Verizon Wireless Assurion Insurance for Cell Phones Cell Phone Insurance Deception, Bait and Switch, Invalidate Insurance, Claims Ignored, New York, New York

Same situation. Arrg. Up volume button on son's iPhone 4 didn't work so called Verizon tech support for suggestions. Tech rep looked it up and said "oh, it's still under warranty, we'll send you a a new one." I thought, great! Refurbished phone arrived a couple of days later, sent the old one back, as instructed. Two weeks later get an email telling me the phone was damaged and they were charging me $299. Email said "See image below" except there was no image, just a box with an "X" in the upper corner of it.

The original phone had a tiny superficial crack on the front that in no way impeded it's operation. Nothing at all to do with the problem the phone was being replaced for. Phone worked great, except for the volume button. So I am essentially being charged $299 for a $15 piece of gorilla glass.

After paying Verizon Wireless more than $40,000 over 15 years, they now want to charge me an additional $299 to replace a $15 piece of glass. Typical corporate attitude, treat a longstanding loyal customer with such contempt, then threaten them with termination fees if they choose to go to a company who might actually operate under policies that are fair.

I'm disgusted.

OK since you are having trouble getting the pictures, go to your local Verizon Wireless corporate store and ask for the pictures.  They can pull them up in their system and either print them out, or email them to you.  I know this for a fact.  If they tell you they can't, they are lying and demand to see the store manager.

VZW employees are not given "bonuses" as you claim for minimizing losses.  In fact, in your situation they lose money.  VZW store management is to keep abuse to below 5%, so since they flagged your phone as abused, it goes against the store that let you replace it.  If you were charged $9.99 ( I don't know for what), you were overcharged or scammed.  I would demand that receipt as I would love to know what it was for.

And by the way, Verizon did not raise the deductables, Asurion did.  It used to be $50 across the board when basic phones accounted for more than 75% of phones.  Now smartphones make up the majority, which have much higher costs, so Asurion had to adjust their prices to accomodate for the higher costs.  All cellphone insurance companies are doing this now.  Current Asurion deductables for Verizon are $99 for smartphones, $45 for basic phones, $169 for 16GB iPhones and $199 for 32GB iPhones.  These are the facts. 

 To Tom and anyone who feels it necessary to support Verizon and Assurion, one of the biggest insults is the constant, "sorry sir"'s and "we'll do our best sir" and assurances that they are "looking into the problem". Yet after promising to call us back, send us a picture of the supposed "damage", they have yet to do that in over two months. So who is trying to scam who and Tom, you know for a fact that Verizon employees aren't given bonuses to minimize return losses? Despite your contention that you don't work for Verizon (yes, you filed a rebuttal as an individual, but that means nothing), your blind comments reflect an attempt to re-mediate a dispute. We are now taking it to BBB and filing a claim with our County small claims court since VZW as you prefer to call Verizon simply has ignored our requests to see the damage (they claim they take pictures of every damage). It's frankly despicable and that is why I railed on about the joke of an insurance and you are still wrong about the insurance fees, since I have been charged up to $9.99 for Blackberry's with no comments about not covering physical damage, until claims were made. It's a scam and they know it which is why they raised the price of the monthly insurance and also raised the cost of the deductible from $50 to over $80 and up to $150 which every Verizon client should know about. Perhaps another class action lawsuit is in order?

Wow, I got the typical "you must work for Verizon or Asurion" resopnse since I criticized you.  I can assure you I DO NOT work for either.  If you noticed, this was filed as a Consumer Suggestion, not an employee.



Anyway, it sounds like you are the one in denial.  You had a screen going bad.  Did you know that most screen issues are caused by a crack, no matter how big or small.  Did you take a picture of it before you sent it in?  No.  Did you ask to see the pictures of the phone yet?  NO.



