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Verizon (maybe Best Buy) changed my plan without any acknowledgement.
Crayon
Sleeps in the wrong bed.TejasRegistered User regular
Sleeps in the wrong bed.TejasRegistered User regular
I've been a verizon customer since I was 18, I'm now currently 30. I originally had an unlimited data plan for about $20 a month and I've had that ever since. I've mostly bought my phones outright, but today I received a too-good-to-be-true deal from Best Buy-they were offering me an LG G3 for $80 on 2 year contract upgrade. Now to be honest, I've been out of contract for 6+ years now. So, I went through their online process making sure that at every step of the way my plan stayed the same, and even making sure that in the agreement I "signed" there were no changes to my data plan. At the end of it I accepted, received confirmation and even an e-mail that explicitly states "Verizon Wireless Keep Existing Plan, No change."
Come to find out...it did change. My nightly podcasts started downloading and I ended up with a "data usage alert," seeing as how I've never received one of these I was shocked. I log into my account to see I'm knocked down to a 500mb plan so I call in-they say that through the online process it alerted me three times with clicks that my data was going to change despite never seeing this, and the agreement not saying this and having an email that states the exact opposite. With an hour of trying to tell the Verizon rep this he upped me to 6gb for "no charge" despite having unlimited at that price and saying there was nothing more he could do but that his supervisor would call me tomorrow. He basically stated "tough shit" and said I could either keep the phone and new service or take it back to get back on my old contract, but I have a huge problem with that seeing as how there was nothing I signed that stated my plan would change.
So, in summation, is there absolutely anything at all I can do? I doubt it, American cell carriers are the pits.
Come to find out...it did change. My nightly podcasts started downloading and I ended up with a "data usage alert," seeing as how I've never received one of these I was shocked. I log into my account to see I'm knocked down to a 500mb plan so I call in-they say that through the online process it alerted me three times with clicks that my data was going to change despite never seeing this, and the agreement not saying this and having an email that states the exact opposite. With an hour of trying to tell the Verizon rep this he upped me to 6gb for "no charge" despite having unlimited at that price and saying there was nothing more he could do but that his supervisor would call me tomorrow. He basically stated "tough shit" and said I could either keep the phone and new service or take it back to get back on my old contract, but I have a huge problem with that seeing as how there was nothing I signed that stated my plan would change.
So, in summation, is there absolutely anything at all I can do? I doubt it, American cell carriers are the pits.
Crayon on
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just get away from verizon; there's lots of carriers out there that don't have their level of shitty service.
Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
I travel the state a lot, there's no other service that covers my area of work as much as Verizon does. I kind of have to have them sadly.
Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
When all is said and done the shiny new phone you have now will someday be slow and obsolete. Your data plan, at $20 a month for unlimited data, is awesome and will last you much longer than that. To the best of my knowledge no carrier offers unlimited data at that price anymore and you've seen firsthand that Verizon, the carrier you need to keep, certainly doesn't.
Just spitballing here, but if your new contract didn't say anything about changing the terms of your old data plan (and, it would seem, had language specifically stating that it wouldn't) perhaps there was something in the terms of your keeping the old data plan. A "change anything, anything at all about your plan and you lose your grandfathered-in data plan" type of deal. You might want to verify (in writing, ideally, even though that didn't help you here it sounds like) that you will get back your original, unlimited data plan if you choose to go this route.
but they're listening to every word I say
well, you can get a copy of whatever contract(s) you actually agreed to. What probably happened is that you agreed to continue with the 'same' topend plan you had before... only the terms of that plan had changed. I'm pretty sure verizon doesn't even offer unlimited data any longer, so it's pretty unlikely that you'll be able to get your legacy plan back if you ever want to re-up your contract with them.
ed: in my case, the plan I 'lost' was unlimited text. There customer rep told me it would roll over when I updated my contract, and not only did it not roll over, they didn't set a text plan at all (which left me with a bunch of overages.) After spending a couple hours working my way up their support tree I was essentially told that I could have the unlimited plan they were offering at the time (at a significant markup), but that there was nobody at any kind of higher level who could adjust it and give me my old legacy plan back. I wound up filing small claims for the difference; they ultimately released me from the contract and I went to another carrier. If you have 'actual evidence' then you could do the same and probably win a judgment quite easily (its not worth them sending an attorney out to contest these things), but you probably don't have 'actual evidence.'
Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
I travel a lot. On the I-20 corridor in Texas that doesn't have WiFi everywhere. I average 17gb a month. Yeahhhhhhhh.
