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Enough Already, My email to VZW

T

TboltDenver

Lurker
I know I am new to the forum, but I thought I would post this and ask for feedback. I am sick of Verizon over-hyping phones, charging hundreds of dollars for people to lock themselves into them and then abandoning them. (HTC Eris, Storm, and now Thunderbolt).

I sent the following email to VZW support and will keep leaning on them, but likely to no avail. Should I just shut up and deal with this? Is it just the way they do business...ie We have them locked in, no need to service the 2lb brick in his pocket with a data connection that barely works and a battery that lasts 15 min?

Sorry for the vent, but GB getting pulled was the last straw for me. Why release a phone that was clearly months away from actually being ready to go?

I'll follow up with any responses I get.

My email:

I have been a Verizon customer for many years, including bringing other family, friends, co-workers, and corporate accounts to Verizon, but am extremely disappointed, and contemplating joining a competitor. I am writing because of my (and thousands of other people's) experience with the HTC Thunderbolt.

This phone was hyped and billed as a huge deal for verizon, but has been nothing but a headache since I purchased it for $300+ dollars when it came out(only to see it being sold now for $60). The data connection works less than 50% of the time and the phone's battery lasts a max of 4-6 hours with any substantial use. I live in a major metro area in Denver, and 4G barely ever exists. I now keep data and wifi turned off most of the time in order to make the battery last through the day.

Further, there have been promises and promises of updates and upgrades to the phone's OS to the next android Gingerbread system, which is apparently not slated to happen anytime soon. I feel this was close to fraudulent as Verizon billed this as something it clearly is not.

I have had similar situations in the past with the HTC Droid Eris and the Blackberry Storm where VZW launches a phone with a lot of hype and then abandons it for the next big thing, leaving customers in the lurch with a 3 month old outdated phone barely being serviced anymore.

Is verizon willing to acknowledge these problems, is something being done to fix them and compensate customers? Customers with your top of the line phones must be some of your highest paying, right? I have had way too many service calls in the short time i've had this phone and can't handle being told to 'wait' for fixes any longer or blown off when I call or go into a store.

Please advise me what to do, as my current situation can not keep going. I would rather suffer an inferior network than this level of phone and service quality.
 
If you want an honest opinion,I think you're over reacting. If you're just looking for people to join in your gripe session,I'd stop reading now.

The TB has had 2 Maintenance releases,and GB is in its second stage of testing at HTC. It'll be here soon if you want to wait for an ota,or if you want to root there is allready a nice custom rom using it as a base.

If you're having 4g issues,get them to replace it. Vzw customer service has been nothing but good to me.

I personally have had zero issues that weren't dealt with quickly and courteously,and I love my phone.

If you didn't like it you had 14 days to return it and get a charge or a revolution,or even remain out of contract if you want to wait for q3 or q4 devices.

What,exactly,do you want them to do for you?
 
Don't believe everything you read off the internet. There are no indications that Gingerbread have been pulled for the Tbolt. If you read the email posted on Droid life, you'll see that the rep said:

"I understand how important it is to have the latest update for your device. Unfortunately, it is the latest update to 2.3 that is creating this to happen. HTC has pulled back this update to keep future customers from receiving the update"
Click to expand...

This makes absolutely no sense because we haven't not gotten the GB update yet, so there's no need to "pull back" and "keep future customers" from receiving it. Personally I think she got it confused with some other update.

As to your other problems, well all I could say is don't buy into the hype. There's no such thing as a perfect phone. Your issues with the TB may be perfectly valid, but they already have released an update which solved most of people issues like rebooting, 3g/4g switching etc...
 
verizon is the carrier, not he manufacturer. if the manufacturer decides to stop supporting the device, verizon can't be blamed. the Eris received the 2.1 update, which was a disaster for the device. that may or may not have been the reason HTC stopped updating it. the storm's last update was 11/2010. a full year after launch. the tbolt has had 2 updates since launch, which was 4 months ago.

you had 14 days to return it (not 30). other than that, I agree 100% with Scotty85...

manufacturers of electronic devices need to stay on the cutting edge to stay competitive. researching, fixing, and updating an old device doesnt make sense when tech is outdated pretty much at launch. if you dont like it and dont want to deal with it, then do what I thought about doing -- sell the TB for what you can get, and use that money to buy a new phone outright.

edit: where the hell did you see the tbolt sold for $60? not from verizon. on their site it's still $250.
 
