Jason’s fuel gauge was stuck, and he unexpectedly ran out of gas in the middle of Wyoming, 23 miles from the nearest town. When he tried calling for help, the operator asked, “Would you like to be connected to Verizon Wireless Roadside Assistance?” Sadly, Jason said yes. He writes,
Here are the morals of this story:
1. Never EVER travel without extra fuel.
2. If someone ever says to you, “Can I connect you to Verizon Wireless Roadside Assistance?” They are making a direct threat on your life.
So yesterday I drove from my home in Casper, Wyoming down to Loveland Colorado. Its about a 250 mile drive South down I-25. I was driving a 2003 GMC Yukon XL. I passed Chugwater Wyoming at about 11:00, checked the fuel gauge and decided that half a tank should get me into Cheyenne, 45 miles away.
23 miles later the needle of the fuel gauge finally unstuck and dropped to E in about a second and a half. Then the car sputtered and died. I was out of fuel with no sign of civilization for 23 miles to the North and 22 miles to the South. I raised my hood, hoping that some kind soul would stop and perhaps offer a ride.
I had been in and out of cellular service for the last two hours. In that time my phone was trying desperately to find a signal, which drains the battery at a horrendous rate of speed. I had one bar left on the battery so I went looking for my car charger. I didn’t bring it. I don’t know anyone in Cheyenne, so I dialed 411. The operator answered and I asked her for a tow truck in Cheyenne, Wyoming. She said to me, “Can I connect you with Verizon Wireless Roadside Assistance?” I said, “Why yes you can, I didn’t know Verizon offered Roadside Assistance.”
So she connects me. I spent the next 15 minutes punching in my credit card number, my phone number, the last four digits of my SSN etc. etc. etc. Then I finally get a live person on the phone to help me. Goes like this:
Her: Thank you for calling Verizon Wireless Roadside Assistance, how can I help you?
Me: Hi, I’m out of fuel on I-25 23 miles North of Cheyenne, Wyoming next to mile marker 30. Can you send some fuel out?
Her: I can help you with that, are you in a safe place?
Me: I’m on the shoulder of I-25, I’m pretty safe.
Her: Ok, where exactly are you?
Me: …. Interstate 25 southbound, mile marker 30, 23 miles north of Cheyenne Wyoming.
(No shit, this was her next question.)
Her: Are you at home?
Me: What? No, I’m next to I-25 in the middle of nowhere.
Her: Could you meet someone at your home?
Me: Are you serious? Lady, I’m broken down in the middle of the prarie here!
Her: I understand sir, is there a mile marker or an exit near you?
Me: Yeah, like I said, I’m at mile marker 30.
Her: Ok, is there a town nearby?
Me: Yeah, Cheyenne is 23 miles away.
Her: Ok, what is the zip code there?
Me: How the hell would I know the zip code of Cheyenne Wyoming?
Her: Sir, I can’t do anything without a zip code.
Me: Can’t you look it up somehow?
Her: Please hold.Fifteen minutes go by, my phone is beeping its battery death rattle in my ear.
Her: Sir? Are you still there?
Me: Yes I am, but my phone is about to die, is someone on the way?
Her: I can’t find a zip code for Cheyenne. Oh, wait, let me try this one….I’m on hold again. Three minutes pass.
Her: Sir, what sort of service do you need?
Me: I don’t care, send a tow truck, or a locksmith or a taxi or anyone that will bring me fuel!
Her: ok….My phone dies.
So I figure she’s got someone on the way and I wait. Its 12:30pm at this point in time. I took some pictures to pass the time.
I also picked up some of the bottles and cans from the roadside, carried them a few hundred yards off the road into an empty field and had a little target practice.Four hours pass. No help has arrived. Finally, someone stops, this is the first time since I’ve been there. He let me use his phone, I called my voicemail. I had a message from the Roadside Assistance bitch that went like this;
“Sir, I was unable to find any services in Cheyenne. Thank you for calling Verizon Wireless Roadside Assistance, have a good day.”
She left me to twist. A 12 hour walk in any direction, she knew full well that I couldn’t call anyone else, she just left me out there.
I then called 411 again and asked for a tow truck. The operator said, “Can I connect you to Verizon Wireless Roadside Assistance?” I told her to go have sex with herself in a tirade of swearing that can only be described as Yosemite Sam uncensored.
One hour later Doug’s Towing from Cheyenne was there, he collected $150 and I was back on the road.
