Can't Activate Verizon Phone

[lsh1991]

This is gonna be a little long so bear with me...

Was lucky and got my iphone 32 gb Black Friday night through the 10 p.m. ship to store (did the little happy dance - bear in mind that this is 2 hours away from me). Saturday morning received my confirmation email that iphone is available but unfortunately I had to work so I called the store and told them I would pick up on Sunday. No problem. Going good so far.

Sunday get to store thinking like everyone else 10-30 minutes and I'm out of there. WRONG - 5 hours later they can't get the iphone activated and I have to go home without my iphone

Monday after talking with store manager for almost 2 hours on the iphone still no luck getting it activated and they can't figure out what is going on. They cancelled the order and tried to purchase it outright. Still nothing stupid thing won't activate and gets an error message from Verizon.

Tuesday talked to different manager who is extremely nice and helpful but we are still not getting anywhere with this iphone. We spend a total of maybe 2 1/2 hours on the phone. He has talked to Verizon and there is no problems that they can see. By this time he is getting frustrated too and says this is ridiculous. This has now gone to priority level 1 in apple and I have a team of 15 techs/upper management working on this. Aren't I the "lucky" one .

I asked if maybe we should just try a different phone because apparently this one is "possessed" lol.

Now its Wednesday morning and I haven't heard anything yet and still without my iphone.

P.S. this is a new line added to the account which only has 1 line on it at the current time

 

[Jinzen]

New SIM card. If it fails, defective phone.

 

[richmds]

Wonder why they didnt just try swapping the phone. Seems that has been the solution for even the most minor of issues lately.

 

[lsh1991]

They didn't have an extra phone to swap. I asked the very same question.

 

[ritmomundo]

I had trouble activating my replacement phone on Verizon as well. It took me almost 1.5 hours on the phone with VZW tech support. On their end, they saw the phone as completely activated and ready for use, but my phone wouldn't connect to their network. Luckily, I was talking to a VERY patient CSR. Eventually, after 2 full restores, it finally activated. Unfortunately, 2 days later, I reactivated my old phone (which took 10 seconds to activate), because the replacement had a bunch of issues all its own (but thats another story).

 

[diegoesk]

The phone you previously owned- was it powered off while they were trying to activate the NEW phone?

If not- that could be your issue

 

[lsh1991]

The phone you previously owned- was it powered off while they were trying to activate the NEW phone?

If not- that could be your issue

This is a new line / new number on existing account. So that's not a factor unfortunately

 

[imazu]

This is a new line / new number on existing account. So that's not a factor unfortunately

Do you see your new line on myverizon.com?

 

[lsh1991]

The new line was there but the apple store couldn't get it activate with Verizon's help either. So they cancelled and tried again and again. Lines show up but nothing so far.

 

[imazu]

The new line was there but the apple store couldn't get it activate with Verizon's help either. So they cancelled and tried again and again. Lines show up but nothing so far.

Your new line has a number already on your account? Does it shows what phone it is activated like if it shows the iPhone5? On the account page are you able to select activate/switch device option?

 

[gentlefury]

They didn't have an extra phone to swap. I asked the very same question.

Hmm, that's odd. The store near me said they have tons of replacement phones in the back for exchanges. Why couldn't they grab one of those?

 

[lsh1991]

Hmm, that's odd. The store near me said they have tons of replacement phones in the back for exchanges. Why couldn't they grab one of those?

They had 16gb but not 32. I even told them I would take a 64 if I had too but nothing in store.

----------

Your new line has a number already on your account? Does it shows what phone it is activated like if it shows the iPhone5? On the account page are you able to select activate/switch device option?

It had the number but no phone attached. Received email stating that line was activated blah blah but they are totally stumped on why it won't let the phone activate to it. Then verizon stated that they were out of numbers for my area - I was like there is no way!!! give me a different area code then and it still didn't work.

 

[gentlefury]

They had 16gb but not 32. I even told them I would take a 64 if I had too but nothing in store.

but since the iPhone 5 uses a SIM card they could have at least popped it in to one of their replacement phones and see if it activates. If it does, then its the handset. Restore that phone and put it back in the box. Get a new phone that works.

 

[lsh1991]

but since the iPhone 5 uses a SIM card they could have at least popped it in to one of their replacement phones and see if it activates. If it does, then its the handset. Restore that phone and put it back in the box. Get a new phone that works.

The apple store has the phone since day 1. Still waiting to hear from them - hopefully they got me a new phone or will.

 

[imazu]

It had the number but no phone attached. Received email stating that line was activated blah blah but they are totally stumped on why it won't let the phone activate to it. Then verizon stated that they were out of numbers for my area - I was like there is no way!!! give me a different area code then and it still didn't work.

Do you see your account on the Verizon website account page with your new phone number with it? I had an issue that the phone can't activate with Verizon as well. And I was very tired standing waiting for the Apple guy finished talking to the Verizon Rep for nth time. When I logged in on my account I can see that the phone haven't changed on the system which contradicts what the Verizon rep was saying it is on the account.

 

[aajeevlin]

This is gonna be a little long so bear with me...

