Verizon Wireless, my mobile carrier, has been pestering me lately. An equipment upgrade offer was pending. My pair of old Motorola RAZR V3c handsets serve me quite well so it seemed like a perfect opportunity to add a third number and a new handset for my son, something we’ve been talking about for a while. Yesterday we stopped at one of their local brick-and-mortar facilities to get that done. I don’t know about you, but every time I have to physically show up to do something with my mobile phones there is trouble of one sort or another…
I’m an unusual wireless customer. I use my phone to make and receive voice calls. For email, Web, music, pictures, videos, ad nauseum, I’ll reach for a more appropriate piece of equipment. I’m not thrilled with Verizon Wireless’ closed network, either, or the way they nickel-and-dime you for every little thing. But their performance – at least where I use it – is second to none. I cannot recall the last time I had a call drop or not go through. Each ‘line’ (an archaic term in the wireless world) draws from a single pool of enough minutes that we use it without thinking and never need to buy extra, thanks to a reasonably priced grandfathered contract, sans enhanced services, that they haven’t offered in years. I’ve been a steady customer for better than a decade and a half. I’m an unusual customer.
We found a handset my son liked and made our way to the counter only to learn that the upgrade offer applied only to my V3c. But nothing’s carved in stone and after some discussion we found a way: a temporary upgrade. I buy a new handset (an LG VX9100, free after the promotion) and move my number to it. I buy an additional ‘line’ for my son, and assign the new number to my old V3c. Finally, the next day, we would swap the numbers between the two handsets, under the auspices that I’m unhappy with the new handset. Normally that swap would be $20 a pop, but there would be no charge. And everybody would be happy.
A while later we discovered that my V3c didn’t respond on the new number. Things went downhill fast from there. Tech Support reported that the new number belonged to a Blackberry belonging to Merrill Lynch, that my contract shows only two numbers, and that my V3c ESN no longer exists. Oops.
Back at the store they tried to get me to just replace the handset, “Just take the best we’ve got, no charge!” No thanks, I want the one I’ve got, please fix it. They finally managed to install a dummy ESN onto it and assign the new number, and get my contract to recognize them both. But because of the dummy ESN the handset doesn’t do anything, it’s a brick. Tomorrow, they say, they will be able to finish straightening it out.
I need to digress with some history… Verizon Wireless was probably the last carrier on Earth to add the incredibly popular – and profitable – Motorola RAZR handsets. The reasons were two-fold. First, the CDMA chipset was physically larger, and Motorola had some difficulty making it fit into the small package. Second, all Verizon Wireless phones (at the time) sported an external antenna, which helped them to provide their outstanding network performance. The RAZR’s antenna is internal. As for me, I wanted the small size but I was unwilling to switch carriers. So I waited it out. Eventually Motorola got the hardware into the handset and got the antenna performance good enough to pass Verizon Wireless’ performance testing (it took several rounds of testing which led to yet more delays). Finally they were set to roll ’em out. Just in time for Christmas! Well, sort of.
In the mobile phone industry, a hardware manufacturer will develop a new handset and the base software to make it the features work, as well as an SDK. A carrier will take that and develop their own software layer, which in turn becomes the set of services and capabilities that differentiate one carrier from another. In the case of Verizon Wireless, with their closed network, part of their software development is to lock down the handset. The customized RAZR software, due to the Christmas sale deadline, was a rush job.
Watching all that unfold, I bought my handsets a day or two before they became available at the stores. My handsets are not locked down. The best thing about this is my Bluetooth profiles include OBEX. And that means I can add custom rings I make myself, get images and voice recordings on and off, use the crappy little camera (when needed and nothing better is available), use it as a wireless (or wired, via USB) modem with the laptop, and so on, all without incurring Verizon Wireless charges.
And that’s why I don’t want to give up these handsets or upgrade their firmware. Whenever I need to explain this, the representative smiles and understands. [Ed. 6 July 2008: My wife, OTOH, never really understood why I held those capabilities so dear. That is, until the latest bill arrived. My son had bought a ringtone. $2.95, no big deal, but the browsing charges, the megabyte charges, and the fact that he tried the Web browsers on all of our handsets by the time he was through, had brought the cost of that stupid ringtone to near $20. When I explained how billing works, and had real examples to use, the lightbulb went on.]
So today I will see whether they can get this mess straightened out. I’m nervously optimistic.
Here is it, early July and finally there’s been some closure – sort of. My post-adventure bill arrived.
There were hundreds of dollars in charges for the ‘broken’ added lines: add-on charges, administrative charges, early termination charges… About the only kind of charges for those abortions that weren’t on there were usage charges. Then there were hundreds of dollars in credits. As it turns out, it was a good thing I noticed that the bogus adds were not actually removed when the guy in the store originally said they were. But ya know – and it took a half-hour with a spreadsheet deciphering the book that was the bill – the credits were not enough to offset the bum charges! That’s because it took me a week or so to notice them in the accounting system and have them removed. This time, though, instead of going back to the store I decided to call Verizon. It took a 39-minute conversation with them to get things resolved. My remaining credits should appear next month.
Meanwhile, I’ve paid the bill.
For as long as I’ve used it, Verizon’s OneBill feature, with which customers receive a single bill (duh) for their wired and wireless services in order to save a couple of bucks, has excluded you from the Verizon Wireless account management Web site. That was because, despite the similarity of the company names, Verizon and Verizon Wireless are actually two separate and distinct companies. I complain about it every single time I talk to either company. Regulatory reasons? Software incompatibility? I’ve heard both reasons, and others.
Anyway, recently that issue’s gone away and both accounts are available for online management under one, albeit clunky, interface. So I was looking over my wireless accounts and found that the ‘broken’ numbers we added had indeed taken. I now had enough wireless phone numbers that I could equip my cats!
So it was yet another trip to the brick-and-mortar store yesterday to get them removed. It was quick and painless; the staff remembered me and the original incident. Still, they had permission-related problems and had to call offsite for help.
But like I said at the outset, every time I visit there’s trouble of one sort or another.
…because my RSS feed from here so fast, that’s why!
How come I always shoot off mouth before reading follow-up? ;-)
Rotsa ruck! I be watching. Hope to see you win. Not betting hard-earned dollars though.
And we did straighten it out with – what else? – a couple of phone calls and some over-the-air programming.
As an aside, I’ve played a bit with the LG device, too. It’s capabiities for moving content to and from the device are better than nothing, but stop just short of being able to sidestep Verizon Wireless’ nickel-and-dime-the-customer strategy.