[garyt01]

I purchased a Storm today at 11:00 AM. After waiting in the store for an hour while it was unsuccessfully set-up I was informed I could leave and that they would call me when the phone was ready. It appears that Verizon did not prepare its computer systems for business today and as a result they were either slow or completely down. I received a call at 1:30 telling me the Verizon computer problem was solved. I drove back to the store only to watch them struggle attempting to set-up my Storm again. After 30 minutes I was informed that this was gong to take a while and if I wanted to leave they would again call me when all is set-up. I left and received a text message at 4:30 that the Verizon computers were working and by the time I arrived at the store it would be set. Nothing changed, the Storm still was not set-up.
They said I should take the phone and call 611 to have it set-up. I purchased the phone (Ok, I am a fool) returned to my office and loaded my calendar and contacts. I then called 611 and was able to set-up the phone portion of the Storm. The Storm could not access the net because there was no wed icon. The email options only offered an enterprise email choice, I have a pop address, so no way to access email either. When I called the store back they could offer no help so I told them I would be returning the Storm and asked them to reinstate my 8830.
After reinstatement the 8830 worked well for a phone but the email and web were lost. The signal read 1x. Verizon refused to believe the problem was caused by their iffy computers and the switch from the 8830 to the Storm back to the 8830. After 2.5 hours new books sent, soft resets and finally completely wiping my system, loosing all programs and every customization plus all data, they finally blamed the problem on Blackberry. I was placed on hold for another 20 minutes while they called Blackberry to determine if it was their problem. When this proved unproductive they finally re-set-up my account and guess what; the phone worked perfectly.
After a lost day chasing a Storm set-up I am now left with a completely stripped 8830. I will be damned if I rebuild this phone or trust Verizon again. Tomorrow morning I am switching to ATT and purchasing a Bold. Verizon blew this one big time.