BellAtlantic Mobile has long had a reputation for rude, inconsiderate service. Now this great tradition will be extended to Airtouch customers under the Verizon banner.

Jennifer of Rockville Centre, NY, writes:
My husband's cell phone, purchased directly through Verizon, stopped working shortly after purchase. I contacted the company and got a different answer as to what to do each and every time I spoke with someone. For example, they told me to bring the phone to a Radio Shack in my town so they could officially state that it was broken. I called Verizon from the Radio Shack and had the store employee actually speak to a Verizon rep. The Radio Shack employees seemed more knowledgeable than the Verizon employees.

First Verizon told me the account was suspended until the phone was fixed. Then another rep. said this wasn't done and couldn't be done. Somebody from Verizon actually asked me who told me to go to Radio Shack? Anyway, I was getting fed up and wanted to terminate my relationship with them, if possible. I had been an AT&T customer previously and I knew that they let you cancel within 30 days with no termination fee. I asked if this applied to Verizon as well and was told by a supervisor, April, that this was indeed true with them too and that if I canceled there would be no charge. I was also told this by a rep. named Frank and another named Ken, both of whom could not seem to terminate my account for various reasons. Ken told me he would lose his job if he cancelled my account but that his job was cancelling accounts? Scott, who finally did cancel my account also told me that I would not incur a termination fee. He said they would not take the phones back since they had too much use but there would be no fee. I figured that was fine with me since the two phones only cost $39.

Well, now that I have terminated my account, they refuse to waive the fee. Since two phones were involved it costs $350. A helpful representative, Erica, is trying to help, but they don't seem to want to waive it for her efforts either. A rep. named Tasha told me today that she knows that if an account is cancelled within 30 days there is no fee but that if a supervisor denied it she couldn't do anything. I was well within the 30 days. The account was opened on 9/27/00 and closed 10/17/00. I would not have cancelled if I knew there was going to be a fee, so I feel this is a real bait-n-switch. I feel I'm going to get stuck paying the fee soon - the payment is due 11/16/00 - since the account is on my husband's credit report, which is spotless. I made a decision based on information from them!

I am so worked up about this I'm having trouble sleeping and am becoming a bit obsessed. It's just not fair they can get away with being so incredibly incompetent and making me pay for it.

Wendy of Vernon, NY, writes:
My daughter Tiffany went into Verizon Wireless to pay her cell phone bill and her boyfriend's. The girl was just about to leave for lunch and was in a hurry but she did wait on my daughter. My daughter paid both bills in cash and received one receipt. The girl told Tiffany both bills were on one receipt. Tiffany, being 19 and naive, didn't look at the receipt right away and left the store. After a few minutes she noticed on the receipt only her boyfriends payment of $52 (approx) was on it. Hers was $120 (approx) and wasn't on there. She didn't pay any attention to it because she knew she paid the bill.

On Thanksgiving Day (Nov 2000) she noticed her phone was shut off. Upon contacting Verizon, she was told her bill wasn't paid. They told her they couldn't help her without a receipt. She never received a receipt so she cannot produce one for them. They refuse to do anything about this. Here is a girl, 19 years old, working for practically minimum wage and trying to build her credit and they scam her like this. Her father even went in and tried to settle this but they refuse to do a thing.

The funny thing is the girl remembers her coming in to pay 2 bills and even stated she remembered one being quite large. Now they claim Tiffany was in there and told them she lost her receipt which is not true because she told them from day one that she never got one. They are lying to try and cover up their scam or the thief they have working among them.","The consequences will now be that Tiffany will have negative feedback on her credit report. She is just sick about the whole thing as she works for around $6 an hour and it took alot for her to save to pay her bill.

Vincent of Upland, CA, writes:
I had purchased two cell phones from Verizon Wireless in June when I enrolled in the program. As it stated on the contract, the rebate will mail out after 3 months. After 3 months, they would review the statement to confirm on time payment and then "SHORTLY" a rebate check will mail out to me. Now, it is end of December already, I had called Verizon Wireless and their rebate center, all their responses were "All you can do is to wait."

