Still making the Verizon face, but this time in shock at such a favorable outcome.

I KNOW NIX!

Verizon is afraid of winning the Worst Company Competition!

Way to go Verizon! I've seen there CSR's improve greatly lately! Good to see it's not just me with a "special" number!

This is the kind of customer service that I wish I got from, well, just about anywhere. Usually in dealing with telco companies if you call to tell them they've accidentally burned your house down and killed your dog, the rep not only won't apologize, but they won't even offer any kind of solution to the problem. They'll just sit there and say "Well! How about that! I don't have any idea what to do about that or how to make it better for you. Can you go away?"

I want Verizon to pay me for all the time I spend watching their ads telling me to sign up for FiOS that I watch on my FiOS tv!

@CargoHoldNap_GitEmSteveDave: Let me know when you get that; then I can use you as an example to get money from Comcast about digital cable/internet that I already have.

So why is Verizon in the "Worst Company In America" contest again? It seems to me they're the least offensive of any of the phone/cable conglomerates.

Is the OP sure she actually called Verizon, and not some alternate universe of kittens and cakes?

It was "borderline insulting" that you received an offer by mistake / weren't offered the same offer when you moved A YEAR AGO? I find that you were insulted insulting. So they introduced an offer a year after you could have taken advantage of it - if this warrants being insulted I'm gonna go check to see if there are currently any special offers on anything I've ever purchased.

The flag on this should be [Bad Consumer] / Verizon did something way above and beyond.

@HeartBurnKid, creepy morbid freak: because their infrastructure is terrible. They're working hard to make sure their CSRs make things happen and are polite, but the whole system is inherently flawed, primarily because VZ bought out a lot of smaller tele companies. As a result, they don't have one big infrastructure, they have a buttload of contradictory ones under the umbrella of VZ. Not so good. Until they address the problem and spend the $$ to fix it, I suspect they'll always make it to preliminary rounds of Worst Company in America.

@LINIS: I think you may have misread. FIos is NOT available in the OP's area, nor was it ever.

It was only for $50

I don't get that, she seems like she is complaining that it was only $50 but then to me contradicts herself saying she wasn't expecting a gift card. Maybe I just don't get it.

@Kimaroo: I was going to comment too about Comcast being the worst at that. When I had all three from them the number of Comcast commercials was way overboard.

@LINIS: LOL. Learn to read, buddy.

@ratsafari: She wasn't really complaining.

@CargoHolder_GitEmSteveDave: I'd like them to pay me for all the Facebook "become a fan of FiOS!" ads I see as I sit here in FiOS-less Cambridge, MA.

Aside: the next time someone says "well, Japan has better broadband than the US because of population density" I'd like to hear their explanation of how a city with over 15,000 people per square mile isn't dense enough, while Topsfield (less than 500 people per square mile) is.

I want to pay for FioS, vans and billboards everywhere saying it's here. Set up our apartment outside and inside. Our neighbors have it but according to verizon I cant get it. Why wont they take my money! :(

Verizon continues to tease me with FioS advertisements as well. Not a week goes by that I don't get a flyer in the mail, but FioS remains unavailable for my address. I often wonder how much money their marketing department is wasting mailing people who can't get service. You'd think it would be pretty easy to bump their marketing list up against their service database for comparison.

@CargoHoldNap_GitEmSteveDave: Seems that all the cable companies do that. DirectTV has a ton of DirectTV commercials, Comcast has a ton of Comcast commercials, etc. I guess they figure that since they own the lines they can run their ads into the ground at little cost, just to target the guests of subscribers.

@HeartBurnKid, creepy morbid freak: Probably all those folks who nearly had their houses burn down while having FIOS installed ;-)

@nakedscience: I didn't misread - OK, so it's not available there. Discard and carry on with your life. How is that insulting? It was already pointed out that it was mailed mistakenly.

@Tiber: We get that too (out here in FiOS-free Western Mass), and it's absolutely mind-melting - especially those AWFUL new monotone ads.

We came to the conclusion that Comcast runs its own propaganda when it fails to sell advertising to anyone else. The upside is that if this is true, they must not be selling much adtime.

Of course, if it's not true, it's just a pointless business practice. Like Comcast itself.

I don't get why the OP was insulted by a mailer. I get mailers all the time from companies I have never heard of and have no intention of patronizing, I don't get particularly insulted about that.

Be that as it may, regarding Verizon billing and the CSRs there: Since the start of the year, there has been a lot of internal notifications from corporate talking about how much customer's feel that our billing department sucks, and how that is one of the main things they're working on to correct. I'd like to think this interaction went so well because of the improvements they've been implementing. The only thing I don't get is why Verizon doesn't talk about the improvements on the corporate blog. I guess they'd be embarrassed to acknowledge that our company sucked at anything, but I think they're wrong in that. "We suck, but this is what we're doing to fix it" is actually a good message... it means they care about what the customer thinks. Saying nothing just leaves people frustrated and feeling ignored.

