Got shafted by best buy, verizon, and my cousin. What do I do?

Chango99 said:

Went to vzw and best buy stores today (they happen to be a few stores down from each other). Basically, no. Mobile manager was a douche though and is either misinformed or lying like the rest of best buy is doing to me.

Best Buy is crap. Expensive and shitty service. But hey, at least they got a full refund policy for 30 days (which backfired on me in this case) that lets me try out products before I purchase them online for half the price.

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Yes Karma is a wicked thing sometimes is it not Chango99?

blame your cousin

not best buy and verizon

krichek said:

Exactly, I kept waiting for someone to mention that. You BOTH have to be there in the store to transfer liability and you both have to sign.. I'd be very curious to know how your cousin managed to do that with out your knowledge since they are required to ask for I.D. from both people as far as I know.

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Id keep playing this angle. And if you think your cuz did you dirty by screwing you over, then even the score. If that phone is still in his name, then stop paying anything, and get your own phone

i'm to the point of finding this comical.

IOWA said:

Well your cousin can't put a phone in your name for you. That's illegal. Tell vzw you didn't consent to this and they should either terminate the contract and charge your cuz the etf or put it back in his name and you can get your own line.

If you can't afford it, oh well dude you have to eat crow.

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krichek said:

Exactly, I kept waiting for someone to mention that. You BOTH have to be there in the store to transfer liability and you both have to sign.. I'd be very curious to know how your cousin managed to do that with out your knowledge since they are required to ask for I.D. from both people as far as I know.

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bamaredwingsfan said:

Id keep playing this angle. And if you think your cuz did you dirty by screwing you over, then even the score. If that phone is still in his name, then stop paying anything, and get your own phone

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Are we even sure that his cousin put the number in Chango99's name and not someone else's? They wouldn't need Chango99's consent if thats what happened. Anything is possible considering how screwed up things are.

Chango99 said:

Also, went to Best Buy today and talked to the mobile dept manager.

This person was pretty much just smug and lying back telling me basically no, the system couldn't do it anymore. He said around July 5th they got a memo to not do anything past the 30 days anymore, which I believe is bullshit, but whatever.

I told him I spoke to the employee on July 9th and that employee told me I could do it. That employee also told me he contacted this manager and said that he confirmed that they would able to do this exchange for me, SO I thought I was guaranteed through Best Buy and didn't bother with communicating with VZW before my 30 days.

The manager told me he doesn't recall anything about this through a phone call.

Now, how is this possible? If the memo went out on July 5th, why did this employee tell me he spoke with the manager and said it was OK on July 8th? Why did this manager say he wasn't spoken to?

So I was basically lied to by either the employee or the manager? Alright. Great.

So I don't have a right to complain here? I think I do.

Furthermore, he starts throwing out more bull. He asks why I want to change phones? Because a new one came out?

Well. OBVIOUSLY. I HAVE THOSE 30 DAYS for a reason. I wasn't satisfied with the DINC so I have my 30 days to return it. I don't appreciate being told that I can get it past the 30 days so you tell me just to hold it past the 30 days only to **** me over and say oh sorry we can't do it cause it's past the 30 days.

He asks this with obvious disdain, implying that then you would always want the newer phone that came out.

Uh. no. Doesn't that mean I want a Droid 2? Or a Samsung Galaxy? No. I was set on the Droid X.

And then he goes on to say they are basically the same phone. Same OS, same processor, same camera...

REALLY?

Seems he knows somewhat, because I replied with no, they don't have the same. Don't tell me that, I've been told that a bunch of times. IF they were the same phone I wouldn't be here right now. The processor is different, there's a different UI, screen, etc.

He replies, it's the same 1GHz Snapdragon processor. Looks like at least he knows what a snapdragon, so I reply no, the DX uses an OMAP 1GHz, which is like comparing an AMD CPU 1GHZ to an Intel CPU 1GHz. THEY WORK DIFFERENT WAYS. Then he proceeds to tell me that a qualcomm guy he spoke to said the DX had a snapdragon? Wow. The goddamn website itself advertises the DX as a 1GHZ OMAP Processor.

So is he misinformed or just trying to further lie to me? Either way, that is terrible misinformation.

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All that sounds like justice to me. You got what you deserved.

/end thread

gvillager said:

Are we even sure that his cousin put the number in Chango99's name and not someone else's? They wouldn't need Chango99's consent if thats what happened. Anything is possible considering how screwed up things are.

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I've been wondering that from the start. But since the OP hasn't disputed all the assumptions that this is the case, maybe that is what he meant. Or maybe he's just not paying attention.

