Sprint, T-Mobile, Verizon. I'm running out of options here, people.

I visited my local Verizon Wireless store back in September because my cell phone began rapidly losing battery life during short conversations on a full charge. There was also something funny going on with calls and voicemails. The rep was too busy to actually listen to me explain the symptoms and hurriedly switched out my old battery for a new one and sent me on my way, no charge.

Now, just six months later, my phone is dying again. The same problem with a new battery says to me, the problem isn't the battery. So this week, I visited the Verizon store again. The rep informed me that, OF COURSE, my warranty expired in December, so a free battery swap is not an option.

Fine by me, because it isn't the battery. But I am eight months away from my $100 credit towards a new phone. And if I upgrade now, I pay full price, sign another two year contract, and promise my firstborn child. So that rep did the system update on my phone, and told me to come back if that didn't fix it. It didn't fix it.

I went back last night. The first thing this rep said to me was, "Your warranty expired in December. This is March, you know. It's MARCH. Not December. It's six months later, here in March." At that point, other customers tuned in to our conversation, anticipating a scene. I argued my point that I brought this problem to Verizon's attention while my phone WAS under warranty, their misdiagnosis is the reason it wasn't taken care of THEN, and I should have the same options that I would have if the warranty was still in effect. She and her attitude didn't budge.

I left and called the national line for customer service. The very nice rep listened to me and even offered to ask his supervisor what they could do for me. Nice, but again, paralyzed by the written prompts regarding my warranty being up. Now I KNOW they can do ANYTHING to any account they want. People get bill credits, tech upgrades, etc all the time when they call with issues. You can't convince me there is no flexibility with the written rules. I am not asking for a $300 new phone. Just something comparable to what I have. Is that so unreasonable?

I drove to another Verizon store to plead my case. Even though it was three hours before closing time, all of the employees with access to the necessary system were gone for the day. It was peak time for customers to drop by after work, but the store was staffed by people who couldn't do anything for ya.

Today I have emailed my case to Verizon. Assuming someone in Verizon cyberspace actually reads those emails, I should have a response in a week or so. They have no idea how stubborn I am about things like this. Stand by.