Was lucky and got my iphone 32 gb Black Friday night through the 10 p.m. ship to store (did the little happy dance - bear in mind that this is 2 hours away from me). Saturday morning received my confirmation email that iphone is available but unfortunately I had to work so I called the store and told them I would pick up on Sunday. No problem. Going good so far.

Sunday get to store thinking like everyone else 10-30 minutes and I'm out of there. WRONG - 5 hours later they can't get the iphone activated and I have to go home without my iphone

Monday after talking with store manager for almost 2 hours on the iphone still no luck getting it activated and they can't figure out what is going on. They cancelled the order and tried to purchase it outright. Still nothing stupid thing won't activate and gets an error message from Verizon.

Tuesday talked to different manager who is extremely nice and helpful but we are still not getting anywhere with this iphone. We spend a total of maybe 2 1/2 hours on the phone. He has talked to Verizon and there is no problems that they can see. By this time he is getting frustrated too and says this is ridiculous. This has now gone to priority level 1 in apple and I have a team of 15 techs/upper management working on this. Aren't I the "lucky" one .

I asked if maybe we should just try a different phone because apparently this one is "possessed" lol.

Now its Wednesday morning and I haven't heard anything yet and still without my iphone.

P.S. this is a new line added to the account which only has 1 line on it at the current time

I had a similar situation last weekend. However, I'm not sure what you mean exactly by "can't get the phone activated", is it that the phone won't connect to Verizon network? Or see below for my situation. Except that part my situation is very similar to yours.

I was also creating a new line (by transferring another number into my account) on Verizon. I did the online reservation and the only warning was that I might have to pay a deposits to Verizon, okay no problem.

I got to the store thinking this will be 30 minutes at most, boy was I wrong. The apple specialist (who was extremely nice) did all the typical stuff, contract agreement, then comes to activate the phone. (Now, what I mean by that is for Verizon to go through all the information and approve me and eventually let me take the phone out of the Apple store, keep in mind the phone is IN THE BOX SEALED the whole time).

For some weird reason, Verizon system was not giving the final okay to the apple store. Even after the apple specialist made multiple attempt to contact Verizon and having Verizon rep telling us that everything was okay and they see no problem at their end. So eventually I was giving two options: 1. cancel the order then try to apply the transfer line and go through the same process again. 2. Go ahead and add a "new" number to my Verizon then I can later do "Mobile number transfer" and transfer the number I want to replace the "new" number.

So I told the apple specialist let's try option 1 then option 2. Now, while going through option 1, I was asked to provide the last 4 digit of the account holder's SSN from the number that's being transfer (not my primary account SSN). Now that was something different because I can't recall any where during the online reservation process that I was asked to input that information. So after that, it took only 10 minutes before the Verizon system finally clear me. So in the end I'm not sure if this was Verizon's system's fault, or maybe the other carrier was been an ass and won't release the line to Verizon. At the end I was at the apple store for 5 hours.

 

[lsh1991]

I had a similar situation last weekend. However, I'm not sure what you mean exactly by "can't get the phone activated", is it that the phone won't connect to Verizon network? Or see below for my situation. Except that part my situation is very similar to yours.

I was also creating a new line (by transferring another number into my account) on Verizon. I did the online reservation and the only warning was that I might have to pay a deposits to Verizon, okay no problem.

I got to the store thinking this will be 30 minutes at most, boy was I wrong. The apple specialist (who was extremely nice) did all the typical stuff, contract agreement, then comes to activate the phone. (Now, what I mean by that is for Verizon to go through all the information and approve me and eventually let me take the phone out of the Apple store, keep in mind the phone is IN THE BOX SEALED the whole time).

For some weird reason, Verizon system was not giving the final okay to the apple store. Even after the apple specialist made multiple attempt to contact Verizon and having Verizon rep telling us that everything was okay and they see no problem at their end. So eventually I was giving two options: 1. cancel the order then try to apply the transfer line and go through the same process again. 2. Go ahead and add a "new" number to my Verizon then I can later do "Mobile number transfer" and transfer the number I want to replace the "new" number.

So I told the apple specialist let's try option 1 then option 2. Now, while going through option 1, I was asked to provide the last 4 digit of the account holder's SSN from the number that's being transfer (not my primary account SSN). Now that was something different because I can't recall any where during the online reservation process that I was asked to input that information. So after that, it took only 10 minutes before the Verizon system finally clear me. So in the end I'm not sure if this was Verizon's system's fault, or maybe the other carrier was been an ass and won't release the line to Verizon. At the end I was at the apple store for 5 hours.

This is actually exactly what we are going through except there was no indication of deposit. Account is in excellent standing. We have tried options 1 & 2. Verizon states nothing is wrong and everything is okay on their end but it just won't go through. They have talked with a number of specialist from Verizon and neither Apple or Verizon can figure it out.

 

[lsh1991]

Update

Well still no activation yet but come to find out that Verizon has the phone ID# repeatedly in the system cache which is not enabling us to activate the phone due to it thinks the phone is already activated. Apparently Verizon needs a couple of days to do a query to remove all the ID#'s from there system. Can you say bull!!! The apple representative went up the chain of command and they are suppose to have it done tonight. We will see.

 

[tymaster50]

just take the 16gb and return it before 14 days is up to get a 32gb.