Is Verizon Trying To Steal Bigfooter's $400 Deposit?

  About two weeks ago, I went to my local Verizon agent in Alachua, Florida to break my phone out from Bulletproof's ownership. I wanted to be on my own as the combination of other phones and their charges commingled with mine were hard to understand. However, the small town Verizon agent said that over the weekend a new policy had been instiuted to have only city offices handle what I wanted to do as a deposit was going to be necessary, and Horizon wanted to manage its money more carefully. That explanation would become rich in irony very quickly. I was given two locations in Gainesville, Florida, and I left for one of them immediately.
  Upon arriving at the brand-new office near the Oaks Mall in Gainesville, I was struck by something that seemed off-key: There was no place for anyone to sit in the large room but an upholstered bench. It was as if you were at a cocktail party. Later my suspicion grew that chairs were not provided so the customer would not sit and ask too many questions, but drag his weary feet out of the office to the relative comfort of his car. It was not a customer-friendly store, especially for senior citizens. My salesman was Mike Freeney, a burly black man with a very quiet, gentle manner. He ascertained that I would have to make a $400 deposit, the maximum. I was prepared for this because I had learned this from my Verizon agent in small town Alachua several days before. It was no surprise that my credit rating sucked. My monthle income is only $905 from Social Security. I live close to the bone: no heat or airconditioning, no television, no internet.
I have medical bills I haven't paid for, hence the low credit score. I used my debit card to pay the $400 deposit. Mike took my card and called the numbers in and gave me a receipt, but for some reason the amount did not show on the Verizon screen. Where was it then? First Mike said it would only take a few minutes for it to appear so I shuffled over to the bench to rest my aching feet. About an hour passed, and still my $400 did not appear.
Finally, he suggested I go home, and give it two or three days to show up. I did that, but it didn't show up. Calls to him and his supervisor revealed that for some reason Verizon was going to refund my money. That was not what I wanted. I wanted it to be my deposit so I could own my phone instead of Bulletproof owning it.Mike  agreed that I hadn't come into his store to make a deposit and have it refunded. He said he would try to change that. I also called 1-800-249 -2462 customer service number later. The agent heard my story and handed me over to another agent who said that Verizon had decided to refund my deposit and I would get a check "in four or five days." By now this was becoming so queer (not in the gay sense) that I decided getting my $400 back was a good idea. But I reminded the agent too that I hadn't walked into their store simply to give them $400 and get $400 back. She agreed and said she start the process over again and get it right. I wasn't about to give them $400 when they still had my first $400. I thanked her and said I'd wait till I got my money back and walk back into the store and start the whole process over. That was last Thursday or Friday. Last night I checked my mailbox at 9:30 and found a letter from Verizon. It looked a little slim to be a check so I opened it apprehensively. It was a letter with a letterhead saying "Verizon." It informed me that since I had such a low credit score -it listed the score- I would have to make a $400 deposit to open an account! As soon as I got inside the house, I phone Mike's manager, the manager of the store, Chris Pagado. I was furious. I said something to the effect that I was tired of getting nothing but "shit." He asked me not to swear at him. I said I was not swearing at him: I had said I was tired of the "crap," not that he was "crap." He said he would get back to me the next day, and I countered by saying I expected him to.
  Today I called the number at the bottom of the Verizon letter I got last night. The agent who answered was curt and authoritative sounding . He said his company was a credit restoration company and not part of Verizon. I noted that the letterhead of his company read "Verizon." By way of explanation, he just repeated himself.I think the real explanation is that Verizon sold his company my name as a referral so the company could disguise itself as Verizon to give it credibility and engage me in a credit building adventure - for a good fee, of course. I feel betrayed by Verizon. They had no business giving my name and credit score to another company. I think my civil rights have been compromised and that this may be actionable. As poor as I am, about the only thing I have is my dignity, and that has been lessened by Verizon. I feel like a piece of meat that Verizon can take $400 away from and then refer me to other companies for a profit to see if those companies can make a profit out of me too. Verizon knows they are treating me badly but their only response has to been to treat me worse. Today I called the 1-80249-2462 customer service  number of theirs that I gave before. I had to give my phone number and the repeated response was the robot saying they could not "locate" my "message." I was given another number to call which turned out to be the payments number. There the robot simply asked how much money was I paying.  As the song says: "Kick you when you're down; kick you all around."