Verizon — Local services in Kirkland

((Summary= Totem Lake Verizon=Bad, Woodinville Verizon=Awesome!)) I bought a buy one-get-one-free deal from this store on Dec. 21st, 2018 as a gift for me and my wife. I talked with Shanon who was very knowledgeable and was a pleasure to setup my new phones with. He is the only reason I'm giving this store 2 stars. He helped me setup the proper data plan, and went through the in’s and outs of the plan to put me at ease. One of the questions I specifically asked was if I could exchange the phone for a different color after Christmas since this was going to be a surprise for my wife. He assured me I could with a simple $50 re-stocking fee since I would keep the same Iphone XRs & plan.

After Christmas, I got a different story from different sales people on 12/26. They told me that of course I could exchange it, but it would cancel my BOGO deal, leaving me with paying the $50 re-stock fee, and the full $750 for the 2nd phone. Surprised, I asked why an exchange for the exact same phone would trigger the cancellation of the previous contract. They said Verizon corporate was now not allowing exchanges under the BOGO promotion, and that they made the mistake of letting everyone know that they could exchange their phones within the cancellation period.

I then asked them why they are pushing their mistakes onto the customer instead of absorbing that cost, or fighting corporate for their customers to process an exception. I was told that the manager was “looking into the issue,” that they would not absorb that cost, and they could attempt to get me the BOGO deal with the exchange, but there was no guarantee that the fee wouldn't fall back on me. Hmmm…

I decided to leave with the existing phone I was trying to exchange out after burning up my entire lunch break, and made an appointment with the Woodinville Verizon store after work to get a "2nd opinion." I met with Ben who not only told me he could do the exchange right then and there (thankfully he had one in stock), but he also called corporate in front of me to leave a notation on my account to keep the BOGO deal (verified with corporate & his manager), and filled out a form to submit to manually input the deal to my account just to be sure that I would keep this deal. He worked with me for just over an hour, and re-assured me that there would be no issue with the exchange. He also gave me his business card and told me to contact him if there are any issues, and he'd take care of them if there ever were. He even called me a week later to let me know that he checked that everything went through smoothly, and that I just needed to make a phone call to confirm some stuff for my account. He was checking on my account and working to make sure the forms he filed were approved even when I wasn’t in the store, or asking him to… Now THAT is customer service!! Ben, you're a rockstar!

Ben at the Woodinville Verizon location is not scared to fight to take care of their customers like the Totem Lake location.

I now have a new plan, a happy wife, and a new Verizon store I will take my business to, and promote to friends, family and anyone else that will listen.

I will never return to the Totem...

I switched from AT&T to Verizon two weeks ago, and it has been an incredibly unpleasant experience. Unfortunately, I’m now locked into a 3-year contract. It all started when I found a great promotion online that included a $200 Verizon e-gift card with a new line and phone. Wanting assistance, I went to the store where they promised to waive the activation fee and said I could still claim the e-gift card by calling in later. I also made it clear I didn’t want the Disney+ deal they offered, as I already have it.

I chose the Samsung Galaxy S24 with higher storage, but the store didn’t have it in stock, so it had to be shipped to me. I went back to the store for help setting it up once it arrived. However, when I called about the Verizon e-gift card, I was told I wasn’t eligible because I bought the phone in-store, even though I had been explicitly told otherwise. Very frustrating, as the online deal was clearly better.

Then, I received my first bill—$155, much higher than expected. The plan was supposed to be $80/month with auto-pay. I had already paid all the sales taxes for the device upfront, so the $155 bill did not even include those charges. I was told to set up auto-pay two weeks after activating my phone, but no one mentioned that the discount wouldn’t apply until the second month. At the store, they claimed the activation fee wasn't waived because the phone was shipped to me. Eventually, they fixed that, but I also noticed I was being charged for Disney+, which I never wanted. While they refused to remove it for the first month, they did eventually remove it for future bills after I reminded them that I never asked for it.

Additionally, when they scanned my ID for my address, I corrected them with my new address, but they clearly didn’t update it. This resulted in city taxes being applied to both my old and new addresses.

After all the back and forth, my bill was still $110—higher than what I was initially told. The lack of transparency, professionalism, and knowledge from Verizon has been incredibly disappointing. If I had known it would be like this, I would have stayed with AT&T. I do not recommend switching to Verizon, as they fail to disclose extra charges and do not promptly remove services...

I went into Verizon today to try to upgrade from my iPhone 14 Pro to a iPhone 16. I had seen online the day before that I was eligible to upgrade, I would just have to pay the taxes on the new phone & my monthly bill wouldn’t change by much at all. When I went into the store, the employee told me there was no longer any promotions for any phone available other than the iPhone 17 that’s coming out. I told her what I saw the previous day online, she told me maybe that was just online and didn’t seem like she was willing or wanted to help me figure something out. So I sat in the store, logged into my account and went through the steps to upgrade and pay for the new phone to be picked up here at the totem lake Verizon store. I told her I was able to do it and showed her my order # and she said okay, we haven’t gotten it yet, it takes 20 min to 2 hours. I had my toddler & newborn baby with me so I wasn’t going to stand there and wait for 2 hours. I didn’t understand since they had the phone in stock why it would take that long. She just didn’t have the mentality of someone in customer service willing to help. I then proceeded to come back this evening to pick up the phone, they checked my ID and handed me the phone. I asked if they were able to help me set it up. They told me they could but it would be a fee. The whole experience was awful. I’ve worked in customer service for over 10 years, and both employees I dealt with at this store acted like they had zero interest in helping the customer or had any idea what it looks like to provide customers with a good experience. I will not be going back there...