Verizon & Apple: Two Customer Service Stories

VERIZON WIRELESS

Let’s start with the bad story — Verizon.

On Friday, May 17th, I ordered a Verizon modem (USB730L) and an Unlimited data plan with it from Verizon’s web site. This is the plan I gushed about previously on my blog: Verizon’s Prepaid $65 Unlimited Plan

The USB730L modem and 1-month of the Unlimited plan cost $345.67. I thought it money well spent as I now hoped I could ditch my other costly Verizon data plan.

Or so I thought.

The modem arrived at our mail forwarding service on Monday, May 20th, and we had it sent with our other mail to our current RV campground in Redding, CA. Our mail and Verizon modem arrived on Friday, May 24th.

From the MIRC (Mobile Internet Resource Center) I knew that after May 21st Verizon’s Unlimited plan would no longer be available. However, I thought I was safe because I bought the modem and plan before May 21st. I was dead wrong.

The modem came packaged with a note saying it had already been activated. However, after spending several days speaking to Verizon reps, supervisors, and managers, I was unable to activate the Unlimited plan on my USB760L modem.

During those several days, I was given correct, incorrect, misleading, and I think outright lies from Verizon. While several Verizon reps truly tried to help me, others were more interested in getting me out of their queue as quickly as possible.

Awful experience, but I was not surprised by it.

I sent the modem back to Verizon today, Wednesday, May 29th, but it should take 5 or so days to get back to Verizon. There is a 14-day window to return the modem which ends on Friday, May 31st.

Please take my survey:

(A) All of the $345.67 I spent will be refunded.
(B) Some of the $345.67 will be refunded.
(C) None of the $345.67 will be refunded.
(D) None of the $345.67 will be refunded, and Verizon will add additional charge(s).

APPLE

On Friday, May 25th, my Apple email account stopped working. No email on my iMac, iPad, or iPhone. I thought “What did Jan (my wife) do now?” Actually, I thought it was something I did . . . some inadvertent click or swipe.

I contacted Apple via their online chat. The first rep was nice enough, but gave me instructions (which I followed) that closed my browser and the online chat session with it. Not too impressed with Apple support at this point.

The next rep recommended that we talk via phone instead of online. Great idea. He asked if he could watch my iMac screen while he did the troubleshooting. I gave him permission, but after several attempts to fix my email, it wasn’t happening, so he got an Apple engineer involved.

Pretty rapidly Jason, the Apple engineer, figured out that my email problem was not on my end. He admitted that Apple had an “event” (or “issue”, I forgot his term) on their end. I felt better for no particular reason.

Anyway, Jason said it might take a few days to fix as this was Memorial Day weekend. He emailed me on my Gmail account (always have a 2nd one, guys) with a case number and his personal voicemail number. He warned me that I might lose email that was saved on my Apple account.

On Tuesday the 28th I left a message on his voicemail asking if he could expedite my email fix. I didn’t expect much as Jason is off Tuesdays. Nevertheless, a few hours later, my email began working again. There were 100 or so new messages, plus all my saved messages were still available. Eureka!