“Verizon Wireless left me to die. With pics!” [AR15.com]
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I live near where the OP is from and I can tell you, this is not a fun place to be out of gas, even when the weather is nice. I had a similar situation where I actually had my windshield wipers freeze/lock in place during a winter storm between Cheyenne and Laramie.
And Verizon, for it’s vaunted network, loses signal a lot out here.
Wow, I can’t bellieve Verizon would do that, I just recently switched to them from AT&T maybe I should switch back if that’s how they treat their customers. Leaving them out stranded when they call for help. Did you get the name of the woman by any chance
They needed the zip code for the capital city? That’s absurd.
Before everyone starts driving around with a spare gallon of fuel in their trunk, that can be pretty dangerous and is also illegal in some places. The advice to use your trip meter to reality-check your fuel gauge is better. If you don’t have a trip meter, you could also write down your mileage.
It’s a bad thing to have such service from the Verizon folks, I agree. I can understand the ire.
Is it just me thinking this: isn’t the chance of help just a few hundred yards away (owing to the first picture taken)?
What about a car charger for the cellular phone?
Seems a new gas gauge is in order also.
An odd contradictory statement is that I think most people know about this but at the same time I’m not sure people do. I recently found out that google has a wealth of txt msg based applications that work great. You can get all sorts of stuff just by sending a text message to 466453 (GOOGLE). Weather, sports scores, directions, ZIP CODES, phone numbers, addresses. Check out all the neat stuff here:
[www.google.com]
Oh, the zip code for Cheyenne, WY is 82001
Top tip for directory assistance: (800)-GOOG411
Yup, Google 411. It’s not perfect but: (a) free so you can try it first and (b) when it does work, it kicks ass.
I only used roadside assistance from verizon once. I had a car that transmission went out, also had another car though. Put roadside assistance on my car and after like two weeks called to get my car towed to the shop. Then canceled it at the end of the month. So cost me like 3 bucks for a tow.
AllState’s roadside assistance is also worthless. When my truck overheated on our way to work one time they told me they couldn’t get in touch with any of their tow companies. So they gave me the phone number of another tow company I COULD CALL! Wow, why did I have that service?? I canceled all my AllState products that day and switched it all over to USAA where I should have been in the first place.
The morals of the story that I learned:
- Always have quality roadside assistance available (I’ve never had an issue with AAA and have had it [and used it] many times).
- Don’t buy American autos. The gas gauge getting “stuck” on a 5 year old auto boggles the mind.
The first 20 or so years of my life I was stranded on numerous occassions by American cars. I now buy cars that aren’t built in Mexico.
- Know your auto and use the tripometer. The gas gauge automatically gets a check to its balance if you use the triopmeter and know generally how far you can go on a tank of gas.
- Always keep a loaded weapon in your auto. I would have also enjoyed the target shooting on the prairie.
She couldn’t find the zip code???? Doesn’t she know how to use Google?
I’m not a Verizon customer, and this story is not really swaying me.
You never dealt with VZW period. Both operators you talked to were from other companies.
VZW 411 is outsourced, I forget who it was taken over by these days, the division was sold off.
Use Goog-411, don’t waste the $1.25
2nd, Verizon’s Roadside assitance is handled by a 3rd party just like the insurance policies are handled by Asurion/LockLine and the In-Store Tech’s are really Solectron employee’s.
Your problem lies with GE Motor Club not Verizon.
[support.vzw.com]
DISCLAIMER: Former VZW employee here.
Consumerist please use due dillegence in your reporting, too many stories here are leaving out vital details.
@dj_skilz: I don’t care if they outsource it to ATT. Verizon gets 100% of the blame for this. When you offer a “Service” and then fail to follow through on it you are the guilty party, and deserve the blame.
If I hire someone to build a house, and his carpenter screws up and forgets to add stairs who is on the hook to fix the problem, the guy I contracted with or the stranger he hired to do the work?
@dj_skilz: If It’s called “Verizon Roadside Assistance”, then Verizon is ultimately responsible for keeping their customers happy.
If they subcontract it out, it is their own business. The service still has the “Verizon” branding, meaning customers expect Verizon to take care of them.
And don’t blame Consumerist or the OP for leaving out “vital details”. Whoever answered the phone (under Verizon’s name, if not in their employ) did a completely awful job of customer service.
That sounds about right.
In my younger days, I thought it sounded like a good deal to pay the extra $3-$4 fee a month on my cingular bill for their roadside assistance service. After having paid this monthly fee for over a year, it finally occurred that I needed to use it. When I called after having broken down on the side of the interstate, I was promptly asked what address I was located at, I replied with the nearest mile marker I had just past on the interstate. Their response, “Sir, we can’t send anyone out unless we have an address to send them.”