Chango99 said:

...He asks why I want to change phones? Because a new one came out?

Well. OBVIOUSLY. I HAVE THOSE 30 DAYS for a reason...

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But that reason is not what you seem to think it is. Retailers have return/exchange periods so that customers can confirm (or refute) that their own product research led them to the correct purchasing decision. These periods are not intended for customers to continue their product research, or have a shiny new toy to play with, while waiting with baited breath for the next hot product to come along.

Chango99 said:

You don't even know me so please just go away. Just because I'm spiteful in this situation and you view me from only that angle you are judging me as a bad person. You just come into this thread talking shit the whole time don't you have anything better to do? You just seem like a bitter person in general.

-----------------------

Anyway, as for the situation, I've stopped wasting so much time on even trying as I have stuff to do. I just know I'll never legitimately shop at Best Buy again and make sure I get some actual confirmation.

Celebrated my bday yesterday Aug 15 and just waiting for any response from an email I've sent. At this point, I've given up and am just trying to buy the X used from someone and selling my incredible at a loss. Hopefully someone responds before I leave on Wednesday.

And i'm not sure what you are asking about the accounts gvillager? It was opened under my cousin's dad's account. They changed it to my other cousin aka his brother so they could get an edu discount.

And UncleMike, like I said, I wasn't just looking for the next hot product. If that were the case, I'd be returning it for a samsung galaxy s type phone with other carriers. I was set on the Droid X. I wasn't happy with the incredible's screen under the sun, I wasn't happy with the battery life, and I didn't mind the Droid X's slightly bigger size. AMOLED screen might be nice to some, but I'm colorblind and am not too picky about picture quality in terms of color, contrast, etc. Outside viewability, however, is practical and does affect me. Same with battery life. The Droid X's OMAP processor is more efficient. Talk times on the incredible is quite a bit lower than the Droid X's.

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Well you made it clear your intentions were to screw over best buy by abusing their return policy. You weren't even going to give them a chance. So yeah, justice, of the ironic variety.

Chango99 said:

Wow really? Opening my own line would have costed me about 70-80$ mo/. I'm thinking financially and i'm paying 40$/mo with my cousin. Sorry I don't like to throw my money away.

Thanks for the completely unhelpful post.

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Apparently, your cousin was thinking financially too.


Trusting your cousin was your first mistake. You thought you were going to save some money, but it didn't turn out that way. Most of the time, it doesn't. When something looks too good to be true, it isn't.

There's more to this story than you're telling us. It's not possible for your cousin to basically start a Verizon Wireless account in your name without your consent. You have to be there to sign on the dotted line.

Your second mistake was you should have just returned the phone when you had the opportunity. Never trust store employees that makes promises like that. They'll tell you anything to make you go away and leave them alone.

^^^this^^^

android2010 said:

There's more to this story than you're telling us. It's not possible for your cousin to basically start a Verizon Wireless account in your name without your consent. You have to be there to sign on the dotted line.

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He clarified this above. There was a transfer of liability, but the liability was not transferred to him (he never said it was), it was transferred to a third party. The only problem (I see) with the transfer if liability is that he lost his ability to return the phone within the normal 30 day worry free period.

I would feel sorry for you if not for your attitude. You said in a previous post that you don't care if what you were doing with the 30 day policy hurts the consumer. In case you don't know the consumer is everyone here yourself included. The reason for their strict policies on returns and their ETFs is that people were returning items for frivolous reasons (didn't like the color, etc.) or abusing BOGO offers (get 2 phones with 2 lines, then sell one phone and cancel it's line).

Your story about returning that Logitech mouse isn't quite the same thing. I'm assuming at most it retailed at around $70. These phones go for around $500-600. That's a huge difference. While neither can be sold as new again, the mouse will be able to be sold for around $50, while the phone will be around $350. They lose $20 on the mouse and around $150+ on the phone. I can't imagine why they don't want to do this.

Also, Best Buy's mobile is like Wirefly, LetsTalk, etc. They have it in their fine print that if the person changes their plan in any way (even changing the minutes) in the first six months they have the authority to charge a $250 fee. I knew the X (at the time know as the Shadow) was rumored to be coming soon about a month before the Incredible released. And I'm not that great at finding leaked or rumored stuff.

You need to turn this into a learning experience. No matter what an employee says, he is an employee, not the boss. You need his okay on something like this. Also, just because they say they can help that doesn't mean stop trying to reach an agreement with Verizon. They are the ones who most times have the final say. When you get a phone through Best Buy, they subsidize it for 6 months, then they get bought out by the carrier who finishes the contract with you.

