I figured they contracted everywhere-I wonder why New England is different?

Regardless, good information to have, and it's nice to see Verizon's trying to help.

@Coles_Law:
didn't they start in New England?

There will always be problems with any company but I always maintained that the way they handle the problem is how you judge them. It seems that Verizon wants to help the costumer.

I just had FIOS installed in my office in Brooklyn, and everything went absolutely perfectly.

Showed up on time, work done efficiently and neatly, installer very nice and well groomed.

Another way to solve this problem would be to have one installation team for the whole country. They could live in a firehouse and slide down the pole whenever someone ordered an installation. And fly around the country on their supersonic invisible jet.

No? Well it would solve the contractor problem, at least. And be teh awesome!

NYC is their HQ

actually, parts of new england are no longer even serviced by verizon anymore- they sold off a huge amount of their fios and land lines to fairpoint in maine, nh and vermont. Southern NE still gets verizon I think though. Back when it was still verizon though, I def. had a real verizon rep install my fios and not a contrator like comcast uses around here. He was amazing, really knew his stuff. Unlike the comcast guy who almost drilled into the power supply. You know, the big, live wires that come into the house. -_-;

@Kevin Carlyle: It's because us New Englanders have never taken crap from anyone, ever. It started with an unjust tax on tea and continues to this day with customer service from large international corporations.

Or maybe because GTE is from CT. Not sure which one makes more sense.

@Kevin Carlyle: Yeah, Verizon is a New England native. Got to take care of your own, I guess.

@GayNerd: My FiOS installer also never drilled any holes in my wall so I'm kind of unsure as to what type of FiOS service requires that. I only had internet installed though, not TV.

Still, the buck stops with Verizon. If the installer working as a Verizon employee or contractor ruined the dress, Verizon is at fault, period. I haven't seen anyone in any capacity to fix the problem nor any higher-ups acknowledge or address this incident. And, yes, I believe they know about.

@TEW:

it was a wedding dress, not a costume!

:)

@EricAugu: I like the first explanation better.

I just came here from the latest Gizmodo post about the newest trailer for the second Transformers movie and the subsequent comment discussions about Megan Fox, and all this talk here about drilling is making me more horny. Good thing this isn't a post about another video with Meg.

@savdavid: I agree. I don't think I should have to give a damn about whether the installer is a corporate employee or an independent contractor hired by them. They are still 100% responsible in my view; their employment practices are not my problem.

@Coles_Law: New England has a lot of competition compared to other regions, too. Comcast, UVerse, and RCN.

@pecan 3.14159265: Most installs in single family homes require you to drill through the exterior wall where your utilities enter the house. In a single family home install, a NID (Network Interface Device) is installed on the side of the home exterior. This NID is what converts the fiber light into your telephone, internet and television signals. The NID requires a small hole(about the size of standard coax cable) wire for power and your internet connection. Cable TV and telephone use the existing wiring that is probably already going through the exterior wall. The power supply and battery backup are installed inside the home, usually in a utility closet, basement or garage.

@Coles_Law: Verizon used to be called Bell Atlantic before they became nationalized.

So they were originally located in New England.

@LandruBek: Yes, because constantly jet lagged installers will never make mistakes! ;)

@Mr.DuckSauce: The first four letters of NYNEX stood for New York New England.

@Hyman Decent: Comments about Meg are starting to get kind of creepy, people.

@TEW:
Wow I really need to proof read these posts.

@wardawg: and jet lag is really the only problem with his proposal....

well, in central Jersey, it's done by verizon techs. My neighbor does FiOS installs, and he works for Verizon. It's def a perk when you need something like cat5 cable or some phone line ;)

@EricAugu: uh yeah they don't take crap from anyone...except for their governments who tax them to shreds

@Coles_Law: Bell Atlantic was relatively anti-union before the subsequent acquisitions of NYNEX and GTE created Verizon. I would assume that the Mid-Atlantic states originally served by Bell Atlantic probably have the ability to hire contractors due to variations in the union contracts.

I'm not employee so I can only speculate but it makes sense since Verizon is a holding company and, at least on paper, the subsidiary companies still exist.

@Hyman Decent: Agreed on the whole creepy thing. Meg is a WWW girl though, has probably already seen and been subjected to much worse :)

@EricAugu: The South rose up against crap, as well. That one just didn't work out so well and then you had military occupation and all. As far as customer service issues, we fight down here just as much.

@Cassius98: One per time zone? Also, why not have a giant base full of them and dispatch them in a Black Hawk to your home for the install? Wait, what? Companies don't have unlimited money?

@johnva: At least they should contact the contractor about it and if there's a higher rate of problems with them terminate the contract.

@DjDynasty: Sorry to say Ivan promised New York he would stay and then moved the HQ to New Jersey.

However Verzion is being sued by New Jersey for failing to live up to promises (Billing/Free TV offer). Oh and by the way that is where the Verizon HQ is located.

Here's a good story for you concerning Verizon:

my brother-in-law got into a car accident one night. He got tired and drove off the road and had to have a tow truck get the car out, there was a little damage, he was fine.

Fast forward 2 months, my Mother in law gets a bill for 10k from Verizon collections. She calls in and asks "what gives?" They say it must be an oversight and they'll look into it. It doesn't go away. She calls again and again, finally escalating it and it turns out that they're billing her for damage to one of Verizon's trucks. They're claiming my brother in law hit a verizon truck that night.

She had to get the police report and fax it to the guy. They still didn't remove the charge. She had to wait on hold for 2 hours to talk to them again, then have the guy read the police report out loud to the point where it said that "One car was involved in this accident" before they would remove the charge. This took months to resolve.

@Coles_Law: I don't get the impression that this was an official response from Verizon. The way the article is written suggests that a Consumerist reader, who happens to work for Verizon, took it upon himself to respond to the article.

on January '09 I contacted Verizon in regards to a bundle of 3 services,Phone,Internet and TV,with the stipulation that those service come as a package or none,The TV service was to be provided by Direct TV as my area does not have a optical cable connection yet,this last Winter was exceptionally severe and due snow the dish could not be installed,in the meantime Verizon had started billing for the services,even though the package of three was incomplete,(i.e.bundle)After several months of delay with the dish of Direct TV,I canceled the whole package.However Verizon insist that I pay for the phone and Internet service. Presently I am waiting for a decision from PA Public Utilities Commission.