I have been a subscriber for over 8 years and over that period of time I have has some phones fail. This I can accept and understand, however the policy of Verizon of only sending out recertified phones is a joke. I have had over 10 replacement phones sent out to me an none have actually lasted more that 1 month. My son's Pantech phone failed and was replaced several times and to resolve this, I ended up purchasing a replacement from Amazon. Last year this went on and on, I was able to fix this by upgrading to the samsung stratosphere.
It worked fine at first, then the internet started to get really buggy and hard almost impossible to connect. I was very hesitant to have them send a replacement because of my experience with the replacement phones, however I had to concede because I could not connect to the Internet. I was assured that the replacement would undergo a 100++ point check. It arrived and I was happy with it, however a week later, it stopped charging. I spoke with a supervisor and the options he had for me was 1. keep going thru the warranty replacement process, 2 they will send me a downgraded phone (a 3G, unlike the 4G that I bought) or 3. they will buy it back for ... wait for it...$68. Another supervisor told me then they will have to keep sending out phones, every week if needed.
When I was using a basic phone, this was not a big problem, just move your contacts and you are done. With smart phones this is a lot harder, you have to load all the apps and settings again. My stand is that I am paying $200++ a month for decent service... not even perfect, just decent. I get defective phones and Verizon is not willing to rectify this.