They would not budge and that’s how it ended. My parents drove over an hour to come collect me from the side of the interstate.
What a rip off.
There are so many morals to this story that have nothing to do with Verizon. Perhaps driving a vehicle that does better than 17mpg highway. Or another reason to avoid flyover states.
My AAA gives me 100 miles.
Seeing your photos made my heart ache.
I’m a Wyoming native now out in Connecticut and not a day goes by I don’t miss home. Breathtakingly beautiful country there.
The Verizon customer-no-service-rep should be fired for her idiocy. At the very least she could have called the Highway Patrol and told them everything she knew of your plight and location.
But that’s not on the script is it?
Nissan’s Gold Preferred warranty package includes roadside assistance, rental car, and hotel reimbursement if you’re stuck in the middle of nowhere. I haven’t used it yet, and I hope I won’t have to.
UNREAL! I contacted the consumerist over the weekend about Verizon wireless because I blogged about a consumerist post on Verizon/Kelsey Smith. I found out even MORE info, other cases of Verizon marketing their “safety” features but not following through.
Here is most recent post
[tinyurl.com]
Here is post that linked to consumerist post from 9-17
[tinyurl.com]
Please use your consumerist good mojo to let people know more about this. I have no axe to grind, I’m just a pissed off mom. Thanks.
When you enroll in either Insurance, or Roadside Assistance you recieve a T&C’s brochure directly from the provider or the policy. Just like when you buy the extended warranty thru Target/Walmart, etc.
VZW is not in the business of Roadside Assitance or Insuring their equipment, not warranty service. Its the same premise as services offered by your bank that have nothing to do with them, other pamphlet inside your monthly statement.
VZW earns revenue of selling these services, but acts as little more than a referral point.
Technically it is not their problem, and if VZW does respond to the situation with a credit & such they have gone beyond the terms of the customer agreement.
And a final bit of indignity is that you paid around $2 for each one of those 411 calls to Verizon.
Given the same situation again, you’d be better off just dialing 1-800-FREE411 (as free as it sounds) and specifying Cheyenne, WY, and then getting the # for a tow company.
I just tweeted this story, blogged about it on my blog, White Trash Mom.
I had almost the exact same experience with AT&T roadside.
Him: Are you safe?
Me: Yes.
Where are you?
I’m on a little county road. I don’t know the number, but I can tell someone how to get here.
Sir I need your exact address or they won’t come out.
I try for about 5 mins to politely explain the situation.
They use a GPS, so they can’t find you.
Ok, can I talk to someone else, please? Not to complain or anything, just someone that can help?
SURE YOU CAN!
fortunately a neighbor happened to pass by.
i HATE customer service drones. jerks every one.
that’s sucky.
watch your mileage not your fuel gauge.
i hope verizon decides to “take this seriously”
That, for lack of a better term, is just fucked up.
AAA has always paid for itself in my house. I will carry it for the rest of my life.
It amazes me and the readieness of folks on this board to always blame the OP – astouding
To the Verizon suck-up, I don’t care if Verizon’s Roadside Assistance is outsourced. They put their name on it, they can take responsibility for leaving me in the middle of nowhere when they offered help. Yeah, there was a problem with the vehicle which has been rectified, but there is no vehicle on the road right now that will never suffer from a mechanical problem. The point is that I called them for help when I needed it, they are in the business of helping people on the road when they need it and they failed monumentally.
Also, that first picture with the building in it is of a derelict ranch. No one has lived there in years.
Wyoming may be desolate, but you were on I-25. State Troopers patrol 45- or 150-mile stretches in Wyoming. If you had stayed in your car with a white rag hanging out of your window, the most that you would have had to wait would be 2 hours, and that’s assuming that you were parked right outside of a weigh-station or a State Trooper den. Chances are, an officer would have seen your car in about an hour. I also carry an emergency CB radio with me when I’m driving through Wyoming. It’s saved my bacon twice now.
Looking at those pictures makes me miss Wyoming. It may not be green, but it’s cool and allergen-free.
You can always send a text message to chacha asking for a tow service in the town you are in. http://www.chacha.com its great for free address look’s or general life questions
Hmmm, makes me really think about purchasing a AAA membership. Discounted hotel room rates are also a plus of being a AAA member. As much driving as I do (but rarely more than 100 miles from home) it just might be worth it. I was kinda worried on Tuesday since I was 90 miles from home in a town that didn’t seem to have a single road diesel dispenser in it. Luckily found an un-manned station with Diesel at a non-gouging price.
