Here’s an odd little letter. For once a customer was actually pleased with the salesperson that came to their door and convinced them to try FiOS. Yay! The trouble came when the nice salesperson called in and Verizon refused to activate the account unless the customer canceled their phone lines with Vonage and Cablevision and switched all three to Verizon.
I tried to order Verizon FIOS this evening. Their salesman came to my door and spent 1 1/2 hours convincing me that it was a good idea. He did a great job, and I decided to do it. I was to sign a contract for ONE Verizon phone line, in addition to internet and television. We called the Virginia call center, and told them that I have a Verizon phone line, a Cablevision phone line and a Vonage phone line. I told them that I intend to keep the Vonage line. I was told that unless I switched all three lines to Verizon, they could not do it! I then asked to speak with the supervisor, who told me that the rules could not be bent, and that all phone lines must be transferred to Verizon. I said to him: “you spend millions on advertising; every day I receive multi-color mailings from you trying to convince me to order FIOS; and then you tell me that because only 2 of my 3 phone lines will be with Verizon, you refuse my business! The supervisor told me that it didn’t matter to him whether or not I sign up because he gets a salary whether or not I sign up, and he gets no bonus! In other words, he has no incentive to please the customer, and he couldn’t care less if I walk away. Then, to add insult to injury, he got on the phone with my salesman and told him that if I call the NY business office, they could sign me up, but that the salesman would get no compensation… after he did all the work to convince me to do it!
I have decided that if I call the New York office, and they refuse to compensate the salesman, David [redacted], then I will go so far as to do without television, if necessary, before I ever sign with Verizon. I will also move my existing Verizon line to another carrier.
This is symptomatic of why this country is going to hell in a handbasket.
I don’t give a damn what Verizon does at this point. This has made me sick to my stomach!Stuart
For Pete’s sake, Verizon. What a pickle. The salesperson was nice, so you don’t want to cancel the order, but then again, they won’t let you order the damn FiOS… Argh! What would you do? Cancel?
(Photo:JohnMarino92)
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Wow. Why do people stay on the phone when they get a response like that? Once I called RoadRunner, and the woman refused to escalate my outage call (the modem’s cable light wasn’t on), unless I hooked the patch cable from my modem directly into my computer, not my router. I suppose that it’s not an outlandish request, except if you understand networking devices at all; and I happen to explain to the rep that I’ve been working as a computer tech for over ten years, and that the router wasn’t the problem. She refused this. I said nothing after her second refusal, hung up, called back, and just told them it was hooked in to the computer.
The original call (minus wait time) must have been two minutes.
The lesson is that, if you say something to people on the phone that they refuse to handle in a sensible manner, hang up, call back and lie.
There is no excuse for the way that supervisor spoke to you. Unless there is a valid technical reason preventing all the services from being compatible and working, you should have the right to pick whatever provider you want. There are regulations regarding compliance in the state of NJ to make sure no local provider has an unfair advantage against another. Most important is for all of us to keep in mind is that the salespeople Verizon hires to go door to door ARE NOT Verizon employees nor are they Union employees. They are outside vendors Verizon hires since it is easier to pay them than actual trained Verizon employees working in the states you live in. Unfortunately, many times these vendor employess have none of the years of training regular reps do and push the SALE above all else. Leading to unecessary customer frustration in the event the salesperson promises something the company cannot deliver or promises a price that doesn’t exist. Call your local office directly and ask them where they are located. Chances are, most of Verizon customers have no idea that the people representing Verizon door to door or vendor call centers they reach (which are a direct result of cheap outsourcing)are not actually Verizon employees. The worst is that good customers such as this one had to be treated so poorly.
I can’t believe this. Getting FiOS means giving carrier the right of what other internet service you could or could not have? What’s next? I porno viewer cannot view his porno. What’s the point of having FiOS if i can’t view fast speed, HD quality porno? Forget it, I am going back to dial up. This is why our country is going down the drain…..
The problem is that the Verizon people that you talked to are not familiar with FiOS, Vonage or Cablevision. The reason that Verizon wants you to drop other providers is so that they can get rid of the expensive to maintain copper lines to your home. The people giving you a hard time either don’t know this or don’t understand that Cablevision and Vonage don’t use the old wire. You CAN NOT go back to copper after installing FiOS.
I have FiOS for the home, Cablevision for TV and a pair of phone numbers on Vonage for my home business. I also have another FiOS Business internet connection to my server barn. The only thing you have to do with Vonage is to program the Fios router to put the Vonage adapter into the DMZ ( one ip address totally open to the internet without filtering at all ). Then it just works… Don’t even mention the Cablevision phone as it doesn’t use their infrastructure.