If I can go back to my original contract, I'll just buy the phone outright. I honestly should have just done that from the beginning.
Telecom carriers are shitburgers when when it comes to contracts. It's very likely that buried somewhere in the stipulations you went through is a notice about how you can't keep grandfathered data plans, and you'll get moved onto the 'equivalent' actively offered plan (which is almost always a much worse deal).
I would be surprised if they'd give you back the old plan at all; most systems do not even allow anyone to activate old plans.
If you can't switch carriers, yup, you're boned.
Oh well, thanks fellas!
Even if it's not in the retail end contract you read through / signed / whatever, there's usually a hidden component to the contract that you basically only have access to by pawing through the carrier's 'LEGAL' section of their webpage. As someone agreeing to the deal, the onus is supposedly on the customer to educate themselves before signing-on.
Of course, that almost never holds up in small claims court, but most customers won't take it that far - so carriers get away with more or less whatever they want.
My advice for the future would be: avoid telecom contracts. They are not worth whatever discount you're being offered on a handset (carriers are well aware that the value / perceived functionality of a given handset will depreciate well before a contract will expire, basically forcing every customer they con into the scheme into a cycle of constant contract renewal to keep their equipment updated).
this is the problem with buying phones third party, and especially online. Best Buy just wants that sweet residual, they really don't care if they get the terms of the contract right. they don't even care if they make money on the initial transaction. worst case scenario, they lose a sale they never would have had. best case scenario, you channel your outrage to their carrier whose policies they conveniently forgot to mention and they walk away with minimal blame. everyone always blames the service provider
(to be fair, there are carrier reps who are equally dishonest, but at least then you have more recourse. theoretically. at my store, this level of sin of omission would warrant a final write-up.)
the old saying about "if it sounds too good to be true" applies to (1) used cars and (2) cell phone contracts. the industry is a sausage factory, and in it are all kinds of ways for you to get caught in the grinder
here's my advice, from someone who's been in the business for like 10 years:
do everything you can to get your old contract back. return the phone, and if you can do so, return it in a physical Best Buy location. insist on talking to a manager; but be very polite, be very very polite. not "polite but firm" as in you're trying to get your way; be obsequious, be damn near contrite (but make sure you get a receipt showing you got your money back, minus applicable restocking fee and assorted other BS. pay it if they insist, introducing extra friction works against your goal here)
but don't stop there. no Best Buy employee has any influence whatsoever over the terms of your Verizon plan. your beef is with them, because it's their mistake, but they literally are not empowered to rectify it
the person you want to talk to is Verizon's equivalent of a "national retail account executive" (I work with AT&T, that's our terminology); the point is, there is someone whose paycheck is cut by Verizon who is delegated to educate, train, and assist Best Buy register jockeys with Verizon accounts; you need to talk to that person, or else you're pissing in the wind. Best Buy has absolutely zero reason to change anything about your Verizon plan. it is literally this person's job to keep Best Buy's Verizon customers happy. insist on getting their phone number, or talking to them face to face. email is a distant third best option.
calling the customer service line may or may not prove fruitful after many hours. your local Verizon's Best Buy rep, if they are a half-decent human being, can and will help you.
return the phone. talk to the Best Buy manager and get ahold of their Verizon rep. Do not under any circumstance offer to pay Best Buy full price for the phone. get out from the deal free and clear, and then and only then go phone shopping at some other outlet that'll let you buy phones off contract.
after you have done all of this, after you have successfully circumvented Best Buy's crap and retained your unlimited data, should you lodge some kind of formal complaint against Best Buy. and equally important is, if someone at Verizon does get you back on track with your plan, giving them the appropriate kudos. trust me, they are going the extra mile and fighting company policy if they make this happen.
if you cannot return the phone in a store and must phone back because it's an online purchase, you still need to find out who your local Verizon national retail rep is and work with them. they will be infinitely more helpful than some dude in a call center. let me put it this way: the creme de la creme of call center supervisors are considered low-tier candidates for retail account positions. carriers don't screw around with these positions; they are always internal promotions with extensive experience. they are cush gigs, if you're climbing up out of a call center or sales floor.
but I work for the death star, maybe I'm wrong. Big Red might be totally bass ackwards, but I doubt it from my long-ago brief stint with them and from my time working with ex-Verizon staff. the industry's too competitive to be at the Comcast level of give-no-fucks.
tld;dr you are not totally screwed, but you're not going to be able to keep the cheap phone and your old data plan. pick the one most important to you. talk to someone face-to-face, any and every time you need something done involving your cell phone.
