In Which I Eat My Words and Apologize

As I’m writing this, I’m making plans to visit my local Verizon store for some in person tech support and help because unless I get some answers and resolutions, my Palm Pre Plus is nothing more than a fancy paperweight.

That’s right, I’m done singing the Verizon Palm Pre Plus praises. I participated in the promotion because A) I am a Verizon customer and have been for years. B) I saw Erica’s Palm Pre at Blissdom and was instantly intrigued by it, and C) I was due for a new phone.

I should have waited. Seriously. As you may or may not remember in my initial post about the Verizon Palm Pre Plus, I told you that the phone I was reviewing was my 2nd phone. The first one died after only three days of use. It just plain stopped receiving signals and wouldn’t do anything; not even update to the latest OS.

I received the 2nd phone and had little problems. The video feature isn’t up to par with my BlackBerry. I can’t save sounds that are sent through MMS (I did discover how to do it finally but it involves plugging your Pre into your computer, opening up the files from the hard drive and copying them over to where you want them… a pain in the ass basically).  The keyboard likes to randomly insert double letters here and there. It’s frustrating if I’m browsing the web and typing in a password. I’m always told my password is wrong. The biggest of the “little problems” is that I often have to “tap” or touch the screen multiple times to get the phone to do what I want it to; be that open an app, end a call, or even dial a number… it’s frustrating. It’s called a touch screen, not a-beat-the-crap-out-of-it-until-it-responds screen.

But these little problems I could work around and still be honest when I said that I was happy with the Palm Pre Plus because I know that no phone comes without its issues. I still loved the speed of the OS when it came to wifi and web browsing and I love being able to browse, chat, and call someone at the same time. Multitasking at it’s best. That’s what had me sold.

Except I can no longer back or promote the Palm Pre Plus. Early last week the phone stopped ringing. In fact, all of my system sounds came to a halt, even though my settings for ringing and sounds are correct. I figured it was glitchy and tried resetting with a battery pull. No such luck. Because this wasn’t a life/death situation, I figured I would just take it into the nearest store and have them look at it when I got the chance.

Then Came Sunday…

Sunday the entire phone died. As in, the phone got hot to touch, the battery drained within 2 hours and died. No amount of charging would bring the phone back to life. Now we have a problem.

A lot of searching Palm’s forums and other tech forums pointed to there being a problem with the battery. So I contacted Palm’s tech support through online chat. The tech support person said all things pointed to a battery issue. However, he didn’t want to give me one. He wanted me to go to my local Verizon Store, have them check the battery and then contact him again to confirm what he already said the problem was.

Really? You just stated that it was the battery and you want me to do the legwork to be sure?

Uh… No.

I got a new battery sent to me and I received it the other day. Crossing fingers, praying to God, I put the new battery in and said a Hail Mary.

The phone is still not right. It turns on, the battery drains faster than a dehydrated grape, and it’s hot. I don’t just mean warm… I mean it sits on my counter top in the kitchen and when I pick it up, I could reheat my coffee in the spot where it sat, it’s so hot. After an hour of charging and praying the phone doesn’t blow up on me, I could only get it charged to 51 percent battery.

I had none of these issues (the battery draining and the heat issue) before Sunday. Something in the phone went wrong. Somewhere.

Unfortunately Verizon’s tech support that I called into on Tuesday, doesn’t believe me. According to Christine (the tech support person), it’s normal for the phone to be warm. Really? All the time? Because it wasn’t like that a week ago and unless it’s turned off, I have to avoid touching the back part of the phone. I mean, if it was still 20 degrees out every day I could say this was a great hand warmer but it’s not… so it doesn’t.

Another call to my local Verizon store has me a little more reassured. While the person I talked to wasn’t in tech support, even he said it didn’t sound right to him; especially if I didn’t have these issues for 30 plus days I actually used the phone.

Yes, do the math on that… 2 phones in little less than 60 days (I received the first on on February 23) breaks down to roughly a new phone a month.

That’s great customer service and quality control isn’t it Palm and Verizon?

I’m so happy that the two of you are working together to keep long time loyal customers satisfied. *insert sarcasm and snort here*

I’m angry, yes, but this is not a venting post. This is my official apology to you my readers and to my BlackBerry.

