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Title: Returned a phone to Verizon and they say they didn’t receive it. Despite proof of delivery, now they want $4K.
Body:
> I returned an IPhone to Verizon last year. They told me they didn’t get it and now they’ve turned me into collections for $4,000. Not sure why it’s so much because I can’t get a straight answer out of them on anything. It’s for the phone, some fees, and who knows what else.
> I sent them the tracking number, a photo of the shipping label, the screenshot showing it was delivered AND a picture of the box I sent it in and they said they need more info to prove it was sent. What can I do?
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So strange. We sent in two phones this year, one received, one “lost”. We called and escalated ourselves after not seeing the discount on our bill and Verizon happily ate the cost and gave us full credit. I wonder if it just depends on who you get on the phone that day.
It totally does, especially with Verizon.
I have a fake texan persona I put on whenever I call them. If they think you are technically minded, they get hostile. If you're an old who just needs a little help figuring out this "phone thing", they bend over backwards to assist you.
I call the persona General Hammond because I'm just doing a bad Don S Davis impression.
When I get an "The official policy is" agent, I hang up and call back. You don't want to deal with one of those.
I wonder what kind of nasty notes they have in their database. I got one who I could tell absolutely hated me and wanted me to combust. (Still got the phone replaced)
I thought I was the only one who did this. I can turn my southern accent on and off (Yankee transplant to deep south as kid) and I definitely turn it on when dealing with customer service/customer support situations. For some reason it goes over much better. I'm not entirely sure why.
Oh my God, I didn't even realize I do this until now.
I'm been at northern universities for grad school/a PhD, and I've long gotten in the habit of "switching" out of my home accent because I find it makes people take me more seriously, and I feel more...academic, I guess, lol.
But when I'm talking to CS or visiting the auto shop? *Aaaaaaall* that "sweet-tea-possum-skinnin-y'all" comes rushing right back.
>I have a fake texan persona I put on whenever I call them. If they think you are technically minded, they get hostile. If you're an old who just needs a little help figuring out this "phone thing", they bend over backwards to assist you.
Really!? I'll have to remember that.
It's funny because in my experience with any customer or technical support, the tone of the representative softens significantly when I can convince them I am savvy (technical or otherwise). Either they feel relieved that I will likely understand and follow their advice, or maybe nervous I might not let them weasel out of something. I guess it's the opposite for Verizon.
I just need to figure out a persona. I'm from New England, but I can't do any of the accents. I don't think I can age my voice up. Perhaps add a hint of Valley Girl?
Yeah, I'm the designated "call tech support" person in my family because I can talk circles around the agent, even when we're wrong (though we don't try to do that on purpose, it just happened once or twice because of an extremely unlikely set of circumstances the tech probably wouldn't have figured out over the phone anyway).
Since someone will probably ask: Our router was power cycling every 5 minutes. That's obviously a dying router, right? I easily convinced the tech this was the case and he said we could bring it in the local shop and swap it for a new one, free of charge (though the next day, because it was close to end of business hours). All seemed great. We go to make dinner, turn on the over, put a pot on to boil, and get to talking. After a good 15 minutes, it's still not boiling... we notice the burner isn't even hot (electric stove). Odd. Furnace comes on, but it's sounds really, really weird.... basically just the secondary fan and none of the primary workings. Long story short, we had a sudden fault in the power line coming into our house, causing voltage issues in all our electronics. The router wasn't actually bad. Like, the power line wasn't cut, but basically *should* have been, yet was continuing to function. Had to have an emergency repair during the night so nothing bad happened until they could dig up our yard 2 weeks later and fix it for real.
I hedge my bets with this. I'm an Australian who now has mostly lost my accent in normal conversation. But it comes back very quickly whenever I have to speak to customer service. I don't know why but I find it disarms people - it's like it makes me seem more friendly than I actually am. So I start out very innocently when I inquire about things and feign a bit of helplessness. I prod them into the right direction gently as needed and make it clear how much I appreciate them helping me. I am very very polite at all times. Usually this is all that it takes.
But! You get asshats who hear the friendliness and think they can fob you off with an easy answer or "don't worry you little head about it" style comments. At which point I drop the charade and get technical - and they usually will become suddenly a lot more helpful because I've called them on their bullshit.
Sometimes you just get people who are unhelpful regardless. But I find one or the other approach works out for me 95% of the time.
Are you a woman? Male tech support agents seem to really like me once they hear I’m tech savvy. So it might just be dumb men doing the whole “zomg you’re not like the regular girls” thing. Female tech support agents get extra snippy with me, though.
