Complaint Review: Verizon Wireless Power-Up

Dear Rip Off Reports,

I would like to give everyone fair warning about Verizon's Pre-paid service. SATY AWAY!!!! VERY FAR AWAY!!!!!!!

Let me tell you my story....
In need of a cell phone for work that I must provide I was looking for a depedable cell phone that would work at a good price in the Greater Metro Atlanta Area. I went to:
Young Communication
1630 Pleasant Hill Rd
Duluth, GA 30096
770-923-5756
770-923-2616 Fax
I will paste the e-mail I sent to Verizons Esc. Office detailing everything I have been through.

Sent 9/25/2001 via verizon.com web site

Dear Jim McGean,
I feel that in the short time I have been a Verizon Customer I have had too many problems and now rather than your customer service listening to a problem and finding resolution, you would rather lose a customer. Let me start from the Begining:
I saw your advertisement reguarding your free up plan and went to the Verizon store in the area I work. When I went in I was shown a very cheap looking phone. I wanted something a little more durable looking. I was then showed a Sony CM-Z200. This looked like a nice phone. I paid $53.00 and I was out the door after an hour of waiting for them to program the phone. I was told that I needed to charge the power on the phone and I would be good too go.

After charging the phone I tried to make a call. I could not. I tried to call my phone and could not recieve a call. I called the *611 number I was given (Incase I had any problems) and was told I didn't even have a Verizon number. I told her where I bought it and was told I needed to go back there and get everything worked out.

I went back to the store the next day. After another hour I finally was setup, or so I thought. I noticed that I could not gain signal most of the time.

After missing many important calls I went back to the store where I bought it. The guy I bought it from was there. He looked at the phone and noticed it could not recieve a signal. He said that there was something wrong with the phone and wanted me to leave it for a few days. I had only had the phone 2 weeks or less. I asked if I could get a loaner because I needed my phone for work. He said no. He just programmed another Sony phone with my ENS and sent me on my way. This only took a hour and a half. As I was walking out I noticed that the phone was badly damaged and was falling apart. I went back to the store and was told there was nothing they could do. They said I would have to come back the next day. I was there right then?? Why come back? I was told that you can only change your ENS 1 time a day. I thought this was absurd. I left and called *611. I got ahold of a very rude rep who told me that there was nothing I could do because I was on the cell phone.I explained that there was only 1 problem with the phone and it was the phone. I was calling to find out what I could do about the store. As I was talking to her my Speaker volume would go up and down on its own. After the 26 Minute call I finally got home and called another rep Marcy from a lan line phone.Also the main screen had profanity on it.

I was told by Mandy that this was not the normal pratcices of Verizon and reasured me that she would take care of my problems. She made some calls and found out that this phone is not the phone for the Free Up plan I was on. And that this retailer had many other complaints about them. She made arangements for me to go back to the store and they would have another phone ready for me. She said she would follow up on this matter to make sure I had no problems at the store. I'm Still waiting on that call!!!!

When I arrived at the store I was made to wait after customers that came in after me before I could get service. The 2 men in the store were very angry. They keep talking in another language but my name was very clear. The guy I bought my phone from got very confrontational. He was yelling and asked if I was calling him a liar. I left the store with my current phone. I WILL NEVER GO BACK TO THAT STORE!

Now today:
For the last 2 day sometimes when I try to make a call I would get ATL35 errors.

