Verizon — Local services in San Diego

Very poor customer service. Friendly, but not informed. A lesson in "How Not to Provide Good Service to Your Customer". After my initial attempt to contact store just after opening time (10:00 am), and being on hold for 13 minutes, I decided to drop by the store instead since I had errands to run anyway. I asked if my daughter's old iPhone could be activated to replace my Android. I was told "Yes". There's a very important, no...crucial, qualifying question they did not ask "Was it an AT&T iPhone?". So my daughter upgrades to an iPhone 5 at AT&T and gives me her old iPhone 4S to get activated at Verizon. Again...people are friendly, nice folks, but they aren't trained / informed / etc. I explained what I wanted and the sales associate took the phones to get them activated. She came back and informed me that AT&T iPhones can't be used on Verizon plans due to some technical thing I can't recall right now. Hmmm, wish I was told that before. So, needless to say, I'm disappointed. Instead of guiding me to their iPhone that is on special, she allows me to dismiss her and wander around disappointed. I then found their iPhone on special and now ask the greeter to put me in queue again for a sales person. 25 minutes later, I'm greeted by a sales person. When I asked her about the iPhone, she tells me it's not a very good phone on Verizon's service, many customers having problems. Blames it all on the iPhone. My daughter said she's never had any issues with her iPhone 4s (like the one on sale) while with AT&T. The sales associate is a bit argumentative and dismisses what my daughter (in her 30's) says. She guides us to an Android phone on sale. Okay, I'd like this whole process to move forward and, although I wanted an iPhone, I'll take the Android. We told her, just activate the phone, don't need / want any changes to my plan. After she brings out items, she again asked me if I wanted various upgrades to my plan. Sigh...apparently she's not listening very well. I remind her "No", just activate the phone please. While scanning one of the accessories, she encounters a problem, and says "I'll be right back". After waiting about 20 more minutes, I hunt her down at a computer and ask her what's going on?". She told me they have an inventory glich and the system is telling her the very item she is holding in her hand is out of stock and won't allow her to sell it. I asked if a manager can override the issue so we can move forward. She said no. She nor anyone else never came over to me while I was waiting to let me know what she was doing and how they were trying to solve it, and how much time they expected it to take. After waiting 5 more minutes, I went back to where the sales person was and told her we're leaving, fix your problems and I may be back another day. She gave me more of an "oh well" statement and look rather than try to keep me there, or get the manager involved, or find some way to make the sale / transaction happen. I walked out without a new phone after about 1 hour of being there. Pretty poor training. That would be the manager's fault, the person who never came out to explain the problems or apologize for the delay or mistake in not informing me about AT&T vs Verizon iPhones. That will be my last visit to...

Well, I was real excited about getting the new Droid Max but I never thought talking with the representative in the store would turn me off so significantly. I understand that the company has pricing policies but to have a rep not be able to explain them in a non-flippant attitude at least would be nice. Apparently even though the phone is discounted there is an upgrade fee of $30; so I asked about it, even softening it a bit indicating that everyone must ask about it. But the response was terse and that "all the other companies do it". Not even understanding that the word "upgrade" does not really apply, maybe I was too pragmatic, but I moved on. Now on my current contract I have a 4 GB data plan and apparently I would be "downgraded" to 2 GB if I got a new phone through Verizon. So in reality my whole plan is changing and the cost is changing and the representative seemed to get confused when trying to deal with what I wanted and what Verizon could accommodate. It's only been 2 years plus a few months since I got my Droid X and it's hard to believe that a representative would not know the ins and outs of the data plans, voice plans, text plans and be able to understand that I as a customer would like to keep it all the same even though I can't.

Outcome, well, instead of getting a new phone and possibly one for my wife, bringing her onto my Verizon plan, we are looking at going with her plan on T-Mobile. We may even consider AT&T.

I understand there may be an issue with large companies when they become "necessary", but to have that attitude trickle down to the key touch point, where there is person on person interaction,...

Stop if you do not want a headache and stress. We was a loyal customer almost for 8 years and we had 3 lines, with Verizon and never had any problems until I did visit this store at 7035 Clairemont Mesa # 401 for up grading one of our lines, This was for the first time I did visit this store. I met Kenny at this store and he said they have special offer for me and my monthly charge will increase only for $2.50. He was nice to me, but I did found out he was a big layer everything he said that was not through after we saw the charges, he added additional line on our service which we did not wants and never asked for, he charged me $ 29.00 for transferring my data from my old phone to new one, another $ 28.00 for adaptor. I went back next day to the store to talk to him but the store manager he said his name is Ruben mentioned Kenny is off for one week I did showed him the charges and he said there is nothing he can do he was so rude and impolite and he should not qualify to be store manages he did not know the basic responsibility has to solve any issues on his store. Returned the new phone and canceled my service and asked to return my old phone been told your old phone is not at the store anymore we will call you within a week after we did received it , this is almost more than a month and did not get my old phone back from this store. I called more than 3 times to Verizon call center and complained about the issues about this store and store manager but they been giving me run around and making it to difficult to trust Verizon for any business please take your business...