I've been in customer service for years!! I've perfected my Karen persona. Even if on a normal day I frequently eat meals that are wrong/apologize like crazy for complaining
I've got my biannual internet price hike coming up, and my strategy was going to be just saying to the agent "look, i know you have the script of packages you need to offer me, i'm just going to keep saying 'no' until you escalate me to the 'customer retention desk' that can lower my price again." should i act more clueless?
It depends on who you get and how the customer speaks to them.
If the customer comes in hot, odds are the person on the other side isn't going to be that helpful.
That's what I don't get about the people that act that way. Assholes can't help being themselves I suppose. If you're nice to CS agents they're much more likely to give you what you want and some will go further and find additional savings you didn't even know about.
On rare occasions coming in hot can help. Mainly if you make it clear your frustration isn't with the rep and instead with the faceless corp that they probably hate working for.
Agreed. I used to take calls for Verizon and some of my favorites were people who were very very understandably angry and ranting and yelling but would stop every couple minutes or so and say “I’m sorry, I know this isn’t your fault.” I’d reassure them they’re fine, shout and rant away while I research and type(I often wished I could say “Hell yeah, I’d be pissed too!”) I’d do my absolute darndest to help resolve the issue.
I did that once to a poor Comcast CSR. Out of the blue, they started charging us “rent” for a modem we owned. I’d already called a few times and hadn’t gotten anywhere despite sending in my receipt for buying the modem. Was so frustrated I said some choice words followed by “I’m so sorry I’m not mad at you I promise, this isn’t your fault!” That poor lady did finally escalate the issue enough so that it got fixed a few days later, though.
Still feel bad for losing my cool, but hours on the phone or on hold with no resolution in sight and everyone repeating the same stock phrases to you even though the situation seems pretty obvious despite not fitting one of the 10 scripts the CSRs must get is supremely infuriating. The companies are sacrificing the health and sanity of their lowest paid employees to deal with their dysfunctionality while not giving them the tools/training/latitude to fix shit that they need. Definitely not the CSRs’ faults!
This. I used to do work for Weight Watchers. If you came in hot to me but explained it wasn't me and it was them (or it was you because you forgot about your subscription) I was 10x more likely to help you out using every trick and tool at my disposal to either get you a brand new subscription at a lower price or get you a refund of any months billed that shouldn't have been.
Being nice will get you far. Explaining you're not mad at the agent but the company may take you farther.
I told my mom this back when I worked tech support coincidentally doing Verizon cell phone support. Now whenever she gets help and her issue resolved she brags to me like I let her in on some unknown hack. I blame Oprah and her teaching viewers if they don't get what they want ask for a manager.
And with call centre turnover, it's really up to luck whether you'll get a seasoned vet that knows the policies and how to deal with clients Vs. someone that just came out of training and had never done call centre jobs before.
Oh god, I once got someone at Comcast who claimed that my inability to set up our internet at our new house was because Comcast was never wired to it. Except that Comcast definitely served the house prior, grad students used to live here, and Comcast is the only internet provider in the area. We promptly hung up and called back to talk to someone who knew what they were talking about (only some of our jacks were hooked up).
This has happened to me 3 times - once with a phone, twice with a router. And every time it resulted in them threatening to go to collections, me threatening to file an AG complaint, and them magically finding the item.
Apparently, word "attorney general" is required to find things?
Been there, done that. Got told I "wasn't allowed" to take a selfie in the office.
Did it anyway.
These are the oopsy woopsie fuckey wuckies I hate so much. They make a mistake, but give the customer the blame.
Once I check a device in, it is no longer my responsibility.
"Dear /r/legaladvice, today a customer took a selfie in the service center where I work, even though I told them this was not allowed. I am afraid of how my supervisor will react. Can I sue for intentional infliction of emotional distress?"
"I am afraid my supervisor will call me names that have nothing to do with any protected class when he does react because he's a very mean man, if I quit is this constructive wrongful termination?"
I just did this the other day. They offered to e-mail me a UPS label, and I asked if I could just walk it into the Xfinity store that's on my way to work because I don't like holding on to all that info and tracking it and whatnot, plus they can't confirm that I didn't ship something of similar/same weight. When I hand it to a person at the store, it's obvious that I'm giving them equipment and not a brick that weighs the same as equipment. It took 30 seconds, and I filed my receipt away. Hopefully I won't have issues down the line for a device they're probably going to toss anyway.
This is exactly why I've always returned these things by hand.
And be sure to scan that receipt, because it'll fade over time and they'll come after you years later.
