Poor Jason. Eight months after ordering Verizon FIOS, he is still without decent phone, television, or internet service, though not for lack of effort on his part:
I have spoken with 115 service representatives and 44 supervisors over a period 64 hours combined on the phone with Verizon. I have been hung up on 37 times, placed on hold a total of 21 hours, and been promised callbacks, which I did not receive, a total of 18 times. It has been 8 months since I ordered the service, and I still have not been given a single resolution.
Jason’s full ordeal, after the jump:
My story starts back in December of 2006, when I moved into a house with a Verizon FIOS ONT present on the back of my home. I looked up the current offerings on the FIOS website and decided to go with the three in one (Phone, 15/5 Internet, TV) one bill package. What I’ve gotten is not remotely what was ordered, and has cost me greatly in time, money, and patience.
I have spoken with 115 service representatives and 44 supervisors over a period 64 hours combined on the phone with Verizon. I have been hung up on 37 times, placed on hold a total of 21 hours, and been promised callbacks, which I did not receive, a total of 18 times. It has been 8 months since I ordered the service, and I still have not been given a single resolution.
I have tried to cancel my service, only to be promised a prompt resolution by another supervisor, who told me to not worry about the billing issues until I received a correct bill will all three services included on one bill. That was a month and a half ago. Yesterday I received two bills, one for my phone service, with a credit of $189.00, and an Internet / TV bill with a balance of $1,195.00. Then, as I walked in the door from checking my mail, the TV service is disconnected.
To date, I have never, not once, had the long distance service I requested, nor call waiting. It took one and a half months to get a working dial tone, which had nothing to do with the premises, it was “simply an account flag that had not been set”. My HDTV channels are not the ones I ordered. My internet service is constantly up and down, requiring a daily reboot of the ActionTec wireless router supplied by Verizon.
I’ve gone to the Attorney General, the BBB, and now I’m going to the Consumerist. If my services are not repaired / corrected / or removed with a refund of all money paid to Verizon since December, I will be taking this matter to small claims court.
When escalating forty-four times still fails to produce results, sue. Before filing, try launching the feared Executive Email Carpet Bomb to warn the Verizon suits that their telecommunications empire is about to dance the small claims tango.
(Photo: Maulleigh)
More From Consumerist
-
Californians Paying 115% More For AT&T Landline Service Than They Did Before Deregulation
-
Verizon Wireless’ Parents Vodafone & Verizon Deciding Whether To Get Married Or Break Up
-
Verizon Sends Me To Collections Over Fees It Shouldn’t Have Charged Me In The First Place
-
Verizon Cutting Technician, Call-Center Workforce By 1,700
-
Verizon Thinks My Wife Spent 10-Hour Roaming Call Talking To Co-Worker’s Voice Mail
As an update, I now have management dealing with the issue and have received 4 callbacks. The basic TV services have been restored and they claim I should have the features I ordered in December by tomorrow. Now, if they can just get everything into one bill, apply the promised credits, and give me a correct total. Oh, and replace this defective router. And turn my HD back on.
You would be best to contact the PUC. They love sicking their dogs on these businesses.
Go after Verizon using the PUC. I had a friend call the PUC after many complaints with Verizon concerning his TREO and the PUC representative conferenced in and sat quiet while he discussed his ongoing problem with the Verizon rep. When the Verizon rep kept giving him the runaround, the PUC rep jumped all over the Verizon rep and it was handled on the spot. They gave him a brand new blackberry, next day shipping, basically anything he wanted. The PUC rep quoted section after section violation.
DCXC, I feel your pain. I just got done with 2 months of hassling with Comcast with the same treatment. It took a letter from the state attorney general, which we filled out online, for them to do anything. I had all 3 services and none of them worked. I ended up dropping them for directtv and verizon. I read about the article in Maryland about Verizon and think they should also look into Comcast’s practices.
@CMESS413 – I live north of Dallas as well (Plano), and FIOS has been good overall (9 out of 10).
I’m disappointed about the constantly-changing IP address, though. My IP changes every 30-45 minutes, making it difficult to VNC back to a home machine from work or while travelling.