Definitely overreacting. I've had my tb since 2 weeks after launch and all major issues (battery - carry a charger, and rebooting - last update) have been resolved. If I know I'm going to be somewhere that I can't charge it, I simply use my phone differently.
 
I appreciate your frustrated with the issues your having with you phone, but that email is not going to get you anywhere. Most of it is assumptions and not facts anyways. The phone was never officially billed as getting GB anytime soon and the phone hasn't been abandoned by either Verizon or HTC. They've already updated the phone twice and will be doing so again whenever the GB testing is finished.

The battery is a problem for most out of the box. It sounds like you are fairly current with technology, have you done anything to the settings to help with battery (lower brightness, turn off GPS, lower sync intervals, etc)? The data sounds like a hardware issue to me and you may want to look into getting a replacement. Most of the data issues/reboots were solved with the last update that went out.

I'm not going to get into details, but if you want GB and a phone that has good battery life you may want to considering rooting. As some will say, "you shouldn't have to void your warranty to have a working device" and while I agree with them to an extent I also disagree. That's a different discussion for a different day though.

I would strongly suggest not sending that email, but instead call customer support and tell them about your data problems and see if a replacement device will work better for you.
 
You're probbaly like the vast majority of americans that have this phone. The very small minority will post on forums like this and find ways to improve their phones either by tweaking some settings or just rooting the damn thing altogether. Otherwise, I agree with your sentiment and believe it should be MORE the matter of the carrier delivering a quality phone to users without crap shit on it like blockbuster and just have it working. I'll shoot my mother before believing Verizon didn't know there was gonna be problems with this phone before it released it on their 4g network. But what can you do? Not much, you're stuck on a 2 year plan and unless you wanna pay 500 to get a new phone or complain enough to verizon and get switched to another phone, you're just gonna have to tough it out or root it.
 
Ya know, there's an old saying "customers will complain and vow to never buy your product again, only to buy a competitors', do the same to them and then come back to you as a customer the next time you launch a shiny new phone with specs your competitor hasn't reached yet."

I'm pretty sure some smart Guy like mark twain said that. Love the way it rolls right off the tongue like a lady GaGa song that just hit the radio

Point is: you can voice your displeasure to them as much as you want. As long as you understand all you're doing is venting and not enacting any change within the way business works. Might i suggest picketing outside their corporate building with a strongly worded sign? At the very least a sad face emoticon at the end of your email. Those are free.
 
For those of you who took the time to reply, thanks. Of course I know the email was somewhat over the top and not likely to lead to anything, but there should be some principle in it. I clearly let my frustration with having to lower the functionality of my phone to make it function frustrate me to no end.

To those of you saying rooting is the answer, I completely disagree that it should be on us to void our warranties and do something very few smart phone users understand in order to make our phones work properly. Also 14 days to return a device is a joke. I clearly didn't anticipate what this phone would be in the first 14 days.

My main point in posting was to see whether people shared in my opinions that Verizon continuously brings up the rear with their hardware, over promising and under delivering. But then again, I fully appreciate that I made the choice and am stuck with it. I'll continue working with their support and see what happens next.
 
While I believe many are ignorant or exaggerating, lets not forget guys, for many 14 days was not ample as no one could forsee mr1 being a disaster, and yes it has had two updates, but update number one was a nightmare for a decent amount of tb users. This necessitated update two which took much too long. I'm from the "shouldn't need to root camp" which is the vast, vast majority of users. Verizon and HTC did kinda **** up royally whether rooting fixes it for the probably 5% that do it is irrelevant to 95%....lets join reality here...

Like already suggested if youve been a customer for a while call and get to an assoc. director level in tech support.... itll take a while...keep pushing and you may very well get a new charge or revo if thats what your into... I wouldn't advise it as I'm back to a tb after a charge. Its like a bad relationship that you keep going back to, I can't leave her lol.
 
97'es said:
. Verizon and HTC did kinda **** up royally whether rooting fixes it for the probably 5% that do it is irrelevant to 95%....lets join reality here...
Click to expand...

Don't want to get in a pissing contest but, the rooting community makes up more than 5%. For me the main reason I buy Android phones is so I can root them and fully own them. If Android was unrootable and I was forced to stick with it stock for 2 years I probably wouldn't own an Android phone to be honest. They need work straight out of the box, they will get better but, until they do I'll root it and have one of the best phones available right now, not just on Verizon.
 