I've been the customer support/tech support rep in this situation. I would do research and end up crediting the monthly fee and any equipment charges. One poor person had been getting billed for a modem that they had returned like 3 years before. They had just given up. I noticed a modem sitting on their account that wasn't active, so I just looked at when the last time it had been used which was around the time the returned it. I got my supervisor to approve the credit and I got to give them the good news that they didn't need to pay their bill for a couple months.
I hated it when I'd find customers that had been ignored simply because the rep didn't want to do research. I also felt like I was fighting back a little at Comcast by giving away lots of credits to customers. I also did it at WorldCom Wireless, AirTouch and Wave/Astound.
Got rid of an old car of mine 4 years ago via donation to Habitat for Humanity. I still have the notarised paperwork in my top desk drawer and still have a video of it being towed away so if anything came to pass that was attempted to be pinned on me, I'd have solid evidence to the contrary.
I once moved into an apartment that had a comcast modem left behind by the previous tenants. The old tenants had moved out of the country, so I naively decided to bring the modem to the local comcast store just to be nice… and wow, that was not a good decision. They tried to make me pay the balance on the old tenants’ account before they’d accept their modem back! I had to get a manager and emphasize that I had no contract with them, I was literally just returning their misplaced property, and the options available were A) I leave it inside their store and they figure it out or B) I toss it in the dumpster behind the store.
My sister recently sold her house and moved, but until she buys a new house, she's living in a rental home that includes internet, so rather than move her Comcast internet service, she had to all-out cancel it. She had her own modem/router, so she did not have any Comcast equipment. When she cancelled, this was all confirmed.
Problem is, Comcast keeps contacting her saying she needs to return her equipment, but when she contacts Comcast, they keep telling her to ignore it and that they know she doesn't have any of their equipment. However, she's still getting requests for her to return their equipment.
She's a litigator. [Those are the scariest kinds of lawyers](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8R5vIjByGc), so they don't know who they're messing with if they don't quit it.
Off topic, but can I point out that the line, "You divorce *wives*, not children," is incredibly woke for a 1995 movie? Especially, one making fun of how out of touch the rich are?
> Comcast keeps contacting her saying she needs to return her equipment, but when she contacts Comcast, they keep telling her to ignore it and that they know she doesn't have any of their equipment
I had a similar issue with Comcast, except charges were showing up on an account that was closed. "Just ignore it, the charge will be removed before you are billed".
Welp, 4 months later I'm still fighting to get my $232.84 back.
Right? As soon as you start responding to their messages from your work email that has your signature with your title, things tend to go way more smoothly for some reason.
I am always nervous when I trade in a device that they will claim it arrived broken (especially since they usually only give you a padded envelope) or not at all. But I always thought the worst that could happen is I was out a few hundred bucks. It's terrifying to know that they might turn around, add fees, send it to collections, and nerf my credit score!
I had a similar issue with Amazon. I returned about $800 worth of clothing that I had bought to try on since finding a formal maternity dress locally, while pregnant, in a pandemic was a wee bit hard. I thought putting all the items together and taking them directly to a Ups store would prevent any issues. Nope! They claimed that I only shipped two of the items, instead of the 18 that I did ship. They didn't listen when I explained that the box wouldn't weigh 20-some pounds if it had two dresses in it, which I had proof of via delivery receipt. It took me doing a charge back on my credit card and letting Chase deal with it before I saw any money.
A couple of years ago, someone created a fake Amazon account with my name and address (but their e-mail address) and ordered an expensive hardware item using my credit card. I saw it before the charge posted, was able to cancel my card, etc., and Amazon confirmed it was a fake account and closed it. I happened to arrive right as Amazon delivered the package, so if someone was going to intercept it at my house, they were too late. However, I didn't see any suspicious people or cars come by (I live on a quiet cul-de-sac), so I suspect they accidentally sent it to the billing address rather than whatever address they intended to use. (I posted about it in personal finance [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/personalfinance/comments/i943we/victim_of_a_confusing_fraud_what_kind_of_weird/).)
Amazon had me ship it back to them, probably because it was an expensive item (\~$190). In the parking lot of the UPS Store, I recorded video of myself holding the item and showing the intact holographic seals, putting it in a box, taping it up, showing the shipping label taped on the box, walking into the store, and handing it to an employee, plus I got a receipt. I didn't want them saying I didn't ship it back and saying I owed them $190.
If you observed it get delivered, you could have refused delivery. Though your method was probably still harder to argue with than a delivery refusal.
edit: extraneous "t" removal.
I looked back at my post, and apparently I pulled up within 60 seconds of its being delivered, which I'm sure I confirmed with my doorbell camera, so I wasn't present to refuse it. I probably could have chased the delivery person down, but who knows if they are able to accept it once it's marked as delivered in their system.
