[Verizon Droid Charge] teardropcity:
For those of you who really like to read, below is what I sent to the BBB, it's really long, but I condensed a lot and still tried to articulate all the frustration I have had because of this phone, with all the misinformation from reps and such.

I have been a Verizon customer for several years and have multiple lines on my account. In June of this year, I upgraded one of my lines to a Samsung Droid Charge, for which I paid $269.99, which included a 30 dollar discount that Verizon has since eliminated. Verizon also eliminated the option of 1 year contracts, which I had previously always used, as well as eliminating unlimited data, but still continuing to charge the same price, as opposed to AT&T, which lowered their data price when they eliminated unlimited, which makes sense as the customer is getting less from their service. I mention these things specifically, because these factors played a big part of my decision to choose the phone i did. At the time of the announcement that Verizon was eliminating unlimited data, there was much confusion on details of whether existing customers could keep that service when their contracts expired. At that time I had placed several calls to Verizon customer service, and none of the reps I spoke with could give me any information, I even had a rep tell me that Verizon would never eliminate unlimited data, and if they did, customers bills would go down. With unfortunately no concrete information from Verizon themselves, I went ahead and renewed my contract before the cut off date, so I could lock in unlimited data. The Samsung Droid Charge is a 4G phone, one of only a few that Verizon offers, and based on research I did at the time, with what information was available then, was the best choice for a 4G phone, due to battery life and advanced display technology. I chose a 4G phone because i did want to get stuck with a 3G phone for 2 years, since that was the contract length I now had to sign. Since I got the phone I have had repeated issues with the phone keeping a data connection, which I pay a monthly fee for. I have had multiple instances where my 3G connection would drop completely, leaving me without ANY data, unless I am somewhere that has a strong 4G signal to connect to, which unfortunately at my work and home I don't, despite what Verizon's coverage map says. When the data drops, it renders my phone useless for data connection, which is 90% of my use of it. The first time this issue happened I contacted support and was ultimately told i had to do a factory restore of my phone, which would cause all the personalizations and apps I downloaded since I had it to be erased. I did this, and the problem still occurred. The temporary fix I found, was I had to drive to a Verizon store, wait in line and request a new sim card. I am as of this writing on my 3rd sim card. Each time this happened, I would contact Verizon and each time they would say they had never heard of the issue before, and they had no fix for it. To be quite honest, this reoccurring issue was a quite a pain, but I continued to deal with it, and received absolutely no compensation from Verizon for it. I also began doing additional research online, and found many other users across the country, with this phone, experiencing the exact same issues as I was. Things went from bad to worse, when on October 16th, Verizon had a nationwide network outage, since then my phone constantly drops data signal completely, whenever the phone is switching from a 4G signal to a 3G signal. This is supposed to be a seamless transition, however on my phone it is taking anywhere from 30 seconds to 4 minutes. I have verified this issue happens in multiple locations, both indoor and outdoor within a 50 mile of mile radius of my home. On October 17th, after months of issues, and repeated calls to Verizon, and spoke to a rep in Elgin, IL t and she finally opened a ticket 4775919, and i was told they would have a resolution for me "in 2 to 3 business days". Within 2 days, the problem had gotten worse, and overtime I picked my phone up to use it, data connection would drop and I would have to wait for it to connect again. I called tech support back to update them with that information, and spoke to a tech named "Brian" and was told by him that the information I was giving was "sent to engineers in real time" and would result in a quicker resolution. On October 19th, I called back because I had not heard anything back from Verizon, and the problem continued. I spoke to a tech named "Tim", who said he was in Arizona and his extension was 7426, he apologized for the issue, and told me he would personally follow up with me on the 21st, when he got to work at 12:30. On the 21st, I was very disappointed not to have heard back at all, so I again called tech support, and spoke to someone named "Christy", she told me there was still no resolution, but that the "national team" was looking into it. I also had her check coverage for my area, and was told I was in a great 4G coverage area. She told me if i didn't hear anything on Monday to call back. On Monday October 24th, I called again, and spoke a to a tech named "Mir". He told me a ticket always takes "1 to 5 business days to fix" I explained to him the ticket had already been open for that long, and all I wanted was a phone that worked. He had me remove my sim card and turn of my phone, and said he was doing a full reset on his end. I explained to him that I already had a tech do this when the ticket was opened. He then told me he had fixed my issue. He gave me his email address of mir.ali@verizonwireless.com and told me to contact him if I had any further issues. 15 minutes later, my data dropped in the exact same situation, and so I emailed him to let him know to contact me asap. He called me an hour later, saying he will contact an engineer, and got it resolved "today, or tomorrow". At this point I was fed up with not having a working phone and having to pay for service I am not reliably getting. I called back Verizon and spoke to someone named "Lordis" and told her I wanted to cancel. She explained to me that I would have to pay a several hundred dollar fee to cancel my contract, because there was a trouble ticket open for me, and that a tech would have to come personally to my area and test everything before the ticket could be closed, and then they decide whether or not there is really a problem or not. I told her that was completely unacceptable and asked her why I was paying for service I am not getting, and feeling like Verizon does not care about me or my service. She had no answer for me, and only said she can transfer me back to tech support. I then spoke to a tech named "Trenda", who right away told me that Samsung is aware of the issue and is issuing a fix in "early november" I also mentioned to her of the many others users posing on online forums, including Verizon's own, of the same issues, and how every other Verizon tech had told me they had never heard of the issue, and all she could say was she did not know why not a single person denied that it was known issue, and had no explanation why a trouble ticket was opened, and why no other tech person was aware of this or had informed at all. She apologized and issued me a one time credit for my data on next months bill. I then read online of another user contacting the Better Business Bureau, and being told that Verizon is aware of the issue, and had issued a "parent trouble ticket" 4789734, for all related Droid Charge problems to go under. I then called Verizon, to make sure that my issue would get filed under that, and spoke to a rep named "Chris" who told me there was a number that matched that, but there was no parent trouble ticket, but that ticket number had the same situation as mine, but it had been filed as a "Priority 1" and mine was only a "Priority 3". He also admitted that was probably because it came from the BBB. He also looked at my original ticket, and said it was updated to show my area had "marginal 3g coverage" I told him that was ridiculous, and was not related to my issue. He then told me that Verizon has an internal document dated October 19th, which says a fix is coming "at the end of the month". I again asked why no other tech was aware of this, or mentioned anything to me, while they continue to investigate my trouble ticket, he again told me he did not know, but just to wait 2 weeks and it will all be fixed. I asked him for more info on the update and he told me I could try and call Samsung. I also received a text after that from "Mir" telling me he is still waiting to hear back from an engineer. I contacted Samsung support via phone, online chat and Twitter, and was told by several different reps that they were not aware of any updates, and they were not even aware of the issue, and asked me to give many details so they could forward it to their engineers. I called Verizon again and spoke to a rep named "Robert" He told me that nowhere in any documents could he find any dates or date ranges mentioning any kind of update. He did find a mention of "data connectivity issues" listed in the known issues documentation, but again could find no date ranges listed for ANY kind of software fix. He said it also took him almost 15 minutes to find that information, and said that most reps would not take the time to do research like that. He apologized that he had no resolution in site, and told me just "to hang in there". I have been sold a faulty product by Verizon, and they have offered me no resolution for it, and have continued to give me false and misleading information. I just want a phone that is comparable to the phone I paid for, to use the service I pay for. If Verizon is unable to give me that, I will be forced to cancel my contract, and under those circumstances, I should NOT pay Verizon any type of fee to do so. Please help get this resolved.