When you research the phone, make sure you reasearch the terms of the purchase and of the contract as well. When you sign a contract your are signing a legally binding agreement. It is your responsibility to be aware of what you are getting into. It's part of being an adult, no one else can do that for you.

vzwuser76 said:

...You need to turn this into a learning experience. No matter what an employee says, he is an employee, not the boss. You need his okay on something like this...

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There is a legal concept called "reasonable reliance", which relates to what a prudent person would believe and act upon if told something by another. If you take action (i.e. enter into a contract) as a result of something a store representative says, only to find that their statements were exaggerated or not true, you may be able to recover damages.

I'm not a lawyer, but in this case I don't think the OP was prudent.

UncleMike said:

There is a legal concept called "reasonable reliance", which relates to what a prudent person would believe and act upon if told something by another. If you take action (i.e. enter into a contract) as a result of something a store representative says, only to find that their statements were exaggerated or not true, you may be able to recover damages.

I'm not a lawyer, but in this case I don't think the OP was prudent.

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It's possible that that could be something he could use if he decided to take it to court. But I have a feeling if he did so showing the same attitude he has shown here, a judge would not be very sympathetic to his case.

The other thing that bothered me was what he said about "change of liability". I'm assuming he meant "assumption of liability", which is a way to separate lines on a family plan so each one acts as an individual line.

We thought about doing so in our situation (I'm primary, with my dad, brother, and his two kids under me). We were going to split it up so my dad and I were on one family plan and my brother and his kids were on another. To do so they have to run a credit check on the individual who is going from from being on someone's family plan to being on their own plan (i.e. that person will assume liability for their now individual contract). We didn't do it because his credit is not so great and he would've had to pay a deposit which would then be refunded to him in six months.

There are two issues bugging me about the OP's liability statement. First, his cousin would've had to have his DOB, his social security number, and acted on is behalf, which he can't legally do. Second, if his cousin somehow did accomplish this, the OP would no longer have been under his cousin and would now be on is own individual plan, which contradicts what he said about not wanting to pay more money to be on his own plan.

I guess I just can't really feel bad for him in this case. I have the Incredible, a buddy of mine has the X. Both are good phones. The X has a couple of better features, but nothing groundbreaking. We compared battery life and his is better, but only slightly (half hour to an hour). As far as being colorblind and not being able to see the Incredible's screen outside, use your body or your hand to shield the screen from the sun. Not being able to see the screen as well as on an lcd was well documented BEFORE it was released. That should have come up in his research.

He also could have gotten the Droid1 or the Eris which both had lcd screens if this was going to be an issue. They may not have been as flashy or new as the Incredible at the time it came out, but they would've worked better for him in that area as he lists that as a major issue he has with the Incredible.

These are just a few more things that are his responsibility, not Verizon's, not Best Buy's, but his to address when obtaining a phone. I asked a verizon csr why you could switch to a different phone in the first 30 days but not switch back if that was worse than the original. He told me it was up to the customer to research any potential purchase as fully as they could. If they had let someone do that, they would end up with two phones they would have to take a loss on. He said the fact that they even let you do it once is a courtesy and in his opinion very generous. And I agree with him on that.

vzwuser76 said:

The other thing that bothered me was what he said about "change of liability". I'm assuming he meant "assumption of liability", which is a way to separate lines on a family plan so each one acts as an individual line...

...I asked a verizon csr why you could switch to a different phone in the first 30 days but not switch back if that was worse than the original. He told me it was up to the customer to research any potential purchase as fully as they could. If they had let someone do that, they would end up with two phones they would have to take a loss on. He said the fact that they even let you do it once is a courtesy and in his opinion very generous. And I agree with him on that.

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Assumption of liability can also be applied to an entire account, which is what happened in this case. Also, the liability was assumed by a third party, not the OP.

In theory, Verizon could hold any phone you returned within the first 30 days, and allow you to re-exchange for that specific phone if your second choice turned out to be less appealing than your original choice. But you're right, the current policy is generous, though I'm sure it leads to more sales as it makes customers more comfortable knowing they can back out of the purchase.

UncleMike said:

Assumption of liability can also be applied to an entire account, which is what happened in this case. Also, the liability was assumed by a third party, not the OP.

In theory, Verizon could hold any phone you returned within the first 30 days, and allow you to re-exchange for that specific phone if your second choice turned out to be less appealing than your original choice. But you're right, the current policy is generous, though I'm sure it leads to more sales as it makes customers more comfortable knowing they can back out of the purchase.

