Thank you for your sympathy, I appreciate it. I can’t help but feel like this is somehow my fault, it’s my first phone buying experience and my first time having my own line (I was on a family plan previously).

I think it was definitely stolen in a warehouse at some point in processing and shipping. I don’t think it was stolen at the original Verizon warehouse, because they use brown tape, and the store associate told me that clear tape on the box indicates it was tampered with. The shipping box had clear tape, so I’m thinking maybe at some point in some UPS processing center, it was opened and stolen, then sealed back up.