To you I apologize because I promoted something that turned out to be not as great as everyone else would have or even I would have wanted it to be. I feel like I did a disservice to all of you. In hindsight, during the time that I reviewed the phone I could not have forecasted that I would have these problems. I always aim at keeping my reviews honest and provide you with the best information I have or can give at the time. I wanted to like this phone, I really did so it saddens me that my experience has been less than stellar (including my experience with customer support on both ends thus far).

To my beloved BlackBerry, I’m sorry for putting you on the shelf in my excitement to try something new and shiny. While the Palm Pre Plus has it’s pretty bells, whistles, apps and its own Operating Service, you have never disappointed me, dropped a call, not found service, not saved a sound, ringtone or picture, or not created a video my hubs and family could enjoy. I hang my head in smartphone shame for doubting that you could not hold a candle to the Palm Pre Plus.

At this stage, I’m just waiting till I can go to the Verizon store and see what they have to tell me. Since I do need to have a phone, I have reactivated my BlackBerry and I’m happy to say it’s performing like a champ.

**** Update on 4/30****

I had some great advice from @vara411 (who’s site webOSroundup is my new favorite place to read and learn), on Twitter and decided to try it out except that the Verizon Palm Pre Plus would not hold the charge it had, let alone charge enough for me to try the advice I got. The phone. Died. I finally got someone at Verizon to listen to me and ordered a new phone on the 27th. I received a Certified new Palm Pre Plus on the 27th which would have been great except that there was a good possibility the brand new battery was fried from the previous Palm Pre Plus because it wouldn’t charge past the red line and wouldn’t let me see how much it had actually charged unless I activated the phone.

Was not. Gonna. Happen. Because as I was trying to get this certified used phone to charge with the battery that had been in the last phone, it started getting hot, even while it was off. Both the bottom front and back (where the keypad is when it’s not extended). During the entire time I was trying to charge the Palm Pre Plus, I was on the phone with Verizon tech support. I spoke with Amanda for 54 minutes and we tried various things but nothing worked so she said that I would be overnighted a NEW PALM PRE PLUS (WITH BATTERY).

Great. WONDERFUL. Except it’s today and I don’t have the phone. I don’t even have confirmation of the phone so I called Verizon. Again.

Let me ask a question… Why do I need to talk to tech support to verify that my Palm Pre Plus order was placed? Does that make sense to you? No? Me either.

And as an aside, I’m sick of all the tech support people who wanted to tell me that it’s normal for the Palm Pre Plus to get warm. Bullshit. It is not. Because the very first one didn’t get the slightest warm and neither did the 2nd one until the day it stopped receiving a signal and drained the battery. And I used it. ALOT.

So back to today… Another hour long phone call with tech support and EVEN MY HUSBAND GETTING ON THE PHONE WITH THEM.

According to my “contract” the only phone I’ll be getting is ANOTHER certified used Palm Pre Plus and a new battery. That’s it. They won’t be honoring Amanda’s original promise to ship me out a NEW Palm Pre Plus.

As a customer, this is just unacceptable service. Someone in their office dropped the ball on this and they should rectify it the way I was told yesterday. I won’t have my Palm Pre Plus tomorrow or even Monday. I don’t know when I will receive this Palm Pre Plus. They are shipping it 2 day and the best I was told was that I should receive it “sometime next week”.

My business is not important enough to them for them to send me a new unit in the time frame that was originally promised to me yesterday.

That’s a red flag for me. If a business or brand won’t honor what their customer service reps are telling their customers then someone needs to be held accountable and I’m wondering why it has to be the customer.

At this point, it’s not even about the phone anymore, it’s about lousy customer service that NO PERSON should have to put up with.

Once again, I can’t back the Palm Pre Plus to my mom community. I’m receiving another phone because as I said, I WANT TO LIKE IT. Scratch that… I want to LOVE IT. But I have to have one that works in order for me to do that. I don’t like recanting my approval of a product but right now that’s the only thing for me to do.

Rest assured I won’t work with Verizon on any further campaigns and at this point, they will be lucky to keep me as a customer.

About Nichole Smith

Nichole Smith has written 311 posts on The Guilty Parent.

Founder of The Guilty Parent and Chaos in the Country (http://www.chaosinthecountry.com), Nichole is a writer, blogger, social media strategist, wife to one, mother to four and embracer of mommy guilt.

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