Well, feel free to take that as a good sign, but the warranty still says it doesn't transfer. I just checked the one that came in the box, just to make sure it didn't change. It only covers the original owner, and can not be transfered or assigned. Either HTC is ignoring the terms of it's own warranty, or that rep was mistaken.
Also, since the warranty is enforced, so to speak, by Verizon, they may very well have the final say. I know that's the case with some other carriers/manufacturers.
The upshot here is, you might get lucky and they honor it. As r3dlined demonstrated, many HTC (and verizon) reps aren't familiar with the warranty terms. But they probably won't.