Once upon a time, if you had a problem with your BlackBerry, you could run to a Verizon store and exchange it if you had a defect or issue.  Now Verizon has prohibited in-store device exchanges for smartphones of all kinds.  That includes BlackBerry, Palm, DROID, and Windows Mobile devices.  Now is this such a bad thing for you? Not to get off topic, but when the BlackBerry Tour 9630 came out, I recall going with a friend to exchange his because it was defective (yes the trackball).  He didn’t do a backup or anything so we found ourselves on my laptop in the store doing “Switch a Device Wizard.” Going through all that would of been eliminated if a device would of been sent in the mail, where the customer can do it all at a nice piece of mind.

On the other hand, a lot of business users are using smartphones obviously, and having to wait days for a device in the mail will become an inconvenience.  In-store device exchange is something Verizon customers assume is there by default, and now smartphones are being stripped away from those priviledges.

According to Verizon, this policy has been going on for about a month now.  How do you folks feel about this, whether or not you are a Verizon customer?

-by Mac Jadalhack

Image via HotCellularPhone

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