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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 went on my ex fiances plan. Traded in my iphone and got the iphone 14 and “free watch”. 8 days later I call to discuss my options after I find out he cheated and I need to go off his plan. They tell me no problem. All he has to do is release liability and they review all the different plan options. At this point I STILL had my trade it. I did not even mail it back yet (all of which the representative knew). Then I call back a few weeks later to find out if I leave his plan, all of my “promotional credits” aka my trade in and free upgrade I got goes out the window. They basically told me to stay on his plan??? Why did no one tell me this 8 days after when i called? I would have kept my old phone and returned the new one. I was on the phone with them for 4 hours with multiple supervisors all of who told me there is nothing they can do. I am stuck paying for my full price of this brand new phone and “free watch” in full now on my own. I even tried going on to my mom’s verizon plan and they still wouldn’t transfer my credits. This makes no sense. I said what if there was a domestic violence situation? I am supposed to stay on his plan to afford it? They then wanted police reports. Absolutely insane. I wasn’t trying to get anything for free. I simply wanted to pay what I was paying on a different plan with someone else – STILL WITH VERIZON.
I too have been a victim of Verizon’s promise to give me a trade-in credit for a warranty replacement phone when Asurion kept sending me defective replacment refurbished phones. Please add me to the class action lawsuit.
I was completely lied too. Verizon Starre , Yonkers NY. In September 2021 purchased a Samsung Flip 3 phone after sales person said I would.get $500 off phone price for a I came back with an iPhone 7 and the sales person said this would be fine for the trade-in. I looked at my Verizon app and noticed that I was charged the full $1000 for the phone and didn’t receive anything for the trade-in.
I contacted Verizon customer service and they said I would have to take care of this on the store level. He did see the notes from that transaction and they saw the purchase and they confirmed there was no trade in applied to this phone..
I have been paying the fool price for this phone and I was blatantly lied to the store i manager claims he would look into this but has not gotten back to me and won’t return any calls.
My wife and I were getting ready for retirement which now we are retired. We go in the store to leave AT&T and ask them about the buy one get one free they said we could do it and I paid cash in full for the 1st phone thinking that we were going to have no payments on the phones. They are still billing me for two phones and I can’t get anywhere with them countless hours on the phone. I am now retired and I can’t afford just to give $1000 away or let it rest, we are not sure what to do at this point
Why are the state attorneys general allowing this to go on and nothing seems to be happening. Makes me wonder if someone is getting into someone else’s pockets. I have been lied to as well and got screwed on the trade in your phone for $800 and get a new iPhone 14 free. How is it free if I’m paying over $22 a month for 36 months. Even after they got my iPhone 12 n supposedly gave me $800 credit. Where is that??????
The same thing happened to us! There was a promotion that if you add a line and buy an iPhone you get a second iPhone free back in November 2020. So we took advantage of the promotion and added two lines to our account to get two free iPhones. We had multiple billing issues with wrong charges, made several calls to get it straightened out and thought it was all corrected. Since they set us up on auto pay my husband thought it was all squared away. When we revamped how we pay our bills in Aug 2022 however, I realized we never got credit for the two phones. I called Verizon to get the credit of $1410 for the phones. After spending several days and many hours on the phone with multiple people they told me there was nothing they could do. I called again and again talking to at least three or more people every time I called and they said the same thing. There was nothing they could do because they couldn’t find promotion. Then they said it was because the phones were already paid for. The thing is, the final bill was not even issued yet so they were NOT paid in full. I was not giving up and called again and finally got to someone who listened, called me back when we got disconnected twice, and was able to give me the credit for $1410 that would be applied over 6 months. Thank goodness! After many hours on the phone I thought I was done. I even got a text message saying the credit was issued to our account. But no, I have had to call every month to get the “inconvenience credit” applied to my bill! And I have had to explain the whole ordeal to at least three people every single time I call in order to get the credit applied. And when I forgot to call before the automatic payment was deducted, oh my, I added one or two more people to get a refund. I just got off the phone after an hour and 43 minutes to get a refund for my Dec bill that the credit was not applied too. I have one more credit to be applied to Jan 2023 bill of which Jessica told me she applied it for me so I won’t have to call. We’ll see.
Then, we bought two new iPhones on Dec 11, 2022 of which there was a $35 per device upgrade fee. Ok, so it will show up on our Dec bill that ends the 21st. Nope! They charged us on our November bill that was already billed dated Nov 21st! How can they do that?! It wasn’t stated on my Nov bill because it was already closed out. So when they automatically deducted it from my checking account they deducted $70 more than the actual bill showed! So I had to call again!! They issued credit of $70 to apply to Dec since they actually charged the fees on my Dec bill. I’m so done!
Thirdly, we are being billed for an Add-On for Verizon Cloud. Apparently the first two months were free and then if we didn’t cancel it we would be billed $5.99 per month per line. So we have been paying for this for over 2 years not realizing it. So when I called to cancel the Cloud service, they said that if I cancel it we won’t have back up for our phones if something happens to them. They said that you have to pay for the cloud backup whether you get it from Apple or Verizon. If you don’t pay for it and something happens to your phone, you will lose everything because there is no backup. So I didn’t cancel it. Ok, so when we bought the two new phones on Dec 11th, they transferred everything over from our old phones to our new phones. But… my husband lost a lot of the contacts he had on his phone. Because they’re no longer on his phone, he went in to find out what could be done and they said there’s nothing they could do. What?!?! We are paying for the cloud service to secure our info and there’s nothing they can do?? We’re still working on trying to get his contacts restored with no luck so far.
We’ve been with Verizon since they sent me a free phone to use their service over 25 years ago. Up until the whole b1/g1 fiasco we had zero issues. We like the coverage and service but the billing seems to have become a scam.
Please add me as well
This happened to me. I have it all in writing. “$800 for the phone will be applied once your phone is received.” Now that they have my phone, they are only giving me $400. Customer for 25+ years.
We were a victim of a similar deal. It was a trade in deal. We were lied to about the trade in price and later billed extra each month because the trade in value was reduced to $400 from $800 without ever notifying us. Spent almost 2 hrs over talking to customer service to then being offered $50 credit. Like no thanks that doesn’t make me trust you! Please add us too!!
Please add me I too was victim of this situation this year and last year to the point I was over billed barely received credit for their mess up then they penalized me by creating bills for things I didn’t had made pay in advance for a bill not due cause I iytright our chased another Iphone then shut me off 3 months later shut off communication blocked me from calling customer.
I went to Verizon store in person in Galliano Louisiana, traded in 5 phones. They told all 5 phones, I was told I would not receive the trade in credit on just 1 of the phones. Also, I needed to pay the total monthly charges for 2 months and then the trade in would kick in. I did that, paid 2 months and this months bill I am charge for some promotion chargebacks and the trade in credit were dropped on 3 of the 4 phones. Now I have a $500 bill. I contacted verizon and all they would tell me is that the promotion weren’t approved and go to the store you traded them in to. Will be going ask for my phones back. I was expecting a bill around $250-$275. Now I have a $500 bill
I was also scammed by Verizon they promised me BOGO on the Mother’s Day deal and are charging us for both devices. We added my mother in laws phone to our lines as the extra line and they are now charging us for her phone we added which was already paid off and she owned.