I started another thread about GB possibly being put on hold - and the issues. Someone commented - correctly so - something on the otder of - "There's no perfect phone". I guess unless it's a dumbphone. ALL smartphones seem to have SOME issues - just some have more than others. But - I'm guessing whoever you ask - none have as many peoblems as they do. In other words - I'm not so sure that the grass is any greener anywhere else.
 
WormDoes said:
Don't want to get in a pissing contest but, the rooting community makes up more than 5%. For me the main reason I buy Android phones is so I can root them and fully own them. If Android was unrootable and I was forced to stick with it stock for 2 years I probably wouldn't own an Android phone to be honest. They need work straight out of the box, they will get better but, until they do I'll root it and have one of the best phones available right now, not just on Verizon.
Click to expand...
:cool:
No I completely understand where your coming from but stock users are a vast majority and rooted users a vocal minority was my only real point... obviously I dont know the numbers who does lol, I was gonna say 90/10 haha.

Anyway I just will not put a dollar in the pocket of Jobs... They are nice phones but my first smartphone had to be android and the OG droid was such a great device for its time, not going to apple at this point.

Anyway tbolt denver, hope you get some satisfaction. Life is too short to be unhappy with a phone for 20 months. Its like your car or mattress, use it too much for inferior performance.
 
I would never, ever, ever buy an iPhone either. My point was Android and root go hand in hand for me and the majority of people I know.
 
I have a TASTE of gingerbread.....and its delicious!
But seriously....the TB is an alright phone until you root...then its awesome! Almost the perfect phone.
 
TboltDenver said:
To those of you saying rooting is the answer, I completely disagree that it should be on us to void our warranties and do something very few smart phone users understand in order to make our phones work properly. Also 14 days to return a device is a joke. I clearly didn't anticipate what this phone would be in the first 14 days.
Click to expand...

Agreed. But sending an email to VZW isn't going to solve anything. You have to take matters into your own hands eventually because Verizon only cares about making money. They don't care about you!
Plus I had no idea how to root...I didn't even know what root meant. But with the help of forum mods, I rooted in less than 40 mins and now I'm able to use my $300 to its full potential the way I want to use it...not the way Verizon wants me to use it.
So you can sit back and wait for Verizon to respond to your email(Lmao) or take care of it yourself.
 
I understand your frustrations too, but battery problems were well known before launch (several reviews, all commented on it, the severity may have differed between reviews, but all commented on it, so hey...). It didn't come with Gingerbread so expecting that is unrealistic. If we get it, it is a bonus.

While Verizon gives you 14 days, many retailers (Rip Shack, BB) give you 30 days to return a phone. This is more realistic, I think.

While I like my Tbolt (OK, Tbolt #3), I may end up selling it after a year and picking up something more modest with a long battery life (but still Android). Or not. We'll see. But vendors like Vz will keep selling this stuff, beta hardware and software, as long as we keep on buying it.
 
dylanabby said:
Agreed. But sending an email to VZW isn't going to solve anything. You have to take matters into your own hands eventually because Verizon only cares about making money. They don't care about you!
Plus I had no idea how to root...I didn't even know what root meant. But with the help of forum mods, I rooted in less than 40 mins and now I'm able to use my $300 to its full potential the way I want to use it...not the way Verizon wants me to use it.
So you can sit back and wait for Verizon to respond to your email(Lmao) or take care of it yourself.
Click to expand...


The problem is that the people who are able to but refuse to root because they feel "I shouldn't have to do anything I should have the perfect phone because I paid for it" are going to write the whiny emails to VZW and then feel justified waiting for a reply (come on they actually took some action :rolleyes:) then will get the GB update without any other reply and realize it didn't do anything to the phone other than make it unrootable and change the version of android. Huh I guess that would mean the issues posed in the OP would still be present OMG.

@OP If the issues the you are having were not obvious in the return window then you must have got the phone and not bothered to use it until after the window was over. If you are using android and are not going to actually use the like android is designed to be use (breaking away from only needing OTA updates) then stop complaining, either root and take matters in your own hands or stand up, turn around drop your pants, bend over, and prepare for VZW to make you their special friend :eek:.
 
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