@LINIS: I find that you were insulted that she was insulted insulting.

@wickedpixel: Same here. When you go to check for availability, they will ask for your email address and permission to let you know when it becomes available. I think that has something to do with it.

I think she feels insulted because she was offered a promotion which promised the service would be available when she moved. When the service finally became available (a year later), they did not honor the promotion.

@liquidnumb: No, the $100 giftcard is a promotion that's going on now, and ends sometime in April. If she wanted to order the service now, she would get the giftcard. Also, she makes it pretty clear that Fios is not available in her area at all, not when she moved and not a year later. She's upset that she's getting offers for fios even though she's in a non-fios area.

@pecan 3.14159265: That would have ended up with an even happier letter, as I love both kittens AND cake!

@ratsafari: I was pointing out that it wasn't the gift card "promised" in the offer, and also clarifying as to not be lying or exaggerating in my telling of the story. It was not meant to be taken as complaining. I was never expecting any gift card as a result of my phone card, I was more than happy with the CSR's actions before getting the card.

@cambiata: It was the whole message.

@cambiata: Ah, I think I understand now. She is and has been with Verizon, but on their DSL service and not FIOS.

It's great hearing a good customer service story once in a while because it is so rare!

@Nix Smith: Who DOESN'T love cake?? MMMM....

@HeartBurnKid, creepy morbid freak: They are the least offensive of the phone/cable conglomerates - but that doesn't make them good. I have had massive issues with Verizon customer service over the years. Most recently they sent me someone else's e-bill (no idea how they pulled that one off) and configured my cell phone so that it wouldn't accept incoming phone calls. Nix's story is atypical.

@LINIS: Yes, and as she notes below, she was annoyed she got a $100 gift card that she can't use, was happy with the customer service regarding that mistake, and very happy she got a $50 gift card anyway that she wasn't expecting. Got it now?

The Verizon service rep must be a new hire and hasn't gone through orientation yet.

I'm sorta echoing a few other comments here, sorry, but I can't help feeling that Nix' reaction was over the top for a mis-targeted piece of mass mailing. I wudda just call 'em up, asked to be put on their do-not-mail list, and that's that.

Having said all that, it's a wonderful story. Props to Verizon - or at least the CSR.

@Chantillian: That was part of the problem. I was supposed to be on the do-not-mail list. It wasn't any one part of it, it was the whole picture. My reaction was to call and explain why I wasn't happy receiving the postcard. I don't see how that's over the top. I'm not one of "those" customers. When there's an issue I call calmly and reasonably. I don't yell at CSRs even when they deserve it. Verizon spends a good chunk of change making sure that the right postcards go to the right customers and potential customers. I'm sure the person in charge of that program appreciated being told that they were spending a lot of money sending cards to a neighborhood not eligible for what they were advertising. They have no more interest in wasting money than I have in receiving that card. I wasn't expecting anything other than an apology and to be removed from the mailing list (which I had already requested that I be removed from).

@nakedscience: A $100 gift card she couldn't use? She never received the original $100 gift card. Maybe you should re-read. She states that part of the offer was that she would receive a $100 gift card AFTER having signed up for the FIOS service, which she could not do because FIOS is unavailable in her area.

My issue is that she found this to be "borderline insulting." She called to complain that she was offered something that she could not take advantage of. Yes, perhaps this isn't ideal because she may have gotten her hopes up, but insulting? Not unless you're "borderline" stupid.

Re-read the story and the original comment, unless of course you can't actually read as it seems by your responses so far to my comment.

That's better than nothing! I bought a half gallon of that new Smart Balance Milk with Omega 3's using a $1 off coupon I'd gotten in the newspaper. Brought it home, opened it the next day for my morning coffee and (BLECHHH) my coffee tasted like a fish oil pill had exploded in my cup. Really bad and I'm used to fish oil pills.

Turns out the new Smart Balance milk uses fish oil to create the Omega 3's rather than flax seed. Silly me, thought they'd use flax seed oil like they do in their butter spreads. Needless to say, we dumped the milk down the sink and I called Smart Balance who apologized and would make it up to me. They sure did! I got a coupon for a free half gallon of their fish oil milk.

@LINIS: AGAIN, it was ALL of it that was borderline insulting. A postcard that I'd opted out of for a service I wasn't eligible for with an offer that I wasn't given. It was the whole package. I'm sorry that my irritation to this bothers you so much, my sharing this story was in no way intended to offend you any more than my call to Verizon to complain was intended to get me free things. I just figured that people would appreciate hearing about something nice that happened. My bad.