I feel like I'm being cheated. If they do that to everyone, holding approximately $100-$200 per household, they are actually indirectly holding a lot of money which belongs to someone else. In addition, the customer service over at the rebate center was terrible. No courtesy, impolite and very very rude.

Andrew of North Beach, MD, writes:
Just want to complain and warn others about the horrible mobile service they can expect from Verizon in southern Maryland. I am well within the service boundaries shown on their map, yet I have about a 80% failure rate when using my phone. This is not just in one particular area but in many various areas, basicly everywhere I have used the phone. I rarely talk for more than 5 minutes without being cut off. I have not contacted Verizon yet because I am certain it will be a complete waste of time. You can be sure I will not renew my contract.

Anthony of Locust Grove, GA, writes:
In October of 1999 I signed three contacts with Airtouch for three wireless phones (I bought the phones). The service was for no roaming charges, no long distance charges and nationwide service for a monthly fee. For $29.99 I cauld get 100 min. or $39.99 for 200 min. and so till $89.99 for 500 min. I could raise my minutes or lower them as I needed to on my phones.

Now that Verizon (alias Bell Atlantic) has merged with Airtouch, they says that I can't raise or lower my minutes unless I buy a new phone from them.

I no longer needed my higher priced minutes and wished to lower them so that my bill would be cheaper, they say no deal I have to pay the higher price until the contract is up, but they no longer will honor the Airtouch contract. But they said if I try to cancel my worthless contract they will charge me for doing so.

See how beneficial these mergers are for consumers?

Thomas of Ronkonkoma, NY, writs:
I could go on for days. It started in the tail end of 1999. I had one mobile phone from Bell Atlantic and one from Omnipoint for my girlfriend. I had no major problems with the Bell Atlantic phone billing but many repeated billing errors with Omnipoint. After many months of problems with Omnipoint I decided not to renew my Omnipoint contract (expiring December 1999) and to replace my girlfriend's phone with a Bell Atlantic phone and to renew my existing contract for another year. This was the begining of my problems with Bell Atlantic.

So my girlfriend chucked her Omnipoint phone and spent money for a new phone with Bell Atlantic. As my 1999 Bell contact had me renting the phone I too purchased the phone that was on special when renewing my contract. When establishing the two new contracts in the Bell Atlantic store, I asked the rep. to put both phones on one bill, thinking they would be itemized. Not so. When I got my bill I saw the charges were all lumped together and called customer service to review the charges and request the billing be seperated.

I was told that would be fine and that next month I would get seperate bills for each line. But I noticed a few things in reviewing the charges. First Bell Atlantic without asking me placed a $3.95 monthly charge on each phone for phone insurance in case of damage or loss. I did not request this insurance and when I told the rep that she insisted that Bell does not put that on your bill unless you request it. So I was credited and those charges and they were removed.

I do not remember the exact dates of these events but I renewened my contract from my existing contract on the day the prior one expired yet I was charged a fee for forward billing on the new contract (I am fuzzy on this detail); the rep said that even though I renwewed my existing line the same day the old one expired she never saw anyone get away from some type of forward billing charge (as they bill a month in advance) When I asked the rep what the exact amount of my normal monthly charges should be for each phone the rep said she could not determine that "because fees and taxes are different in each area."

Although I was amazed and insistant that they figure out what these charges were for each of my phones they would or could not tell me how much the the bill for each phone should be if I stay within my montly plan ($29.99 for 200 minutes and free weekends). I can not believe that no one could tell me what taxes and fees are or how much my bill total should be. Sounds insane but it's true. (I have asked several times over several months)

The next month the bills for the two phones were seperate but had different totals due to my requesting they be billed seperatly and my girlfriend's phone had additional/partial charges due to the forward billing. Also the two bills/phones were on different billing cycles and were now due at different times of the month. So I requested they both be put into the same billing cycle so the would be due at the same time each month. This caused the bill totals to not match again the following month (as I have identical service contracts for each you think they would) Next month I was sent a weird bill for $13.95 on my girlfriends phone. When I called Bell to inquire they said don't worry about it, we made a mistake. By this time I was into March and still waiting for the bills for two phones to match. But no, I think at this point the started charging my phone for the weekend promotion that was supposed to be free.

