which means you pay $50 to have your phone replaced after we had just spent almost $200 on this phone). The guy didn't even look at the phone before he said that, which I believe means this is a common problem with these phones and they are losing money by having to replace them all the time.
My husband then proceeded to give the clerk the phone to look at. The clerk said there had been "malicious" damage to the charger port. And then accused my husband of not knowing which side of the charger is up (even though there is a huge arrow on the correct side that even a complete idiot could see). The reason he said malicious damage had been done was because the prongs on the inside were bent a little bit. The thing is that my husband only discovered the port was broken because he tried to plug the charger in, and it wouldn't fit anymore. It was not upside down, but this is how the prongs got bent, BECAUSE THE PORT WAS BROKEN!
After we left the store I took out my phone (which is also an LG) and charger and tried desperately to bend the prongs inside with it... Guess what, I couldn't do it, because the charger couldn't reach the prongs... Even with the charger upside down! That is because you can't touch them with it unless the port is broken, which I think should prove that it wasn't my husband's fault they got bent, they only bent because the defective port broke!
The stupid thing is that coprorate told me one thing and the local store told us something completely different. There is only one store here in Fargo, so what they say goes, and I can't get a second opinion. We called the insurance company, and the type of phone we had is on back order and after a week is still not in. (which must mean there have been a lot of claims of this phone) So, my husband purchased a $35 refurbished phone. When he told the owner of that store what had happened with his new phone, the owner said "yeah, we've had a lot of business lately from people with the same problem". This confirmed my suspicions that the local Verizon store is being unfair to their customers just because they do not want to give out replacement phones! This makes me extremely mad to have just spent all this money on a new phone and then not be able to use it because I cannot charge it and to be locked into a two year contract with a company that will treat its customers this way.
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