To keep Andrew from jumping ship to Sprint for cheaper service, the retentions team at Verizon Wireless did its job: they offered him an amazing deal. He could get a $20 data credit per month on each of his smartphone lines as part of an unpublicized promotion. Who wouldn’t take that deal? Unfortunately, it turns out that “unpublicized” now means “Verizon pretends that it doesn’t exist.” Andrew’s not the only one who was promised this deal, and he’s going to fight for it.

He wrote this letter to Verizon, but has received no response.

To Whom It May Concern,

I have been a Verizon Wireless customer for years, and I have a billing issue that I can’t seem to get fixed through Customer Service. In January of this year, when my contract expired, I wanted to upgrade 2 of my 3 lines to smartphones. However, since Sprint was quite a bit cheaper, I called to terminate my Verizon service. I was then transferred to the retentions department.

After being transferred around and offered various promotions, one of which was “Smartphones Talk Free”, which I declined, one CSR offered me a promo that was not publicized. The plan consisted of a $20 credit PER data line, so the cost for each of my 2 data lines would be $9.99/month. However, the CSR said I would need to bump my 700 minute plan up to 1,400 minutes to get this promotion. I declined and asked to disconnect my service. She then put me on hold to talk to her supervisor. She returned and said that I would be able to get the promotion on my 700 minute plan to keep me as a customer. This sounded too good to be true, so I went over the promo several times with her to confirm the $20 credit PER data line. She verified this and renewed my contract.

After I hung up, I searched online and found that many other people were getting this same unpublicized promotion during December 2010 and January 2011. It still seemed too good to be true so I called Customer Service again and spoke to a different CSR. I asked her what promotions were on my account, and sure enough, she said I would receive a $20 credit PER line every month, for a total credit of $40.

As the months went on, I never saw my $20 credit PER line, so from January, to just this evening, August 20th (7 months), I called Customer Service, the Retentions Department, and chatted online with many CSRs, but no one would credit me for the promotion. One manager in the retentions department, [redacted], promised to straighten this out and call me back. He never did fix it or call me back, and I was never able to get transferred back to him again. So, I am still paying the full cost of the data plans each month. I even reached out to @VZWSupport on Twitter many times, since they are always bragging about the ‘amazing customer support’, but have not heard back.

Even though all of the CSRs were very polite, and the VZW phone service has been great, I would never have renewed my contract without this credit. I was not given the promotion I was promised, and was treated unfairly, and this is why I am writing. This error will cost me almost $1,000 over my contract. I am willing to go to small claims court, but before VZW and myself bother with that, I am hoping that someone will be able to credit me for the past 7 months of extra data charges, and to apply this promotion going forward.

Like I said, service has been great, so I really hope we can get this issue fixed so that I can stay a Verizon Wireless customer. If you need to contact me, I can be reached at xxx-xxx-xxxx. Thank you for your time.

No one answered this message, so it’s time to harness the power of the executive e-mail carpet bomb. Here are some other people who have used this tactic successfully against Verizon Wireless:

Man Escapes Verizon ETF Via EECB
1 EECB Does What 60 Hours, 40 Calls, And 7 Replacements Couldn’t

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