After several hours and calls I was told that although the free weekend promotion was reinstated on my account for the next few months it would appear on my bill although when I call to make payment with a credit card they would have the correct totals on the computer and that rep would follow the account to insure I was not being charged. The reason quoted for Bell's inability to correct the billing immediately was what Bell refered to as an "open window request". Then the April bill came and now they were charging me for "text messaging" on my phone that I never requested. More time on the phone and several calls later that charge was removed.

Next month on the May bill they were charging me for the weekends again. I opened my bill on the LIRR train going home one night and imediately tried to call on my Bell Atlantic cell phone to see what the deal was. Twice I called in a one hour time frame and twice I got a recording telling me that "The system was down and to call later". Finally on the third try I got through, punched through the maze of options, input my cell number and started to address the issue with a rep when the call got dropped. I called right back only to have the same thing happen. Outraged I called them back from my land phone at home and the woman I spoke to, Tanya, said she saw the problem and also saw there were other mistakes on my billing for both accounts. She put me on hold several times. She put me on hold and came back to tell me as I had all these problems on both accounts she was going to pull all my bills from January on both phone and review them with her manager and get back to me by Wednesday 5/24.

Shockingly she did not call back. I called her back twice again going through the rat maze of prompts only to leave her two messages. The following week with still no reply from Tanya I called the main number and got a Sue L on the phone> at this point I was irate and asked her what the deal is with Tanya, why after nearly six months with these two phones with the same rate I did not ever have two bills that match. Again I requested the total correct amount with taxes and fees on each bill if staying within the allotted minutes to be told again they can not tell me that.

I was borderline ranting at this point when I asked who is the head of customer relations? Is there a VP or someone I could complain to? No, I was told I could only complain to the rep on the phone and they would decide whether or not to pass my complaint on to their supervisor. Amazed by this reply I was told that all major complaints go through a appealsn board. A faceless nameless committee. ...

Tanya finally did get back to me. She claimed to have reviewed my billing and started asking me a bunch of questions and putting me on hold. When she came back from putting me on hold with another question I told her "look, every month I have to spend hours on the phone with you/Bell resolving billing errors that are Bell's fault. I am very busy at work and can not spend any more time on hold or answering your questions. The situation is quite simple, I have two phones with the same plan yet for the last five months the bills never match. resolve this and call me with the outcome."

Fine, she said and moments later she called and left a message that she had resolved the issues. I called her back and she said, yes, there was an error on them charging me for the weekends and they had made the mistake before and not credited me for it perviously, so now I was due a credit of $11.94 and my bill would be like $29.94 which made no sense to me as my normal rate is $29.99 plus taxes and fees adding about $6.00 to $7.00 for a total of about $37.00 dollars. So how do you (Bell/Tanya) get to $29.94 after crediting my account $11.00 and change from $37.00 total. She was at a loss.

And so it goes ... One other comment, I can not hold a connection on the phone from my own house. The phone drops the call. When I filed a complaint about this I was told they would check it out and get back to me. Never heard a thing. Several months later I complained again online on the Bell Atlantic web page and this time I got a call from rep who said, "Oh I know what you're going through. I have the same problem at my house" and in effect there is nothing they can do about it.

Robert of Edison, NJ, writes:
I purchased a cellular phone from Bell Atlantic Mobile in March 1999. I returned the phone in May because the battery would not charge. Over a month later they told me that they could not fix it. They did, however, replace it with a new phone of the same make and model.

On November 12, 1999 I returned to the Woodbridge, NJ store with the same problem. The battery would not charge. They told me that the problem with the phone was a manufacturer's defect and that they had stopped making the phone because of it.

