Verizon Wireless, My iPhone Didn’t Work in Italy as Promised
We spent months planning our recent two-week trip to Italy.
Carol did most of the detail planning of the actual trip, and it was my job to make certain that we had wireless cell phone services in case of emergencies on our trip.
We looked at renting a phone for the trip, buying a special inexpensive “world phone” to use in nearly any part of the world, and a dizzying array of other options.
Having just purchased an iPhone 5, a Verizon Wireless customer service representative informed me that I would be able to use my new phone in Italy and would be charged roaming fees of $1.29/minute.
Dear Verizon Wireless, why didn’t our iPhone 5 work in Italy?
While that was quite a bit more expensive than other plans we found, we decided that because we were planning to only use the phone in the event of emergencies, the Verizon Wireless roaming charges would be palatable because of the purposed ease of use.
I say purposed because when we landed in Rome, I was not able to use my phone. All I got was a message on the top of my phone that stated: No Service.
Click to enlarge service map
I can’t begin to tell you how frustrating this was to us. You see, we had friends coming in on another flight, and had absolutely no way to communicate and hook up with them to begin our exciting journey.
Consequently, I was left to be bamboozled by one of those airport cellular phone kiosks in the Rome airport.
Cost? $238 for crying out loud!
I must confess, we’re not very happy with Verizon Wireless in this matter.
Now, I suppose there might be something that we didn’t do on our end, but the customer service rep said, “turn the phone on, make calls”.
Clearly, that was not the case. Needless to say, there’s two unhappy world travelers in Scottsdale, Arizona today!
Hey Verizon Wireless, what went wrong?
Update ~ November 15, 2012:
I received a call today from a very nice lady named Sherene at Verizon Wireless. She apologized profusely, let me know that the representative that I talked to should have flipped a switch on their end to allow international calling, and then credited my account for $238. Thank you Sherene and Verizon Wireless. I’m very impressed that you cared enough to call and restore my faith in your company.
If you enjoyed this article, come follow us on Facebook and Twitter. For exclusive travel deals, giveaways, and perks, come join our FREE Travel Rewards Club.
I am glad David that your situation worked out with Verizon – mine has not gone so well.
Sounds like I need my own Sherene to take action because in spite of numerous calls and emails to Verizon, they have yet to correct a thing.
Essentially, we had the same problem as you. However, prior to going we specifically were told conflicting information from two different customer service people. So I called in to order their world phone and was told by them I did not need it as my phone would work fine (HTC Thunderbolt 4G). They were adamant and set up the turn on and turn off dates. We arrive in Rome and identical to you, no service. So we are scrambling borrowing local Italian’s phone to change our canceled Vatican tour to after our cruise. Of course, if the phone doesn’t work, you also can’t call Verizon for help! Ahhhhh! So, we wait until the next day on the cruise where they front desk kindly connects us to Verizon, where I now receive a 3rd opinion that this phone won’t work overseas and not sure why someone at Verizon would tell me otherwise? So, we did everything right and still had no phone. We had also ordered the data package so to use the wifi for my wife’s Kindle so we could connect to the internet and get our email. So now, we had to wait until our shore excursions and wasting an hour each day looking at email. Needless to say my office and clients were furious they could not reach me (yes, I know this was vacation, but 16 days is a long time to be “off the grid” when you have active deals). It also made it next to impossible to arrange our interviews we had scheduled at a bed and breakfast in Rome for our new website.
I have yet to get anyone at Verizon to acknowledge this issue or offer to correct our inconvenience and total loss of service during this month. I suspect more people need to be educated on the potential pitfalls of no service in Europe.
I HAD THE SAME SITUATION IN FRANCE! I PHONE 5 – should work in France by simply turning on the phone….. NO SERVICE!! I called in advance…, I called while I was there Verizon was no help, I AM SWITCHING TO ATT….. Unacceptable!!