Verizon, T-Mobile show startling lack of customer service

Why do the major U.S. carriers have it in for us mobile tech writers? Earlier this year, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman tweeted that T-Mobile denied him the $100 rebate he was owed after he took advantage of a promotion that said, "Buy an Apple Watch with GPS + Cellular from Apple. Get $100 back from T-Mobile/Sprint."  No doubt that once T-Mobile executives realized who Gurman is, they quickly tried to save face. Gurman himself said that he had to settle the issue at the corporate level.

Gurman discovered that his rebate, which he did eventually receive, had been denied because the murky rules of the promotion, as understood by T-Mobile, required that a new line be created for the purchased Apple Watch. But even had Gurman purchased a new line for the timepiece, he would have had to keep his older line open for 90 more days which means that he would have had to keep a smartwatch line open with no watch attached to it for three months.

Of course, once T-Mobile discovered that its disgruntled customer was Mark Gurman from the stage, screen, and television (we're just embellishing a little), it sent Mark the C-note it owed him. Two Verizon customers took to Twitter to complain about the same problem with Adam Nieto writing, "Was told if the Verizon app doesn't 'automatically' offer the rebate to me after activating the watch then I’m not eligible even though I did exactly what Apple said."

Verizon customer Daniel Hipskind stated, "I am also having issues with Verizon’s (rebate deal). I had them say it doesn’t exist and only exists if you bring a Watch phone number to Verizon and not just an Apple Watch like it says."

This writer is also having issues with the purchase of a Google Pixel 6 Pro in Black with 512GB of storage. The phone was supposed to be delivered with free two-day shipping on December 28th. However, Verizon failed to include a "N" designation for north that yours truly put in the address when the phone was ordered. So the Pixel 6 Pro was sent to the wrong address.

One helpful Verizon customer service agent worked out a plan so that I wouldn't have to wait for the first phone to be returned to Verizon after three failed delivery attempts. The bottom line was that a second shipped Pixel 6 Pro (with the correct address) would be delivered on Thursday, December 29th at 10:30 am.

Did you ever get a bad feeling that something you ordered online wasn't going to arrive on the date promised? I did, so at first I wasn't terribly shocked when the delivery failed to surface at 10:30 am. The helpful Verizon rep then told me that it would come at 1 pm-which it didn't.

By the afternoon I called Verizon and was told that the phone now would arrive at the end of the day. But when 8 pm came and went without the package at my doorstep, I knew that the phone I was supposed to receive on December 28th (and which would have arrived that day but for the carrier's own screw up) wasn't coming on December 30th as promised.

After 8pm I received a text from the helpful customer service agent who told me that the phone arrived at Fed Ex on Wednesday too late to be received today. If true, why was I fed all of those earlier times to expect the package throughout the day? And consider that my family have been Verizon customers for 20 years. While the carrier did promise to subtract $100 fro my bill (based on the taxes I paid for the first order that went to the wrong address), that order was the one that went to the wrong address which was totally Verizon's fault.

Yes, this is not a catastrophe of global proportions. So I end up having to wait a few extra days for my new phone. But it is a matter of customer service. While I have my fingers crossed that my new Pixel 6 Pro arrives tomorrow at 1 PM, those disturbing feelings are gnawing at my insides making me feel as though something is about to get screwed up again. We will update this on Friday to let you know what happens.