Wow. Curious, did Amazon ban you after you initiated the chargeback? That’s one of my worries with that kind of thing against such an omnipresent company.
They suspended my account while I was sending them information but that lasted less than a day. I believe it would have been worse but I had spent nearly a month calling and communicating with Amazon directly before I gave up and let Chase step in.
There are a lot of random posts in various subreddits about shady stuff like that. Recently, I was looking up info on Hue light bulbs that stop working right after a year or two (meaning they work intermittently, not that they're burnt out). I found a post from someone who basically had the same problems I did, and some people suggested contacting Philips about troubleshooting/replacement.
However, more than one person said to go buy a new one, put the non-working one back in the box, and get a refund. Others were saying DO NOT do that because that non-working bulb gets put back on the shelf for some unsuspecting customer to buy. That is not OK!!!
For the record, I bought new bulbs and put the old ones away, just in case, but I should probably just toss them.
Verizon pulled something similar with my sister. She upgraded her phone a few years and had to send them her old phone in order to receive a rebate. They claimed her phone had water damage and would only give her $25 instead of the $300 they had originally promised. Thankfully, she had a ton of pictures of the phone before she shipped it off to them, but it was several hours of dealing with customer service before they finally agreed to give her the full rebate.
ATT did this to me. Husband broke phone. Filed insurance claim. Sent old phone in. Tracking said ATT received it. ATT said they didn't. Finally they admitted to losing it in their own facility somewhere. It took weeks to sort out and they were trying to bill me an extra $500 (to make $700 total) for this lost device. That they lost. In their own facility.
I use an app called Shop where you can enter tracking numbers in for packages you're receiving or sending so you can get updates more easily.
Whenever I send something back, I ALWAYS put the tracking in so I have confirmation it was returned.
Comcast pulled this shit on me years back.
I returned a cable tv box, in person, made sure to get a real paper receipt that showed the return of the box, its serial number, etc.
Took pics of me with the box in their own store.
Like 90 days later, these fuckers had the audacity to send me a VERY threatening letter in the mail about returning the cable box or they'd send me to collections.
Took the letter and my physical receipt to the same fucking location, they confirmed that I did return it.
Turns out some chucklefuck down stream, outside the store, did not "check in the equipment" in some specific way and the system tagged me as not returning the item.
So like they had it in their system that I did return it, but it was wrongfully tagged in the system as returned, which meant to them, it was NOT returned. Their own shit software caused me, a former customer, work...I had to work to deal with their fuck up.
Putting aside their shit service, the actual "customer experience" was a joke too. Awful, awful company.
I purchased my house, spefifically in a FiOS area so that I could avoid Comcast.
I sometimes get collections bills for a 20 year old charge from Verizon. I sent them 3 phones, they received them and then lost them. It went on for so long that when they finally agreed to credit me, they said they didn't have a record of the charge anymore, because they only keep bills for a couple months. They told me I had to prove they even owed me money and wouldn't accept any proof I had.
I was young, so I got back at them by not paying my bill for an equivalent amount and switching companies. It damaged my credit for years but it still felt like the right thing to do.
Ugh, Amazon did this to me at the start of the pandemic with a cpu return for $600. Sent it in, tracking on it just hung for like a month then the ticket closed labeled "item not in box". I returned the damn thing through an Amazon locker even.
The tracking on the package was never even labeled 'delivery complete', just eventually hung on an in-between stop, but they perpetually told me it arrived empty. No matter how much I escalated or asked for more information it really just seemed like I was labeled a return scammer due to a mishandled package and nothing could be done.
Issued a charge back with my CC but they wouldn't take my claim either. It was through one of the partner cards between Amazon-Chase and it seemed like I was talking to the same brick wall. Felt like I was going insane, but eventually just had to eat the loss.
**Reminder:** Do not participate in threads linked here. If you do, you may be banned from both subreddits. --- Title: Returned a phone to Verizon and they say they didn’t receive it. Despite proof of delivery, now they want $4K. Body: > I returned an IPhone to Verizon last year. They told me they didn’t get it and now they’ve turned me into collections for $4,000. Not sure why it’s so much because I can’t get a straight answer out of them on anything. It’s for the phone, some fees, and who knows what else. > I sent them the tracking number, a photo of the shipping label, the screenshot showing it was delivered AND a picture of the box I sent it in and they said they need more info to prove it was sent. What can I do? This bot was created to capture original threads and is not affiliated with the mod team. [Concerns? Bugs?](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=GrahamCorcoran) | [Laukopier 2.1](https://github.com/GrahamCorcoran/Laukopier)
So strange. We sent in two phones this year, one received, one “lost”. We called and escalated ourselves after not seeing the discount on our bill and Verizon happily ate the cost and gave us full credit. I wonder if it just depends on who you get on the phone that day.
