Though the error is now resolved (with a reconditioned replacement coming c/o phone support), I've spend far too much energy since 3PM this afternoon trying to get any help from Verizon Wireless to fix their broken merchandise. Here's a sample of what my phone was doing today. This is, surprisingly, done after I had to return to the store with the screen frozen to prove I wasn't making it up. There are no outside apps; it is factory reset at this point.

I would normally just let this go since it was resolved, but the behavior of the employees in the store coupled with the intentionally broken e-mail contact system for any store or corporate district means I'm putting this out. Click through for the letter I tried to send to my district's corporate director that never went through. It's a doozy. I suggest a cup of tea or another relaxing drink to get through it.

Mr. [Redacted],

My name is Robert Gannon and [prefers not to be named] and I just had a terrible customer service experience at the [Location Redacted] at approximately 6:30 PM on January 27, 2014. Employee [First Employee] (perhaps [redacted], he was not wearing a name tag and refused to give us his name; other employees ID'd him for us) was incredibly rude to us and refused to offer any repair service or honor the insurance plan we have on the phone.

I have an HTC Rezound phone with a plan through Verizon Wireless. It is a fully touch screen smartphone and the touch screen has not been working properly for a week. I went into the [Redacted] store expecting to receive repair service or, if the error wasn't fixable, a replacement phone. The insurance plan my brother has had on our family's wireless service for years allows for a replacement phone if the phone is totally broken. My Rezound is.

Instead of offering any feasible solution or attempting to fix the phone, this employee [First Employee] repeatedly brought up my phone being eligible for an upgrade and replacement through the Edge program. We were not looking to upgrade the phone. We were looking for repairs or a replacement; [First Employee] refused and became combative with us.

It took a few tries in front of [First Employee] to get the phone to replicate the errors I had received but we finally got it to just stop responding to all touch input in front of him. He said he had to do it himself, held down the side buttons in a certain combination, and unfroze the phone. We showed him the phone not working in the Verizon YouTube app, the default email app, the default web browser, the contact list, the text messaging app, the default Google search, and even in the application task launcher. He repeatedly said that because I had 3rd party apps on my phone, I could not prove that the phone itself wasn't working.

He started lying about his own actions on the phone. At one point, as I've had to do many times in the past week, he struggled to separate the phone shell, ripped out the battery, restarted the phone, and then again starting talking about the Edge upgrade plan. This happened because he froze the screen on the phone trying to hit the home button.

At one point, he said to us "We could do a hard reset on the phone to see if it fixes the problem, but your option is upgrading your phone with the Edge plan." Not once did he actually attempt to repair the phone or troubleshoot our problems. His goal seemed to be earning a commission on a service job and talking down to us.

When we refused the Edge upgrade program, he said "Okay" and walked into the backroom.

As soon as I stepped outside, the screen froze in the application launcher and I walked right back in. [Redacted] had returned to the counter, made eye contact with me, and walked into the back room.

Another employee, [Redacted], actually demonstrated good customer service, offering to try to fix the phone. He did the hard reset that [First Employee] mentioned but never offered to do. He apologized for the way his coworker treated us and identified him for this message.

The phone, even after [Second Employee]'s efforts, is not working. Even reset with no 3rd party apps (even no apps beyond what came with the phone through Verizon), the touch screen is not working.

Here is a video demonstrating one of the many errors I demonstrated to [First Employee] and was told was my fault. This video was recorded after I returned home and had a phone reset to factory conditions.

[link to unedited video removed due to visible names/e-mails of personal contacts]

This phone behavior was blamed 100% on me because of apps on the phone by [First Employee]. I must reiterate that the video was created after two attempts at service in store failed.

What I'm really looking for here is some kind of commitment to setting this right. My family and I have been customers of Verizon Wireless for 14 years through this store and have never had a problem before. That I walked out of the store with a still broken phone is unacceptable.

[First Employee]'s behavior is beyond the pale for a customer service person in any field, let alone a tech support environment. I figured you would like to know what your employees are up to. [Second Employee] is phenomenal, but [First Employee] is totally out of control.

At this point, the phone in customer support has agreed to send a reconditioned phone based on our description alone. That is more than what anyone in the store offered to do.

---

And, scene.

It's been hours and I'm still mad. I can't handle this level of aggravation over a piece of technology that has slowly overtaken society. I grew up using payphones or asking to use phones at businesses. When I calm down, I'm going to do a full edit on the source footage (available only at private link right now) to hide the sensitive contacts so I can show the video without a jump. It's bad. I'd drop them today if they weren't the only phone company with a decent coverage map in the area.

Caveat emptor if you have more flexibility. Verizon's customer service in store has gone to garbage.