By Rita R. Robison, Consumer Specialist
Which consumer happenings cheered you this week and which ones made you want to scream or weep?
Here are my best and worst consumer experiences this week:
My best: Getting an e-mail from a battery company about a refund
Last week, for my worst consumer experience, I wrote about a problem I had getting the wrong battery from batteriesforless.com. The manager at one of the local Verizon told me which battery I needed, but it wasn’t the right one.
I received an e-mail from a customer service representative from batteries4less.com who had read my post. He said to call the company, and I could get a refund. It was nice that he saw my post. However, when I called, the customer service person I spoke with said I’d need to ship the battery back to get my money back.
My worst: Signing up with Verizon to get another cell phone
Since the battery I purchased for my cell phone was too wide for the slot, I inserted it, put the back on, and placed a rubber band around it to hold the back in place.
The battery worked for about half an hour. When I tried to charge it, the battery wouldn’t hold a charge.
Since my daughter is visiting, I wanted to get another cell phone right away.
I looked up which of the Verizon Wireless cell phones have the least emissions of radiation.
I called one Verizon store. A staff member said Verizon stores carry the phone I wanted, but she wouldn’t look up my account to see if I could get the phone for free. It was irritating, because other Verizon employees had done that for me. She also said stocking varied for the phone. I figured out later that meant that store may or may not have one. Sure enough. I called back. That store didn’t have the phone. A staff member set up an appointment for me at 6:30 p.m. the next day at another store.
When I arrived, the person I was to have the appointment with wasn’t there. I had to wait for the next available appointment.
While I thought it would be good that the manager was the one helping me, he was interrupted several times to answer questions and take phone calls.
I wanted to get the same plan I had; 300 minutes for $35 a month. The manager said it wasn’t available. I could get 200 minutes for $30 or 450 minutes for $40.
I pondered what to do and whether I should sign up for 250 MB of Internet time for $10 a month. I’d taken my Consumer Reports with me, and an article said the average use for Internet cell phones is 200 MB a month.
The article also said Verizon, based on a survey of consumers, is still tops in fewer dropped calls and other services. And, it reported, Sprint is coming up fast with T-Mobile close behind. The article also said AT&T had the lowest ratings in everything.
I decided to get the 200 minutes plan. Verizon now sends a text message when you are about to go over your allotted minutes. I’d be able to upgrade for no cost at any time.
The manager didn’t tell me I’d be charged a whopping $175 for breaking the two-year contract. I asked him about it because it was one of the points the Consumer Reports article said to check out. He said I’d be getting that information at the end of the transaction.
All in all, signing up for a new cell phone from Verizon was a frustrating experience. I was pleased to participate in the Verizon customer service evaluation a few days later. I gave Verizon a "2" on a scale of 1 to 10 where 10 is the best.
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