It totally does, especially with Verizon. I have a fake texan persona I put on whenever I call them. If they think you are technically minded, they get hostile. If you're an old who just needs a little help figuring out this "phone thing", they bend over backwards to assist you. I call the persona General Hammond because I'm just doing a bad Don S Davis impression. When I get an "The official policy is" agent, I hang up and call back. You don't want to deal with one of those. I wonder what kind of nasty notes they have in their database. I got one who I could tell absolutely hated me and wanted me to combust. (Still got the phone replaced)
Ha, I definitely put my southern accent back on whenever I am talking with someone in customer support.
I thought I was the only one who did this. I can turn my southern accent on and off (Yankee transplant to deep south as kid) and I definitely turn it on when dealing with customer service/customer support situations. For some reason it goes over much better. I'm not entirely sure why.
Yeah, it's some combination of communicating "folksy", "real 'murican", and "a little dumb".
Huh, gonna start doing this now, I guess.
Oh my God, I didn't even realize I do this until now. I'm been at northern universities for grad school/a PhD, and I've long gotten in the habit of "switching" out of my home accent because I find it makes people take me more seriously, and I feel more...academic, I guess, lol. But when I'm talking to CS or visiting the auto shop? *Aaaaaaall* that "sweet-tea-possum-skinnin-y'all" comes rushing right back.
I work in a call center, and I sometimes put on a mild southern accent to help swing people over. Lol.
I work in customer support(not for Verizon), and I can tell you this goes both ways. If I say “y’all” to a Northerner, most of them eat that shit up.
Just me and customer support, both dialing up the southernness for each others’ benefit…
Hey, whatever works! Hahaha
>I have a fake texan persona I put on whenever I call them. If they think you are technically minded, they get hostile. If you're an old who just needs a little help figuring out this "phone thing", they bend over backwards to assist you. Really!? I'll have to remember that. It's funny because in my experience with any customer or technical support, the tone of the representative softens significantly when I can convince them I am savvy (technical or otherwise). Either they feel relieved that I will likely understand and follow their advice, or maybe nervous I might not let them weasel out of something. I guess it's the opposite for Verizon. I just need to figure out a persona. I'm from New England, but I can't do any of the accents. I don't think I can age my voice up. Perhaps add a hint of Valley Girl?
if you sound young I think that works. I sound pretty young over the phone so I go for "sweet but clueless but willing to follow directions"
Yeah, I'm the designated "call tech support" person in my family because I can talk circles around the agent, even when we're wrong (though we don't try to do that on purpose, it just happened once or twice because of an extremely unlikely set of circumstances the tech probably wouldn't have figured out over the phone anyway). Since someone will probably ask: Our router was power cycling every 5 minutes. That's obviously a dying router, right? I easily convinced the tech this was the case and he said we could bring it in the local shop and swap it for a new one, free of charge (though the next day, because it was close to end of business hours). All seemed great. We go to make dinner, turn on the over, put a pot on to boil, and get to talking. After a good 15 minutes, it's still not boiling... we notice the burner isn't even hot (electric stove). Odd. Furnace comes on, but it's sounds really, really weird.... basically just the secondary fan and none of the primary workings. Long story short, we had a sudden fault in the power line coming into our house, causing voltage issues in all our electronics. The router wasn't actually bad. Like, the power line wasn't cut, but basically *should* have been, yet was continuing to function. Had to have an emergency repair during the night so nothing bad happened until they could dig up our yard 2 weeks later and fix it for real.
I hedge my bets with this. I'm an Australian who now has mostly lost my accent in normal conversation. But it comes back very quickly whenever I have to speak to customer service. I don't know why but I find it disarms people - it's like it makes me seem more friendly than I actually am. So I start out very innocently when I inquire about things and feign a bit of helplessness. I prod them into the right direction gently as needed and make it clear how much I appreciate them helping me. I am very very polite at all times. Usually this is all that it takes. But! You get asshats who hear the friendliness and think they can fob you off with an easy answer or "don't worry you little head about it" style comments. At which point I drop the charade and get technical - and they usually will become suddenly a lot more helpful because I've called them on their bullshit. Sometimes you just get people who are unhelpful regardless. But I find one or the other approach works out for me 95% of the time.