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I asked about them holding my phone if I were trying a different phone but they said if they had to do that they would have quite a few phones sitting around, which would mean money sitting around. Most retail stores will hold something for you, but only anywhere from an hour to end of the business day. In this situation they want to get the phone back asap so they can resell it as a certified used or warranty replacement phone.

As far as the liability/warranty issue, I have never heard of changing the assumption of liability affecting their warranty. All you're doing is transferring who get's stuck with the check. Whichever member of a family plan has the assumption of liability is responsible for the bill/fees being paid. If any of the people on the extra lines decided they didn't want to pay anymore, the person with liability is responsible for paying for those lines regardless. It's a little more clear cut if it's an actual family (one parent is main, other parent and children on the extra lines) but when you get friends or non-immediate family on the extra lines who are reimbursing you for those lines, then it becomes risky. Of course the main could suspend service on those lines also (I believe Verizon let's you do that with no penalty for four months). But I don't see why/how they could suspend your warranty for switching around who assumes the liability.

Chango99 said:

I don't know about the warranty thing, but that's what was basically told to me by my cousin. The 30 day was also voided because of this apparently as that's what verizon said when I tried to return it. I dono't comprehend why Verizon voids it, but it happened.

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I just read the "Product Safety & Warranty Brochure" that came in the box and on page 13 it says, "Personal Communications Devices, LLC (the Company) warrants to the original retail purchaser of this handheld portable cellular telephone..."

The manufacturer wrote the warranty terms and conditions. VZW is doing what they are contractually obligated to do per their agreement with the manufacturer.

Chango99 said:

I don't know about the warranty thing, but that's what was basically told to me by my cousin. The 30 day was also voided because of this apparently as that's what verizon said when I tried to return it. I dono't comprehend why Verizon voids it, but it happened.

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Okay, I just got off of the phone with a Verizon csr. You have not lost any warranty with Verizon, if it breaks or fails, you will be able to get a repalcement from them. Now, as far as the 30 days goes that is not Verizon's responsibility. Since you got your phone through Best Buy, Verizon can not do anything (swap for a different phone, warranty replacement, etc.) in the first 30 days, that is up to Best Buy to honor that, as they are an indirect Verizon reseller. So to break it down to the basics:

If you buy from an indirect Verizon reseller (Best Buy, Wireless World, Wirefly, LetsTalk, Amazon, etc.) they are responsible for EVERYTHING during the first 30 days including 30 day worry free guarantee, changing to another phone, & warranty replacement. Verizon does nothing in the first 30 days except activate the phone on their system, provide voice and data service, and bill for those services.

If you buy from Verizon corporate, everything (30 day, swap phones, warranty, phone activation, voice and data services, and billing is handled by Verizon.

This is why I only go through Verizon, be it online, telesales, or corporate stores. Much simpler, and only one company to hold accountable if something goes wrong.

As far as options, you can try to trade your phone for an X on craigslist, or sell your Incredible on craigslist or ebay and then buy an X at full retail price. Just make sure that doing so won't be seen as a change to your plan as indirect resellers can charge a $250 fee if you change or cancel your plan in the first 181 days.

That's all I got for ya. Like I said, use this as a learning experience and be more vigilant in the future.

If you wanted the DroidX you should have waited for it to be released. You tried to play games with BB/Verizon and you lost. At this point you have to cut your losses and live with the consequences.

Chango99 said:

Well, I don't support Best Buy at all, so I don't care if they lose money. Whenever I return my product, I see it up on the shelf open box for cheaper than regular, although I've only done this twice anyway.

We're talking about a company that charges like 100$ for them to install a TV, a playstation, etc for you. That's just absolutely stupid.

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best buy is in business to make a profit. When you have someone perform a service such as installation, you pay for their time, fuel, skill, and their guarantee on the preformed service. If it stupid that I charge people to work on their cars? Timing belt on a civic pays 96 minutes, I can do it in 20, but your still going to pay for 1.6 hours.your paying for the advertised service.
If you want to screw over the company and return crap that isn't broken, your impacting that salesmans paycheck for one, most of em are on a commission, returns come out of their pocket.
You are increasing the asshole tax, which we all pay for.
And last but not least, its not your account, not your call. You want to save money, deal with the fact that you have no say in how that account is managed, or pay up and open your own account.

I could pay 50 bucks a month and deal with that, I'd rather eat the 250 a month to have the call on how my account is managed.