That’s horrible. Seriously. Especially since there is really nothing between Casper and Cheyenne (my aunt and uncle live in Casper.) I know exactly where these photos were taken… I’ve been on this drive so many times to Casper and South Dakota. Lovely country…
I wouldn’t blame Verizon on this though. I think Verizon contracts their roadside assistance through Asurion. Definitely call Verizon and find out who does their RSA and file a complaint.
I’ve never called for help when I’ve broken down. I drive junker cars and break down at least once a year, but I always meet the nicest people when stranded. Maybe that’s because only nice folks will stop, or maybe because I’m in rural Oregon. Either way, it makes driving junker cars a little more exciting while I put what would have been a car payment toward my mortgage!
I had almost the EXACT same situation happen to me at exactly the same spot ( judging by your pictures ). I was enroute to Ohio due to a family medical emergency when the car in front of me lost control, ate a sign post, kept going and flipped over. Its -10 degree fahrenheit and snowing. I went through verizon roadside assistance to try and find the wyoming/colorado state police to get help. 2 hours later, with the other driver and me screaming at the verizon services people for help… the state police shows up because a trucker had called it in via CB. Seriously these people are trying to kill their customers.
These roadside assistance things are a sham. You’re better to have real roadside assistance. For $5 a month, you kinda got what you paid for.
Also? I’d try to get a car charger for your phone. If you turn the key on? The power outlet works…at least you could get service. Also? The police would have probably would have figured out Verizon’s snafu, if you had died out there.
if you’re out on the road, knowingly driving through the boondocks, break down, and DON’T have some kind of AAA type service, then I’m sorry but you’ve gotten what you’ve clearly not planned for, and that’s how Darwinism works.
This bail out plan is bullshit. Let a free market operate as a free market. Bail someone out – they don’t learn shit. Let them twist in the wind, maybe they WILL learn something, but more importantly smarter people will take their place and do better the next time.
Socialism as an economic policy has been proven NOT to work in the long run. We’re running pell mell into the mouth of armageddon with open arms – when the anarchy is upon us all, those who have prepared will be the ones who come out alive.
H.L Menken was right when he said, “No one ever lost money underestimating the intelligence of the American public.” This idiot woman was actually able to find employment when rocket scientists are out of work. FWIW, this is a typical Verizon experience. One of the worst cellular companies of all time.
I would have called 911, or “O” operator rather than 411. I would hope that the police would have a better chance of finding you. In my part of the world (Metro Chicago) the only way to contact police is 911. They will then transfer you to whichever dept. can solve your problem.
not blaming the poster, but this is why I reset my trip odo every fill-up. I know my range on a tank of gas, and won’t start a cross-desert trip if I’ve already gone 290 miles since my last fill-up.
“I then called 411 again and asked for a tow truck. The operator said, “Can I connect you to Verizon Wireless Roadside Assistance?” I told her to go have sex with herself in a tirade of swearing that can only be described as Yosemite Sam uncensored.
One hour later Doug’s Towing from Cheyenne was there, he collected $150 and I was back on the road.”
what a shame. this is such a disgusting attitude to carry. when you dial 411, 611, whatever, you are calling people that want nothing more than to make you happy and appreciative. instead, you treat them badly because you think it’s going to reward you with some sort of result. the first person you spoke to at Verizon was probably an idiot. they are everywhere. the second person was probably competent, polite, and knowledgeable, and did not deserve your “tirade”. (didn’t your mother teach you to speak to girls nicely?) at any rate, i felt bad for you until i read that. now i kind of think you deserved it.
I work for dispatch customer care Verizon. Did you try to call back to road side and complain? It could of gotten you 50 in gas cards. Never mind, you wouldn’t look to see if you need gas where ever you were. Good news the system is to finally be upgraded by Christmas, a zip will no longer be needed. 911 is a good idea. Dumb idea , low battery and not paying attention to your gas gauge. Your not even a member at 3 dollars a month at least we now offered service for non members.
on 3 times, the reps were very rude and 3 hours later I ended up calling a tow truck myself because nova 1 said there were none available in my area. If you pay for roadside assistance through nova 1 CANCEL it because it is a rip off!! I asked the name of the company and said nova 1 but they represent verizon wireless. I work fr verizon wireless and they are no part of the company, But you can believe any account that i see has this feature, that I will tell them to cancel this service because it is horrible!!!