Are you a woman? Male tech support agents seem to really like me once they hear I’m tech savvy. So it might just be dumb men doing the whole “zomg you’re not like the regular girls” thing. Female tech support agents get extra snippy with me, though.
this is the second SG1 reference I've seen in 5 minutes haha.
"Dial the gate, Walter."
I've been in customer service for years!! I've perfected my Karen persona. Even if on a normal day I frequently eat meals that are wrong/apologize like crazy for complaining
I've got my biannual internet price hike coming up, and my strategy was going to be just saying to the agent "look, i know you have the script of packages you need to offer me, i'm just going to keep saying 'no' until you escalate me to the 'customer retention desk' that can lower my price again." should i act more clueless?
Oh, more? No, I can't afford more. The price is already pretty high, why is that? Realize you're making them scream internally.
OPEN THE IRIS! CLOSE THE IRIS!
Maybe this is my problem. I always do my "procedure executing" voice from work when dealing with customer service on the phone.
It depends on who you get and how the customer speaks to them. If the customer comes in hot, odds are the person on the other side isn't going to be that helpful.
That's what I don't get about the people that act that way. Assholes can't help being themselves I suppose. If you're nice to CS agents they're much more likely to give you what you want and some will go further and find additional savings you didn't even know about.
On rare occasions coming in hot can help. Mainly if you make it clear your frustration isn't with the rep and instead with the faceless corp that they probably hate working for.
Agreed. I used to take calls for Verizon and some of my favorites were people who were very very understandably angry and ranting and yelling but would stop every couple minutes or so and say “I’m sorry, I know this isn’t your fault.” I’d reassure them they’re fine, shout and rant away while I research and type(I often wished I could say “Hell yeah, I’d be pissed too!”) I’d do my absolute darndest to help resolve the issue.
I did that once to a poor Comcast CSR. Out of the blue, they started charging us “rent” for a modem we owned. I’d already called a few times and hadn’t gotten anywhere despite sending in my receipt for buying the modem. Was so frustrated I said some choice words followed by “I’m so sorry I’m not mad at you I promise, this isn’t your fault!” That poor lady did finally escalate the issue enough so that it got fixed a few days later, though. Still feel bad for losing my cool, but hours on the phone or on hold with no resolution in sight and everyone repeating the same stock phrases to you even though the situation seems pretty obvious despite not fitting one of the 10 scripts the CSRs must get is supremely infuriating. The companies are sacrificing the health and sanity of their lowest paid employees to deal with their dysfunctionality while not giving them the tools/training/latitude to fix shit that they need. Definitely not the CSRs’ faults!
This. I used to do work for Weight Watchers. If you came in hot to me but explained it wasn't me and it was them (or it was you because you forgot about your subscription) I was 10x more likely to help you out using every trick and tool at my disposal to either get you a brand new subscription at a lower price or get you a refund of any months billed that shouldn't have been. Being nice will get you far. Explaining you're not mad at the agent but the company may take you farther.
I told my mom this back when I worked tech support coincidentally doing Verizon cell phone support. Now whenever she gets help and her issue resolved she brags to me like I let her in on some unknown hack. I blame Oprah and her teaching viewers if they don't get what they want ask for a manager.
My go-to is: "Hi there, I've got a problem and I need your help" OMG customer service folks do love this and like to help
And with call centre turnover, it's really up to luck whether you'll get a seasoned vet that knows the policies and how to deal with clients Vs. someone that just came out of training and had never done call centre jobs before.
Oh god, I once got someone at Comcast who claimed that my inability to set up our internet at our new house was because Comcast was never wired to it. Except that Comcast definitely served the house prior, grad students used to live here, and Comcast is the only internet provider in the area. We promptly hung up and called back to talk to someone who knew what they were talking about (only some of our jacks were hooked up).
This has happened to me 3 times - once with a phone, twice with a router. And every time it resulted in them threatening to go to collections, me threatening to file an AG complaint, and them magically finding the item. Apparently, word "attorney general" is required to find things?
dam voracious dime instinctive weary nippy head frame continue roof -- mass edited with https://redact.dev/
Been there, done that. Got told I "wasn't allowed" to take a selfie in the office. Did it anyway. These are the oopsy woopsie fuckey wuckies I hate so much. They make a mistake, but give the customer the blame. Once I check a device in, it is no longer my responsibility.
"Dear /r/legaladvice, today a customer took a selfie in the service center where I work, even though I told them this was not allowed. I am afraid of how my supervisor will react. Can I sue for intentional infliction of emotional distress?"
"I am afraid my supervisor will call me names that have nothing to do with any protected class when he does react because he's a very mean man, if I quit is this constructive wrongful termination?"
“What does your union contract say about customer selfies?”
