Lush 3-1

My phone has this intermittent "not working" quality to it. The Sunday I got back into Indiana, my phone wouldn't make calls out--it wasn't registering as a verizon phone. I called verizon, spent an hour troubleshooting the phone, and by the end still didn't have a phone. Kind of obnoxious, since I hadn't called anyone to tell them I made it in safely. The next day the phone was fixed, supposedly by changing something in their system. Then, a few days later, I couldn't receive calls. The solution this time, after troubleshooting the phone again, was to replace the phone. I had two options--either wait for verizon to send me a new phone by mail, which would take a couple of days; or go to a local verizon dealer and they'd replace the phone. Reasoning that it would be faster for me to simply go to a local verizon dealer, Derrick said I didn't need a phone shipped to me.

Remember that scene in Ghostbusters where Winston says, "Ray, when someone asks if you're a *God*, you say 'YES!'" Yeah, when someone offers to ship you a new phone, you say 'YES!'

First of all, I don't have time right now to run across town to the verizon store. I didn't make time to get over there until yesterday, which is when the phone would have arrived had one been shipped to me. So, no time savings there (yes, potentially there might have been had I made it out to the mall on Saturday, when the problem occurred, but I was kinda busy working up data).

I tried Best Buy first, and the guy who helped me there waffled and hedged, and told me, "Your phone is more than a year old" (it isn't, which I told him) "so we don't carry that phone anymore. Even if we had that phone you'd have to pay for a new one because you haven't had your contract for two years" (this problem is covered under warranty, so I shouldn't have to pay for it) "and I don't know how we'd deal with an exchange--if you'd have to pay for a new phone and then have the exchange credited to your phone bill or something." Or something. So, I left and went to the verizon store in the mall. The guy there was at least familiar with my problem, but they wouldn't do over the counter exchanges, so to exchange with them I'd have to pay $20 for express shipping, and still have to wait two days. I said, thanks, but no thanks.

This morning, intent on getting this cleared up, I called verizon. The woman who "helped" me said that since my phone was currently working, they couldn't do anything for me. AARGH! I thought, it's an intermittent problem. I'm basically assured to have this problem again, potentially at a supremely inconvenient moment. I didn't get a cell phone so I could *occasionally* use it.

So, Derrick called them back. They're shipping me a phone. The guy he talked to said no problem, the record of the intermittent problem was in my file and they'd be happy to ship a new phone to me. You know, the way customer service is supposed to work.