Verizon — Local services in Key West

I am new to the area, and was unaware of how terrible this place was prior to going. Mind you, when someone decides to purchase a new phone, they tend to not look at previous ratings of a "Verizon" store because it's not the type of product to have to look at reviews for. Well, let me say that I wish I was warned prior to heading over there on July 5th to purchase my "new" HTC One M8.

I have put "Verizon" and "new" in quotations for a reason. Explanation: this is NOT a true Verizon store, they are part of a company called Cellular Sales and their work ethics and attitude are a polar opposite of any Verizon representative I have ever dealt with; also, "new" phone? What "new" phone? I was conned into purchasing a refurbished phone (unknowingly) and paying FULL price for it.

How did that happen you ask? Well, the lovely salesman/con-artist Mark Boyer that was "helping" me retrieves my brand-new HTC One M8 from the backroom, as he approaches his desk, he is tossing the box (containing the phone) in the air and catching it, well the last time he tossed it in the air he drops it (intentionally? maybe... I have no idea). His co-worker tells him to get me another one and to leave that one out in the open so I don't think he's giving me the same phone he dropped. Mark returns with another "brand-new" HTC One M8. As he is setting me up with payment and linking that phone to my phone number, there is an issue that he doesn't explain and retrieves another SIM card. La dee da - whatever, ok. I pay $220 and I'm on my merry way back home.

July 7th I get an e-mail from my husband (he's currently underway) showing me an online promotion for the same phone I purchased. With that day being the 3rd day since I bought the original phone, it was the last day I could return the phone and still get the $35 upgrade fee refunded. So I went back to the "Verizon" store and explained the situation, and the fellow that sold me the phone (Mark Boyer) was not there, so another gentleman told me I would have to come back tomorrow to return it when Mark is present. I said, "Why is that? Today is the last day I can return the phone and still get the $35 upgrade fee refunded to my Verizon account." He explains only the person that sold me the phone can do the return. I continued and asked (now, I am not a mean person, nor rude or impatient), "So, what if yesterday was Mark's last day working for Verizon, you're saying I wouldn't be able to return my phone?". He raises his voice and says, "I never said you couldn't return your phone, let's just be clear, I never said that, don't be putting words in my mouth."

OK, then, sir, how would you suggest I go about returning my phone TODAY so I can get my FULL refund? The answer? Take it to corporate. Where's that? No answer.

Then he continues to look at the box I brought in and asked if I knew it was a refurbished phone. I said, "No, is that what the bright green inspection sticker indicates?" Yes.

So now I am really wanting to return this phone and never come back to this store. I am really ticked by now.

Anyway, suddenly this guy has a change of heart and says he will do Mark "a solid" and handle the return for him. Well, I get refunded $215. Not the $220 I paid. Why was I charged $5 extra for a SIM card? Because the phone I was sold was refurbished! After the return was handled and I questioned why I wasn't refunded the $5, this guy gets short with me and so I'm like, you know what, my sanity and time is worth more than that $5 right now. They had already wasted hours of my time, and I was sick and tired of talking to these shady salesmen.

BOTTOM LINE: Stay FAR away from this place! And if you have gone there before, check your receipts! They are professional scam artists all working together to get...

I have visited this store 3 times in the past year and will NEVER go back again. Every time, while I may have been greeted at the door, the customer service I received stopped there.

My most recent trip was on June 7th - Graduation day for Key West High School. Being that I am the Student Activities Director in charge of graduation, this is by far the busiest day of the year for me, especially because we were considering moving the time and location of graduation due to the bad weather. I was the contact for our community, as well as for Congressman Joe Garcia, traveling from Miami. I HAD TO HAVE my phone number working for the next 6 hours, so I went to the Verizon store desperate for help. I explained my situation to Diego and who clearly did not care about anything I had to say. Granted, they've probably heard all kinds of "emergency" situations, but as I went on and on, even to the point of tears, he continued to become more and more aloof.

Meanwhile, Gus, who was helping an older gentleman in the front of the store, came back to the store manager, who was putting together a toy car and said, "You're gonna have to come help this dude because I'm about to kill him." Nice way to talk about a customer in front of another customer. However, the manager was much too into putting his car together and told Gus just to handle it, and frankly I didn't care what happened or who said what, as long as I could get my number up and running.

Diego kept looking at me with a blank stare as I would not accept his "solution" of ordering me a replacement phone that would arrive Monday. At one point, I said to him, "I am in a phone store, surrounded by phones and batteries, and you are telling me I have to wait until Monday." I asked about a new battery, new phone, and a loaner phone, all to which he just kept blankly staring at me, thinking he just did me some huge favor by ordering my replacement phone, again to arrive Monday. He asked the manager, who was in an ear shot of this entire conversation, still putting together his toy car, if they had any loaner phones. The manager replied he didn't think so unless one came in yesterday. One would like one of them would go look to see if a phone came in yesterday, but neither of them did. Instead, the manager continued to put together his toy car and Diego returned to me saying they didn't have any, as if I did not just hear their conversation, which happened 8 feet from where I was sitting.

I absolutely could not believe the unprofessional, lazy, and apathetic attitude of all three of these employees. They were TERRIBLE, ABSOLUTELY TERRIBLE and truly not representative of any Verizon employee I have ever encountered. I have been a Verizon customer for 15 years and have always received exceptional service both in stores and over the phone. These employees at Cellular Sales in Key West are a disgrace to the customer service ideals of the company!

On a more positive note, from this store I went to Wireless Zone and had the complete opposite experience. Without question or run around, they set me up with a loaner phone. I was in business and was able to stay connected to everyone I needed to be in contact with - Congressman Garcia made it down and graduation was successful!

PS - After posting about my experience on Facebook, it seems like many other people have experience bad customer service at this store. My guess is their employees are the ones who posted the good reviews on this website.

PPS - I will be sending this review to Verizon...

I am giving this store a 1 because I have to. Otherwise it would get a ZERO. I just came in to get an iPhone 6 charger because I was on vacation and my charger broke. The representative who "helped" me was named Angel Torres. He was SO ignorant. I have NEVER been treated like that in a Verizon Store let alone in any store period! He rang up my charger (which was 30$!) I said wow...30$ for a charger? He said OBVIOUSLY DIDNT YOU READ THE BACK OF THE BOX?! WOULD YOU RATHER GO TO ANOTHER STORE?! YOU CAN TAKE YOUR BUSINESS ELSEWHERE. I could not believe it! I just ignored him and paid for it because I needed it. As I walked out I turned and said, "you are the most ignorant "customer service representative" I have ever encountered". He got up and followed me to the door shouting rude comments. I was in such a rage I just stormed out. When I calmed down I called and asked to speak to the manager, the manager right away asked if I just bought a charger (so either he IS the manager or he ran and told the manager about how he is innocent) I said"Yes" he asked what "provoked" the incident. I said nothing "provoked" the incident, your customer service Rep was EXTREMELY rude. The Manager simply stated that "the store had experienced an outage that morning and they were very busy." #1 I dont know what a power outage has to do with customer service, being as though I have been to Verizon Stores and waited an hour because they were so busy but the people were ALWAYS nice! #2 They weren't even busy! Outrageous! I will be writing...