I do know how Verizon and Asurion work. And I can assure you the most you are paying for insurance is $7.99 a month, unless you have an iPhone then you are paying $10.99.  If you are paying $7.99, contact VZW and have them move you to the $6.99 new rate.  There was never a $9.99 rate.



Also, I highly doubt that VZW would purposely damage phones to charge you $299.  Get real.  You do realize that would be fraud and you could make millions of $$?  If you can prove that, go for it!  And Asurion wouldn't purposely break a phone.  That would mean they would HAVE to honor the claim. Kind of opposite of what you are trying to say.



Now, do I think that Asurion and VZW are completely blameless?  Absolutely not.  But to go on a rant about something where you don't provide enough information and do nothing to resolve it, please take my suggestions to heart.



I have nothing against you, but you can get those charges removed if you demand to see the pictures and take action.

Well Tom - Cinnaminson, it sounds like you work for Verizon! Or you are simply ill-informed or a time waster. Assurion and Verizon working hand in hand make every effort now to NOT pay for broken phones, those that are defective, as opposed to smashed or otherwise damaged and not covered under manufacturers warranty. The fact that we pay, and yes, we do pay up to now $9.99 depending on when the insurance was purchased and on what model phone and have to fight to get it refunded, is deplorable for Verizon. In this case, you, unfortunately haven't a clue about what the situation was, unless you worked in receiving and got the phone, which in this case had a screen that was slowly turning pink, which is an screen issue, not a cracked screen as it wasn't dropped. You sound just like Verizon/Assurion who will make a slight tap to damage the screen and then claim it was not a manufacturers problem and then try to charge $299 for a new phone without even giving the client a call or advise, or option to take the phone back. We didn't get a call the next day, we simply had a charge show up 6 weeks later on our bill. That is dishonest, sneaky, poor business practice, etc... Now think for a minute TOM, if it works so well (albeit it giving the health insurers a very bad name worldwide) why not do it for the millions of phones that come back. Imagine the profit at $300 a phone and even 1 million of them not being allowed to benefit from the paid insurance which is a fraud, illegal not to mention dishonest. YOU Tom, or whatever your Verizon/Assurion name is, are the dishonest one for suggesting that a very long term paying customer (at a ridiculous fee structure of some $250 per month for our families phones, or $3,000 a year! Imagine people, we used to pay hundreds for a home phone maybe, per year, now we are paying Thousands!!!! Who's laughing at whom!) is trying to defraud anyone! You obviously have no sense of how to do business, are dishonest, malevolent and filled with larceny yourself, or your just stupid. Understand the process of defrauding Verizon customers first and how much they pay on an annual basis and then you might do yourself a favor and try to change things internally so situations like this don't occur, like requesting that your customers take a picture of the damage first, or that receiving take a picture of the damage, IF there is one to dispute it up front with the client, before trying to dishonor your insurance, or refuse to pay it so that you at Verizon can pad your profits even more! Your a fool and not only I am getting fed up with this 21st century monopoly (remember Ma Bell and what happened to them?).

DON'T fall for it.

Come to think of it, verizon is a scam too.

That $299 you got charged is a damaged device fee, which is non-refundable.  This has nothing to do with insurance.  It sounds like, from your description, you tried to get a phone replaced under warranty but instead it had a cracked internal lcd display.  That is not covered under warranty.

You got sent a warranty replacement for free, when in reality you should have filed an insurance claim with Asurion, paid the $89 deductable and be done with it.  Also, you are wrong about your monthly fees.  Asurion insurance with VZW is $6.99 per month, not $8.99. 

You tried to defraud Verizon by sending them a phone with physical damage.  If you are not sure, ask VZW and they will email you pictures of your damaged phone.  You can use those photos for any complaints you have.  Make sure you get those pics.

Lorne,

     Your situation with Verizon is indeed deplorable, but seems to be the "norm" for them anymore!

I would suggest you type in, metro pcs in the search box on this site's homepage.  There are quite a few complaints regarding them here, which you might find interesting.