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An Arkansas couple claim they fell victim to Verizon’s “bait and switch” scheme in a two for one iPhone deal.
According to plaintiffs George Wise and Barbara Gilbert-Wise, this deal was “purposefully deceptive, false, unconscionable, fraudulent, and also allowed Verizon to be unjustly enriched.”
The plaintiffs claim that, in May 2019, Mr. Wise went into their local Verizon store seeking to take advantage of Mother’s Day promotions.
Specifically, he aimed to take advantage of the deal which reportedly allowed consumers to “Buy iPhone XR, iPhone XS MAX, iPhone XS, or iPhone X and get a free iPhone XR (or take $750 off a second iPhone X model)” when “adding a new line on Verizon Unlimited.”
While at the store, a Verizon employee allegedly told Mr. Wise that he would be able to participate in the promotion. Mr. Wise says he was told he would receive a second iPhone free of charge if he added an additional line to his account and purchased another iPhone, promises which were “all consistent with Verizon’s Mother’s Day Promotion.”
Based on these representations, Mr. Wise reportedly chose to participate in the bargain by adding a phone to his account and purchasing a new iPhone as a gift for his wife Mrs. Gilbert-Wise. He expected he would receive an additional iPhone free of charge, which could be used by his son on his recently added phone line.
However, Mr. Wise says he was deceived into authorizing installment payments for the supposedly “free” iPhone. He was reportedly charged for the phone in June 2018 on their first bill following the transaction.
“Mr. Wise purchased the new iPhone for his wife and added a new line to his Verizon account based upon the false, misleading, deceptive, and unconscionable advertising, and further, has had to pay for the additional iPhone that was falsely promoted as ‘free,’” the Verizon class action lawsuit claims.
“As a result of the false, misleading, deceptive, and unconscionable advertising identified in this pleading above, Plaintiffs and the Class have commonly suffered actual financial losses from the addition of the cellular phone lines and resulting charges, and the payments and continuing payments for the two new iPhones — one of which was falsely promised to be free.”
According to the Verizon class action, Mr. Wise attempted multiple times to resolve the issue. However, Verizon has allegedly refused to issue a credit for the “free” iPhone, “thus, its false, misleading, unconscionable, unjust, and fraudulent charges for the ‘free’ iPhone and additional line remain.”
The plaintiffs seek to represent a Class of Arkansas consumers who purchased an iPhone XR, iPhone XS MAX, iPhone XS, or iPhone X from Verizon and added an additional line to their Verizon account between May 1, 2019 and May 31, 2019 based on promises that they would receive a free iPhone XR added to the new line.
Were you promised a Verizon deal but were later denied the supposed benefits? Share your experiences in the comments section below.
Plaintiffs and the proposed Class are represented by Scott Poynter and Daniel Holland of Poynter Law Group and Clarke Tucker.
The Verizon Bait and Switch Class Action Lawsuit is Wise, et al. v. Verizon Wireless Services LLC, et al., Case No. 60-cv-20-1970, in the Circuit Court of Pulaski County, Arkansas.
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346 thoughts onVerizon Class Action Claims iPhone Promo Scam
I just got scammed like this. Was told i would get a credit on phone then after deal was done they denied the exchange. Was told wewould get hulu and disney plus for free and that was a lie. I am 1 week in and wonder what i can do since my 30 days isn’t up.
Our contract was finally up, and my husband and I was undecided whether to continue on with Verizon or go with the “Lively” phones that were much easier for us to use and less expensive. The Verizon sales rep said if we traded in our two Samsung S7 phones, we would receive “two free Samsung Galaxy S22 phones with a two-year contract. We thought wow, that’s a good deal so we signed another two-year contract. Sure enough, we see two bills in the amount of $800.00 each per phone included in our monthly payment and we traded our phones in for nothing. We trusted the sales rep and signed on the dotted line. Further, two months later my phone was stolen, we did not purchase the monthly insurance (our faults) However, immediately after I could not locate my phone, I called Verizon customer support to suspend my account so that it could not be used. She then proceeded to say “Let’s go ahead and get you insured at $17.00 additional dollars per month, and you would be able to go into the Verizon store to receive your phone replacement BIG LIE! to get me to purchase insurance. Because of their dishonesty, we won’t do business with them again when the contracts are up.
Verizon is committing criminal fraud and deceit. I switched to Verizon earlier this month via an online chat on verizon.com. I spent 2 hrs on this chat. I was promised a very good monthly rate as well as discounts for each line I switched over to Verizon. I instinctively saved copies of every bit of these chat transcripts. When I called Verizon to ask why my bill has absolutely no resemblance to what we discussed in the chat – they demanded I give them a Conversation ID because the chat had mysteriously “disappeared.” I was never given an ID nor was I offered any option to get one. So basically I am made to feel like a liar. I asked them to escalate this, and they said to go to a Verizon store then stopped responding to me altogether. This is what happens with oligopolies – outright corruption. To add insult to injury they gave me some ‘link’ to apply for this credit for switching to Verizon. 1) Nobody told me about this link earlier and 2) The link didn’t work. In addition, their website said activation fees are waived if you sign up on verizon.com. Not only did I not get this “deal” but I got charged for THREE activations when I only activated TWO lines. Absolute fraud, deceit, and blatant false advertisement.
I purchased 4 phones under the BOGO Samsung S21. The chat rep told me I could exchange our 2 current phones as well, at $800 per phone. In the end they refused to honor the exchange amount and was told I would only receive 200 for the 2 phones instead of the 1600 as the deals were incompatible. Why was I told I would receive both deals when it was against policy to begin with.
The same happened to me with 2 phone’s that were supposed to be a $1000 off with each phone. Advertised in around Christmas 2021 called and they told me 2-3 months for it to show on my bill and I never received any credit. I have a copy of the shipping label they sent me which even said return/trade-ins and a copy of the delivery date and time they received the phone’s at there warehouse in Texas.
I would like to be added to this lawsuit. I was also scammed. Verizon stole my iPhone XS for an iPhone 13 and then lied and said I sent the wrong phone when I didnt. Now I’m stuck paying for the iPhone 13 and they stole my iPhone XS
I found this website because after spending an hour on the phone with Verizon being blamed for not understanding the “terms” of the promotion, I decided to Google “Verizon promotion scam.” I literally warned the Verizon rep that there would likely be a class action suit coming for deliberate misrepresentation. Glad I found this before my 30 days is up.
Please add me to this lawsuit. It am a victim, also.
Please add me as well I am currently exploring options to sue Verizon for exactly this.
Long story short, despite my asking PERSISTENTLY before signing up what loops holes existed, penalties or financial disincentives, for leaving early if I didn’t like the service, I still ended up coughing up ~$4,000 dollars to leave after a year of garbage service (and changing bills each month).
Please, allow me to participate because this is just wrong.
Please add me… customer for close to 30 years. Traded in 2 iPhone 8 Plus, promotion says any condition, $800. Just got email that they will only give me $450 per phone. And they wait until you are past the date to return your new phone to inform you. Total bait and switch. This happened to me once before and after 10 plus hours,5 phone calls I finally got it resolved. This time 3 chats and a phone call no resolution yet…