Matt’s parents are loyal, longtime Verizon Wireless customers, and they wanted iPhones. Really, really wanted iPhones, to the point that they got up at 3:30 AM on February 3rd to place their orders at the special Verizon-subscriber time. But their iPhones never showed. Thanks to a shipping error, their phones–and their phone calls–ended up shipped to someone else, with both receipts in the box. Verizon’s response: they told them to order the phones again on February 10, with the general public. The frustration!

On February 3rd, my dad woke up at 3:30 in the morning to order an iPhone from Verizon, for him and my mother. Something they had been waiting for for over a year. They received a Verizon confirmation email to expect their iphones yesterday, February 7th. I had made arrangements to meet up with them that night to help them set them up, so about 4pm I called my moms number. To my surprise, a lady answered that wasn’t my mom, she identified her self as Kim from New Jersey. She mentioned her and her husband had ordered iphones from Verizon. She thought it was fishy that she was getting calls for my mom, all the while my moms phone obviously isn’t working. She also mentioned their were two receipts in the box, one for her husband and one for my Dad’s order.

My dad promptly called verizon and explained the situation, he was promised a callback within a couple hours. During this time his phone stopped working, it would not send or recieve calls. A couple hours went by, and the situation was remidied when Verizon called their home number with instructions to reprogram the phones and make a test call.

Despite my dads request, Verizon didn’t offer to send new iphones, they simply said you can reorder them on the 10th when their available again to the public. My dad did request a credit on his account for the inconvenience, but the representative would not elaborate on what that credit might amount to.

Sad that Verizion treats loyal customers this way! Sad that my dads time, effort and sleep was stifled by a shipping error.

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