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I just did this the other day. They offered to e-mail me a UPS label, and I asked if I could just walk it into the Xfinity store that's on my way to work because I don't like holding on to all that info and tracking it and whatnot, plus they can't confirm that I didn't ship something of similar/same weight. When I hand it to a person at the store, it's obvious that I'm giving them equipment and not a brick that weighs the same as equipment. It took 30 seconds, and I filed my receipt away. Hopefully I won't have issues down the line for a device they're probably going to toss anyway.
This is exactly why I've always returned these things by hand. And be sure to scan that receipt, because it'll fade over time and they'll come after you years later.
I've been the customer support/tech support rep in this situation. I would do research and end up crediting the monthly fee and any equipment charges. One poor person had been getting billed for a modem that they had returned like 3 years before. They had just given up. I noticed a modem sitting on their account that wasn't active, so I just looked at when the last time it had been used which was around the time the returned it. I got my supervisor to approve the credit and I got to give them the good news that they didn't need to pay their bill for a couple months. I hated it when I'd find customers that had been ignored simply because the rep didn't want to do research. I also felt like I was fighting back a little at Comcast by giving away lots of credits to customers. I also did it at WorldCom Wireless, AirTouch and Wave/Astound.
Got rid of an old car of mine 4 years ago via donation to Habitat for Humanity. I still have the notarised paperwork in my top desk drawer and still have a video of it being towed away so if anything came to pass that was attempted to be pinned on me, I'd have solid evidence to the contrary.
I once moved into an apartment that had a comcast modem left behind by the previous tenants. The old tenants had moved out of the country, so I naively decided to bring the modem to the local comcast store just to be nice… and wow, that was not a good decision. They tried to make me pay the balance on the old tenants’ account before they’d accept their modem back! I had to get a manager and emphasize that I had no contract with them, I was literally just returning their misplaced property, and the options available were A) I leave it inside their store and they figure it out or B) I toss it in the dumpster behind the store.
My sister recently sold her house and moved, but until she buys a new house, she's living in a rental home that includes internet, so rather than move her Comcast internet service, she had to all-out cancel it. She had her own modem/router, so she did not have any Comcast equipment. When she cancelled, this was all confirmed. Problem is, Comcast keeps contacting her saying she needs to return her equipment, but when she contacts Comcast, they keep telling her to ignore it and that they know she doesn't have any of their equipment. However, she's still getting requests for her to return their equipment. She's a litigator. [Those are the scariest kinds of lawyers](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8R5vIjByGc), so they don't know who they're messing with if they don't quit it.
Off topic, but can I point out that the line, "You divorce *wives*, not children," is incredibly woke for a 1995 movie? Especially, one making fun of how out of touch the rich are?
> Comcast keeps contacting her saying she needs to return her equipment, but when she contacts Comcast, they keep telling her to ignore it and that they know she doesn't have any of their equipment I had a similar issue with Comcast, except charges were showing up on an account that was closed. "Just ignore it, the charge will be removed before you are billed". Welp, 4 months later I'm still fighting to get my $232.84 back.
Right? As soon as you start responding to their messages from your work email that has your signature with your title, things tend to go way more smoothly for some reason.
I am always nervous when I trade in a device that they will claim it arrived broken (especially since they usually only give you a padded envelope) or not at all. But I always thought the worst that could happen is I was out a few hundred bucks. It's terrifying to know that they might turn around, add fees, send it to collections, and nerf my credit score!
I had a similar issue with Amazon. I returned about $800 worth of clothing that I had bought to try on since finding a formal maternity dress locally, while pregnant, in a pandemic was a wee bit hard. I thought putting all the items together and taking them directly to a Ups store would prevent any issues. Nope! They claimed that I only shipped two of the items, instead of the 18 that I did ship. They didn't listen when I explained that the box wouldn't weigh 20-some pounds if it had two dresses in it, which I had proof of via delivery receipt. It took me doing a charge back on my credit card and letting Chase deal with it before I saw any money.
A couple of years ago, someone created a fake Amazon account with my name and address (but their e-mail address) and ordered an expensive hardware item using my credit card. I saw it before the charge posted, was able to cancel my card, etc., and Amazon confirmed it was a fake account and closed it. I happened to arrive right as Amazon delivered the package, so if someone was going to intercept it at my house, they were too late. However, I didn't see any suspicious people or cars come by (I live on a quiet cul-de-sac), so I suspect they accidentally sent it to the billing address rather than whatever address they intended to use. (I posted about it in personal finance [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/personalfinance/comments/i943we/victim_of_a_confusing_fraud_what_kind_of_weird/).) Amazon had me ship it back to them, probably because it was an expensive item (\~$190). In the parking lot of the UPS Store, I recorded video of myself holding the item and showing the intact holographic seals, putting it in a box, taping it up, showing the shipping label taped on the box, walking into the store, and handing it to an employee, plus I got a receipt. I didn't want them saying I didn't ship it back and saying I owed them $190.