Today from 9:10AM-10:00AM I tried to make a call to a new client. All I got was error ATL35. I called my wife. The call went through. I tried to call my client again. Still the errors. I called *611 and was told to call when I get home so they can troubleshoot. I explained I could not wait that long. She again told me there was nothing she could do because I was on the phone. I went to the closest pay phone. I called the 1-888-289-8463. It was 47 degrees with a 10 mph wind. I was on the phone for 45 mins. In this amount of time your CSA was able to here the problems I was having and even duplicated the problem. At the same time some of the tests did not fail. I was able to call my house and recieve a call from my house. After 45 mins I was told that there was problems but they could not be resolved. After making several calls to my house I thought the problem was solved. As soon as I hung up the phone and tried to make another call I got the ATL35 error. I was very upset at this point. For the rest of the afternoon I called my wife at home to make all of my calls and I would call her back. Around 5:00PM I called my house again. No one (6 different phones lan and cell) could get in touch with me. The whole time I had good signal stregth when these calls were made. They were getting a combination of errors from "My voice mail was not set up so I could not recieve incoming calls" to the famous ATL35 error. After hearing of this I called *611 to find out what is going on with my phone. I got Shirley 7407 and I told her that I could not recieve calls. I told her the errors people were getting and I told her to disable my voice mail. She did. Once again I was told that nothing else could be done because I was on the phone. She gave me her ext and told me to call her back when I got home. When I got home I called back to try to get in touch with her. When I got through I asked if I could get in touch with her. I was told she was not available. I asked for a supervisor. I was asked for all my information and to tell her what was wrong. She then got a supervisor Jeff 8095 on the phone. I explained to him my problem. Once again he DID NOT LISTEN. He made a call to the phone. It went through. He said the problem was fixed. End of story. I tried to call from 1 of my lan lines and it did not go through. I was told it was the phone's that were trying to call me.
My 2nd line from AT&T (Land Line)
My 1st line from Bellsouth (Land Line)
Presidential Office of Bellsouth (Land Line)
Supervisor Bellsouth (Cellular)
Supervisor Nextel Cell (Cellular)
Norcross Office from bellsouth (Land Line)

Now I am sure that your supervisor's have some technicial abilities but to come to the conclusion that most of the Presidential Offices of Bellsouth have problems with there PHONE LINES?? Wow. And my home phone lines from 2 different providers and other cell phones can't call me. I'm amazed. I asked him to transfer me to his supervisor. He said she was not there. He said he would need to know when the calls were made and then he could get it looked into. I gave him the above mentioned times to refer to. He said then that that would not do. He did not want to even look into the problem. I asked him to either correct my problems or credit me back for the price of my phone and credit my credit card for any airtime left on it. He choose to credit my card for air time and said I would have to go back to the store try to get my money back there for the phone. Great customer service skills.

Now my question to you is: Is this how your company is ran?

Thank you for your time,


Now here I am required by my company that I have a cell phone with no cell phone. To give you an idea of how messed up there system is: I could still call my house even after the phone had been deactivated (not at my request) But the problem is that of major telco providers???? I don't think so.

Then I recieved this response on the 26th

From: Bowler, Kimberly
Date: Wednesday, September 26, 2001 01:09:50 PM
To: 'joshuaga@*******.net
Subject: RE: Executive Office


Joshua,

Thank you for contacting our Executive Office with your concerns. I want to first apologize for your trouble. It is disturbing to read about your experience and the poor service you have received. I followed up with a few of the representatives and supervisors you spoke with to better understand the issues going on with your phone. Jeff explained that his calls to your phone did go through and therefore he determined the issue was resolved. I understand that the problems you were experiencing with your phone were intermittent and therefore some calls were going through. Normal troubleshooting procedures would be to have you call back from a regular land-line phone since it is difficult to troubleshoot a phone while the customer is on it. Once we have you on the line we can gather all the necessary information to submit a trouble ticket on your account. When a trouble ticket is submitted a technician is assigned to the issue and will continue to work till the issue is resolved. I understand that you have already decided to return the equipment and have received a credit back for the remaining minutes on your account and therefore submitting a trouble ticket would be unnecessary. I am very sorry for any inconvenience this situation has caused you and that we were unable to get your service working properly for you. Please be assured that a store complaint was submitted regarding the poor customer service you experienced at the point of sale and we will follow up to ensure this type of poor service does not continue. Thank you again for taking the time to contact us with your situation. I again apologize for your trouble.

Kimberly B.

She didn't even read this to well. I was on a land phone while making this call. I feel that this is poor customer service. Please don't fall into thier trap. Also nothing was offered in compasation for not being able to use thier service.