@DCXC: Jason, I forwarded this post to my supervisor in case it comes up in a conference call. I’m really sorry you have had so much trouble with your service. I wish there was more I could do, but I’m just a tech in different state, and it sounds like your problem is more with billing. It sounds like things may be getting resolved soon, but there really is no excuse for this.
I hope that this post makes enough of a stink, that Verizon rethinks it’s billing and support. I know that news from Consumerist has gotten to the heads of the company before. There was once an email about the sleepy comcast tech youtube video. The memo basically said to act like the customer is always watching.
@paco: That is exactly what happened to me. Took them, no joke, a YEAR to fix their fuck up.
I literally called them every month and spent no less than an hour on the phone with all manner of Verizon reps. Its pretty great that their internet division and their phone division and apparently their BILLING division are in no way connected other than the name. Each division kept passing me on to another.
I suggest again sending the letter. I promise you, you will get nowhere with phone calls with Verizon.
After that…switch to Speakesy. Yes its expensive but I have found you get what you pay for…that goes for you too Jason and everyone else on here with “issues” with your DSL.
I’ve been usins Speakeasy for almost 3 years…both in NYC and now in SoCal. I LOVE them. My DSL is consistent and almost NEVER has problems. When there are problems you call, they answer [GASP!!] and the problem is fixed. Its like a company is supposed to work!
How come you/this person hasn’t called the corporate office and gotten with the executive area?
@bnissan97: I did, several times. I was hung up on, dropped, or promised a callback that never came those three times. Yesterday was the first time executives have called me back, and she actually spent almost 45 minutes on the phone with me. They’re now saying the issues should be resolved by Tuesday. More waiting…I love it.
@Buran: Could’ve sworn I read that he tried… Oh wait!
“I have tried to cancel my service, only to be promised a prompt resolution by another supervisor, who told me to not worry about the billing issues until I received a correct bill will all three services included on one bill.”
After about the 1st 2 weeks during the 1st month of lack of rendered services, I’d be knocking on the doors of the ofices of the FCC, BBB, EFF (Don’t know why on that one, just for all general purposes), AG, and executive offices at Verizon.
I am dealing with Verizon customer service last month..Highlights..
1. I ordered number transfer from my previous company (Sunrocket). They said, it will take 2 to 3 weeks. By the time, they contacted Sunrocket, they closed so Verizon JUST CANCELED MY ORDER.
2. So when I called to inquire about my order, they apologize as usual and blame on someone else and promised to provide me a new number and schedules an appointment in next 10 days.
3. This time a technician shows up at my house and asks me what to do. When I said, I need a phone connection, he says he doesn’t fix phone connection as he is a video specialist and goes back.
4. Again I am back to dialing customer service and telling all my story of how I am sufferring with the Verizon order system. As usual, I hear apologies and a promise that he/she will look into the root cause of the issue and fix it..
5. So now the latest status after a month is “they say order has been completed but still I do not have my phone connection”
6. In the last one month, I was on phone with Verizon for more than 12 hours. Everytime, they take your number to call back with a response. THEY DIDN’T DO EVEN ONE TIME. ALWAYS YOU HAVE TO CALL THEM TO INQUIRE AND BY THAT TIME THE BALL WILL BE IN DIFFERENT GROUPS COURT. ALWAYS YOU WILL BE KEPT ON HOLD FOR 3 TO 4 TIMES DURING THE CALL AND TRANSFERRED TO DIFFERENT GROUPS.
7. They simply do not have escalation process.
8. Customer service the worst I have ever seen.
9. It’s unbelievable that this is happening in the most advanced country in the world and where everyone has a choice. Does Verizon care about loosing customer?
10. It seem they have one of the worst IT infrastructures.
HELLO VERIZON, CAN YOU HEAR US NOW? (Verizon: Please be onhold, you will be answered by the next available agent….).
Psuedo-pointless Update:
Upsides as of September 5th, 2007.
I have fully working services. I can make long distance calls, watch the premium channels I originally ordered, and nothing more, and have not lost my internet. The replacement router they sent worked.
Downsides as of September 5th, 2007.
I still don’t have a bill. I’ve received the “Welcome to Verizon FIOS” letter, 3 times in 3 weeks, so I know something is going on, just not sure what. I’ll update again as soon as I get the bill.