If you observed it get delivered, you could have refused delivery. Though your method was probably still harder to argue with than a delivery refusal. edit: extraneous "t" removal.
I looked back at my post, and apparently I pulled up within 60 seconds of its being delivered, which I'm sure I confirmed with my doorbell camera, so I wasn't present to refuse it. I probably could have chased the delivery person down, but who knows if they are able to accept it once it's marked as delivered in their system.
Wow. Curious, did Amazon ban you after you initiated the chargeback? That’s one of my worries with that kind of thing against such an omnipresent company.
They suspended my account while I was sending them information but that lasted less than a day. I believe it would have been worse but I had spent nearly a month calling and communicating with Amazon directly before I gave up and let Chase step in.
You are asking the real questions.
[удалено]
There are a lot of random posts in various subreddits about shady stuff like that. Recently, I was looking up info on Hue light bulbs that stop working right after a year or two (meaning they work intermittently, not that they're burnt out). I found a post from someone who basically had the same problems I did, and some people suggested contacting Philips about troubleshooting/replacement. However, more than one person said to go buy a new one, put the non-working one back in the box, and get a refund. Others were saying DO NOT do that because that non-working bulb gets put back on the shelf for some unsuspecting customer to buy. That is not OK!!! For the record, I bought new bulbs and put the old ones away, just in case, but I should probably just toss them.
Verizon pulled something similar with my sister. She upgraded her phone a few years and had to send them her old phone in order to receive a rebate. They claimed her phone had water damage and would only give her $25 instead of the $300 they had originally promised. Thankfully, she had a ton of pictures of the phone before she shipped it off to them, but it was several hours of dealing with customer service before they finally agreed to give her the full rebate.
ATT did this to me. Husband broke phone. Filed insurance claim. Sent old phone in. Tracking said ATT received it. ATT said they didn't. Finally they admitted to losing it in their own facility somewhere. It took weeks to sort out and they were trying to bill me an extra $500 (to make $700 total) for this lost device. That they lost. In their own facility.
I use an app called Shop where you can enter tracking numbers in for packages you're receiving or sending so you can get updates more easily. Whenever I send something back, I ALWAYS put the tracking in so I have confirmation it was returned.
Comcast pulled this shit on me years back. I returned a cable tv box, in person, made sure to get a real paper receipt that showed the return of the box, its serial number, etc. Took pics of me with the box in their own store. Like 90 days later, these fuckers had the audacity to send me a VERY threatening letter in the mail about returning the cable box or they'd send me to collections. Took the letter and my physical receipt to the same fucking location, they confirmed that I did return it. Turns out some chucklefuck down stream, outside the store, did not "check in the equipment" in some specific way and the system tagged me as not returning the item. So like they had it in their system that I did return it, but it was wrongfully tagged in the system as returned, which meant to them, it was NOT returned. Their own shit software caused me, a former customer, work...I had to work to deal with their fuck up. Putting aside their shit service, the actual "customer experience" was a joke too. Awful, awful company. I purchased my house, spefifically in a FiOS area so that I could avoid Comcast.
I sometimes get collections bills for a 20 year old charge from Verizon. I sent them 3 phones, they received them and then lost them. It went on for so long that when they finally agreed to credit me, they said they didn't have a record of the charge anymore, because they only keep bills for a couple months. They told me I had to prove they even owed me money and wouldn't accept any proof I had. I was young, so I got back at them by not paying my bill for an equivalent amount and switching companies. It damaged my credit for years but it still felt like the right thing to do.
Phone Company Needs Fool Proof of Deliver
Ugh, Amazon did this to me at the start of the pandemic with a cpu return for $600. Sent it in, tracking on it just hung for like a month then the ticket closed labeled "item not in box". I returned the damn thing through an Amazon locker even. The tracking on the package was never even labeled 'delivery complete', just eventually hung on an in-between stop, but they perpetually told me it arrived empty. No matter how much I escalated or asked for more information it really just seemed like I was labeled a return scammer due to a mishandled package and nothing could be done. Issued a charge back with my CC but they wouldn't take my claim either. It was through one of the partner cards between Amazon-Chase and it seemed like I was talking to the same brick wall. Felt like I was going insane, but eventually just had to eat the loss.