The store supervisor, Bonnie, offered to replace my phone with a used phone of the same make and model. It turns out that they did not have any used phones to give me.

My final and ONLY option now was this: She would give me a new phone of the same value of the originally purchased defective phone. This sounds great except she also told me I needed to sign a NEW One Year contract.

I called Bell Atlantic Customer Service from the store. I spoke with Scarlet from North Carolina. She also spoke with Bonnie, the store supervisor. Scarlet then told me that she could not overrule a store manager's decision. I then asked Scarlet if I could speak to a Costumer Service Manager. She told me that there were no managers available. She told me that a manager would call me the next day at 1:00 P.M.

So, I left the store with a loaner phone. I did NOT receive a phone call from a manager on Friday, 11/13 at 1: 00 P.M. as promised. I called Customer Service on Monday 11/15 at 10:40. I spoke with Delor. I explained my situation again and asked him if I could speak to a manager. He told me that there where no managers available and that one would call me back. Delor called me back to tell me the manager, Brian Duggan would call me between 5:00P.M. and 6:00P.M. that evening.

Well, I finally got a call from a manager (Marchella), on my voice mail at work, at 8:27 P.M. on 11/15/99. They never called me on the cell phone number. I don't feel I should have to sign another One Year contract in order to receive the cell service I originally signed up for.

A second issuue is that they told me since I changed my calling plan 90 days after my original one year contract they extended my contract to one year from the date the calling plan was changed. I did change the calling plan within the 90 days but they did not input it into there system until August. This is evidenced by a calling plan CREDIT in August and September granted to me to make up for there mistake. I was never informed until last Thursday 11/12/99 that my calling plan was extended in August.

They are driving me crazy by giving me the runaround. They never call me back when they say they will. I have a very busy work schedule and don't have the time to spend disputing issues with BellAtlantic Mobile.

As far as the service contract being extended due to the service plan being changed this will cost me an additional $360.

Heather of Ramsey, NJ, writes:
I brought in a cell phone for repair. Before bringing it in I questioned the service staff about my warranty. I was told the phone was warrantied.

Two weeks later I still did not have my cell phone back and I got a phone call from Bell Atlantic Mobile telling my th manufacturer would not honor the warranty and it would cost $100 to fix the phone.

The service manager I spoke with was incredibly rude and would give me no information as to why my phone was not covered.

It turns out the phone was covered under warranty and even if it wasn't, the manufacter was only going to charge me $85 to fix it as opposed to the $100 that I was origionally told.

I feel like Bell Atlantic was trying to scam me out of money by overquoting me, not sending in my warranty info, not following up with the repair, and not following up with me as a customer. In addition, the service manager was extremelly rude.

The phone will be repaired for free, I had to call the manufacturer myself and get it straightened out. Bell Atlantic still can't tell me why they over quoted me and I have not gotten any sort of decent customer service.

Denise of Brooklyn, NY, writes:
I have three mobile phones, that I am renting as of 1/29/99. One phone never really worked well, it seemed to never recharge, then one day I noticed that my battery charger was burned on the inside where my phone would sit.

My daughter who has one of the other phones had the same thing happen to the bottom of her phone, it also was burned.

I called Bell Atlantic and spoke to a very nice lady. She told me that I should remove my charger from the socket to keep from having an electrical fire and to bring the phones to any Bell Atlantic office to have them replaced free of charge.

I opened up the back of my phone and found a sticker that said the battery expired on 5/1/99. So I went to a Bell Atlantic phone center and told one of the sales representatives the story. He did replace the two defective pieces, but said that the burning was my fault for keeping the phones on the battery charger for more than 4 hours.

As to the battery expiring after having it only 3 months there was nothing that he could do. If I wanted I could purchase another one for around $70.00.

If I want to use the phone until my contract is up at the end of January 2000, I will have to purchase a new battery and return it when I return the phone. It seems unfair to have me return a new battery for someone else to use. I was also very upset to think that an electrical fire could start because of the phones' defect.