It might be possible for them to put you back on legacy service, it's almost certainly still in the system under honor-do-not-offer. But, it's likely very hard to get back a legacy contract. You might try politely asking for supervisor as soon as you get on the line, explaining to the agent that you don't think they have the ability to help you, the explain your situation directly to a supervisor. You won't be able to get higher than supervisor by calling, FYI. If speaking to a supervisor calmly, and making your wish clear do not help, you can try several other things. You can try asking them to send you to the cancel department once they have made clear that they can't help you; cancel departments generally have the ability to make special deals for the customer if the customer is mad or insistent enough. If you still don't get the deal you want from cancels, then you can try an executive complaint. The Consumerist gives a good plan for making an executive complaint with Verizon Wireless.
Edit: Ares said it better, and he clearly has more understanding of the wireless side of things.
You might want to buy a cheap burner phone from tmobile or sprint and see if you get service where you want. Mobile download will be slower once you hit the data cap, but there's no "lolololol $5 a gigabyte" charge on them IIRC.
I'm sure you will have to come up with another solution at some point though, because while the data may have been unlimited there's nothing saying they can't cripple the down/up speed after the first xx gigs.
In my case after 2 gigs it drops by around 90% and they notify me. Most carriers are doing this to legacy plans now, so you may need to figure something out anyhow.
Also, 17 gigs is crazy.
0431-6094-6446-7088
$20/mo for unlimited data as a Verizon customer seems a pretty sweet deal to me. Sounds like you need that data so I'd exhaust the avenues of returning the device and going back to your old plan. For a non-subsidized phone, the Nexus is pretty good value.
also, AT&T customers with grandfathered unlimited data may keep it even if they renew their contact and get a subsidized phone. that policy may change in the future (and as dispatch noted you get speeds throttled after heavy use on unlimited) but for now you can upgrade without worry
this doesn't help you, but it's good info for other people in your situation who are on AT&T instead. There's a window of 6 months (currently) in which you can have it restored if someone screws up and removes it by mistake, but that's a pain to get done.
That's the kind of usage that got unlimited data knocked off in the first place (before they got super greedy). That's more than most people use for the home internet.
Anywho, it seems that advice on this is limited. Thanks for all your into ladies and gents.
See if your employer has a group rate to get you discounts, or, has a reimbursement plan (since you travel a lot)
You may also want to turn off your podcast apps from using cell phone data for transfer and stick to using wifi for it. When you do your nightly download, download from wifi. If you're at a hotel, most of them will have free wifi.
That should hopefully drop you way down on your data usage. There's a setting in the configuration where you can turn what uses cell phone internet on and off.
I know the previous comment wasn't constructive, but that is a lot of data and you should find another way because someday they may penalize you for that even if you do have unlimited data. Better to do it sooner rather than later.
For a phone that is a lot I guess. At home it would be trivial to blow through that. A lot of next gen games have day one downloads that size or larger. Not to mention the increasing popularity of streaming services, HD streams can plow through 17 GB like it is nothing. 17 GB is not a lot for home usage.
I think you got some great advice from AresProphet.
Things I find odd is you travel for a comapny, almost any company I know provides phones for people that travel that much (unless it's your own company).
If you can trade to get old phone back and unlimited back, do it and be glad. Otherwise it shouldn't be that big of a surprise with 5 minutes of searching the internet before signing a new contract.
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Hey now. It's not unreasonable to assume that when you're buying something from a professional, nationally known chain that they'd be honest in their dealings and tell you that your contract is changing.
Actually, I'd assume they were changing something .... as should anyone. But unless you have 12 hours to read it and a lawyer with you, it won't make a damn bit of difference.
Ok, so that's unneeded. Thanks. Despite this, I actually went through every single screen on the best buy website to make sure that this wouldn't happen and yet it did. But hey, I'm glad you're internet prowess is so much better than mine.
Like I said. This is already done. Stop replying people.
have you talked to anyone at a Best Buy yet? have you tried talking to someone from Verizon face to face? you should do these things.
I am trying to help. it's been my job to help solve this kind of thing for so long it's a habit. if you think the thread has served its purpose then fine, but please feel free to PM me. it is not entirely unpossible that I can do some legwork for you and get a name of a person you can talk to in your area to help.
Yeah always go to a real corporate Verizon store for everything. I Verizon "authorized retailer" shop don't know shit and can't do shit.