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Last Monday I bought 2 iphone 13 pros. One from Apple and the other from Verizon. (The Apple Store app on my phone wouldn't let me upgrade a number that wasn't
by bognition 5y ago
Last Monday I bought 2 iphone 13 pros. One from Apple and the other from Verizon. (The Apple Store app on my phone wouldn't let me upgrade a number that wasn't attached to my iCloud account. So I stupidly bought it from verizon)
We got the 13 pros in the mail on friday and neither me nor my wife liked the phone and we decided to return them.
The return with Apple was easy and smooth. At the verizon store the manager immediately challenged me on why I was returning it. I said it was too big for my wife, he then asked what phone she had and then pulled up a chart showing how the two devices were effectively the same size. He claimed my wife was lying and that she would be fine with the 13 pro. I replied with thanks but my wife didn't want the phone so I'd like to return it. He then put me in a queue and told me the return would have a $50 restocking fee.
The entire return experience was so terrible and hostile I almost walked to another carrier's store and moved all my lines. I may still do that.
The overall experience did renew my desire to NEVER buy a device with verizon again.
I can imagine that ATT and Verizon are largely in the same place, they're the behemoths in the market and no longer have to innovate for market share. So the way they increase margins is by fleecing their customers with "activation fees" and "restocking fees".
Its great to hear that TMobile is stepping up the customer service game. This may be enough for me to switch.
- gnicholas 5y agoMVNOs are great. If you want to be on the Verizon network and happen to have Comcast, their xfinity mobile service is super cheap. You can buy one data pool and split it across your whole family, and the cost per GB is $15 or so. Unlike all the big carriers, they don't charge a per-line monthly access fee. I have five people on my family plan and the cost per line is almost always under $10/mo. If you need to be on AT&T's network, there are other MVNOs like Pure Talk, which has good customer service and pretty good pricing. One downside to MVNOs is they often lag behind the major carriers in getting support for smartwatches and cellular-capable tablets. But other than that, they're great!
- kube-system 5y agoMVNOs are a mixed bag. Some are good, some cut every corner possible to reduce costs.
- takeda 5y agoT-Mobile is better than them, but frankly, once their network improved enough to be competitive to Verizon and AT&T they no loner are as good as they once were.
- bombcar 5y agoThe fact you haven’t switched lines yet speaks volumes for where they have you. Right where they want you.
- ysavir 5y agoI don't think it's that simple. There's a lot involved in switch carriers, and it's worth taking the time to cool down from the initial frustration and evaluate your options more objectively.
- cbozeman 5y ago> it's worth taking the time to cool down from the initial frustration No it isn't. Every single company in America needs to operate like Chick-Fil-A. You will never have a bad Chick-Fil-A experience. Ever. I've eaten there for over 25 years. The slightest problem with anything is immediately resolved to your satisfaction. And why is that? Because there's competition, and because they want to be the best fast food restaurant in the nation. There's no incentive for any of these companies to do that, because there's not enough competition. I imagine it's a combination of regulation, high start-up costs, and probably other factors of which I'm not aware, but we should definitely have more than three major carriers.
- gregkerzhner 5y agoChick-fill-a might be a bad example given their history with LGBT folks. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chick-fil-A_and_LGBT_people https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chick-fil-A_and_LGBT_people
- BuyMyBitcoins 5y agoMust we always bring this up whenever Chick-fil-a is mentioned? The GP was clearly talking about in-store customer service practices. CFA was in hot water because it’s religious founder was donating to charities deemed anti-lgbt. Not because they were assaulting, accosting, or discriminating against LGBT customers. I didn’t see any mention at all of acts of discrimination in the restaurants against anyone LGBT and nothing that would imply their customer service model pays special discriminatory attention towards anyone LGBT.
- bluedino 5y agoToo bad their coverage in smaller cities and rural areas is still pretty bad.
- hattmall 5y agoThis is less and less true. TMobile has rolled out 600mhz 5g on the old Nextel push to talk frequencies it acquired in the Sprint merger. Rural coverage is vastly improved, like far far exceeding the other two. At least in areas where Nextel had a serious presence.
- selectodude 5y agoiDEN was 800MHz, the 600MHz stuff is UHF spectrum from when all the OTA television channels went digital.
- redtexture 5y agoWhere can I learn more about frequencies and towers, by vendor,in my region?
- orangepurple 5y agocellmapper.net
- artificialLimbs 5y agoOut in the sticks of Arkansas, my iPhone 12 popped up a 5G signal a few days ago. Have no idea where that tower could possibly be. Going to be sending the drone to scout it soon. Were on Verizon, but have switched to Ting, which does use Verizon towers. Could they be showing 4G services as 5G?
- shmoe 5y agoNah.. only AT&T does that :P
- 5y ago
- dboreham 5y agoConvert to a business account. I have a dedicated person at VZW I can email or call any time and get whatever I need done. I get an email with a click to authorize this order button. That's it. I haven't been in a physical store for years.
- dimmke 5y agoI have used t mobile for like a decade. They’re a better carrier, but I have had terrible experiences in their stores before too. You’re at the mercy of randoms working retail. The best experience is no experience. Just buy your phone directly from Apple and perform the SIM swap yourself. Apple’s stores are worse than the ATT situation in this article. For most of COVID you literally could not walk in and get added to a waiting list, you had to make an appointment. And each store had rude security guards shooing people away. It might actually still be like that. It sounds like he got lucky and had a positive experience with one person but that doesn’t scale at all.
- ethbr0 5y ago> You’re at the mercy of randoms working retail. So true, even for Apple or (insert beloved company here). Between the turnover, low salaries, and the terrible scheduling patterns, you're blessed if you get someone who doesn't assault customers. Consequently, most retail seems to focus on training employees to "not be bad" vs "being more good."
- Talanes 5y ago>Consequently, most retail seems to focus on training employees to "not be bad" vs "being more good." More like they just don't give adequate training time at all. I've never had a retail job that gave as much time with the training material as the material itself said you'd spend with it.
- lotsofpulp 5y agoI would think retail/general public facing working environment being basically the least desirable working environment, the most capable people will always self select out for better opportunities, especially since the pay is the lowest.
- Talanes 5y agoNo, some of us stick it out way too long because we actually do like it.
- zdware 5y agoIronically, I just switched away from TMobile to AT&T due to the recent data breach.
- kevin_thibedeau 5y agoAT&T had a recent data breach. Time to switch back.
- mocheeze 5y agoMy last visit to T-Mobile wasn't the most pleasant. My Pixel 4 XL (ordered from Google) was totally broken and so I went in to buy one at T-Mobile so I wouldn't have to wait for shipping. They charged me an extra $50 for me to pay upfront instead of financing it. Been a customer for 15 years and this is the thanks I get for choosing them as my retailer.