Restaurant Uses Old School Social Media To Complain About Verizon

By February 9, 2012

It’s now commonplace for angry consumers to use Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, or WUPHF to complain that they are being ignored by their phone/cable/satellite provider. But one restaurant in Manhattan decided to voice its opinion of Verizon in a way that doesn’t require an internet connection.

Consumerist reader Thurman snapped this photo of a downtown eatery that in addition to declaring that “Verizon Sucks!” (complete with frowny face embellishment on the exclamation point) has apparently been marking off the number of days the establishment had been without service:
vzsuckscu.jpg

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Comments

  1. Driblis says:
    February 9, 2012 at 1:36 pm

    In before Verizon sues them for libel.

    • Platypi {Redacted} says:
      February 9, 2012 at 1:40 pm

      Not if the statements are true, right?

    • ZachPA says:
      February 9, 2012 at 1:40 pm

      Can’t sue for libel if it’s true!

      • CTrees says:
        February 9, 2012 at 2:11 pm

        Very wrong. You’re unlikely to win a defamation suit if the offending message is true, but you can ABSOLUTELY sue. Which if you have teams of attorneys on staff, and feel like bullying a small business…

      • Sneeje says:
        February 9, 2012 at 2:24 pm

        Well you will have to show that a) the statements are demonstrably false, b) the eatery knew that they were false but stated them anyway, and c) that you have suffered economic harm.

        There’s a pretty high bar here, especially for Verizon which is effectively a public figure.

      • Emperor Norton I says:
        February 9, 2012 at 3:19 pm

        At which point you counter sue for the filing of a false & malicious lawsuit & if in federal court, ask the judge for sanctions against the plaintiff for violating Rule 11 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure [FRCP] or in a state court for violating that state’s equivalent rule of civil procedure.

      • ARP says:
        February 9, 2012 at 4:11 pm

        Good luck getting a judge to grant Rule 11 sanctions. Even if they did, VZ could appeal it so that it would take them years to get them. So, they’d still be out of Pocket a lot of money.

    • Swins says:
      February 9, 2012 at 1:47 pm

      An affirmative defense against libel is the truth

    • agent 47 says:
      February 9, 2012 at 1:55 pm

      Hmmm…I wonder if that would work if it’s true…if only someone here knew…

    • RP_Fan says:
      February 10, 2012 at 6:54 pm

      All they need to do is say that “Verizon sucks and each male member of its board, management, and legal staff has a small penis.” If they decide to sue, they’ve got to state on the record that the statement is true. They won’t.

  2. gargunkle says:
    February 9, 2012 at 1:44 pm

    Can’t read past “No service for (6 days?) something something.” Too blurry.

  3. Coffee says:
    February 9, 2012 at 1:48 pm

    Am I the only one who thought the article was going to be about a post on Myspace?

  4. Straspey says:
    February 9, 2012 at 1:58 pm

    This is exactly why I stay with Cablevision instead of switching to FiOS.

    I’ve heard so many nightmare stories about Verizon’s customer service when it comes to the FiOS products.

    You have wait a few days for a tech to show up to repair the problem – and sometimes they don’t show as scheduled. You can’t talk to a live person and/or get service on the weekends, etc.

    By contrast – I had a problem with my Cablevision connection a few weeks ago. I called them at about 9:00 pm on a Friday evening…spoke to a live CSR who was friendly and helpful…set up an appointment during a 4-hour window for the NEXT DAY…the guy showed five minutes after the opening of my appointment window.

    Then – When the problem re-occurred about ten days later, not only did they come again promptly to fix it, but I received a follow-up call from a senior CSR who wanted to make sure my service issues had been resolved and then…are you ready for this…she gave me the cell phone number for the field service supervisor in my district.

    Yes – I have some issues with Cablevision…such as no NFL Network – but the positives in terms of the real effort they put in to ensuring I receive my services with little or no interruption is remarkable and outstanding.

    IMHO, Verizon has a long way to go if they want to catch up in that department.

    • webweazel says:
      February 9, 2012 at 5:18 pm

      Same thing here, but with AT&T. Had trouble with our landline. Dropping calls left & right. I tested at the box outside our house, and it was happening on their side, not our house. Called tech, talked to someone, came out the next day within a half-hour of their scheduled beginning time. He called from the truck to let me know he was on the way. (They always do this-Nice!) The problem wasn’t happening then, so they couldn’t diagnose it even though they tried to find it. Okay, I understand that. If it happened again, they said to call again and they’ll come back out and hopefully catch it happening so they can figure it out.

      Found out a few days later while talking to our neighbor that it was happening to them, also. They had called a tech on their own, and he didn’t find any problems, either. The problem was starting to get worse, too. A day or so later, I see an AT&T van pull up to their house, they weren’t home, so I went to chat. He was the manager of the tech department. He said they (neighbors) gave a bad rating to the tech that came to their house to fix the problem and he was following up with them in person. (Nice!) I said it was probably because the problem was still happening and gave him a rundown of what was going on with both of us. He wrote down some notes and said he would write some trouble tickets for us, send out a tech the next morning, and combine our two trouble tickets since they were related.

      The tech came out bright and early and right on time. Called from the truck again. He diagnosed the problem all along the line back to the main junction box a few blocks away. Worked on it for 3 hours. Found the trouble in a broken line somewhere underground a few feet from their main junction box. Fixed it, and all has been good since then.

      He gave both of us a card with his company cell number so if the problem came back or anything else happened, we could call him direct in his truck and he would come right over to check it out.

      I mean, a manager following up a bad review in person, the techs always calling from the truck when they’re on the way, the tech giving us a direct call card, I mean, that’s how customer service SHOULD be done. Other companies should take notes.

  5. jpdanzig says:
    February 9, 2012 at 5:14 pm

    Verizon failed to fix this restaurant’s service for just six days??? They failed to fix my residential phone service and internet for close to a MONTH, until my letter to their then-CEO brought them to their senses. It’s unfortunate that telecommunications technology gets better, but the service does NOT, and Verizon is from all accounts a prime offender…

  6. BackInBlack says:
    March 23, 2012 at 1:14 pm

    Although I’ll qualify this post with “You get what you pay for” and the fact that I generally like and have had good service with my StraightTalk service (owned by TacFone & exclusive through Wal-Mart), they completely LOST my account and phone number once. It took several calls and a couple of hours on the phone with their CS people (in the Philippines) to get it turned back on, and thank God I had a second cell phone (my old Net10) available to CALL them from home!

    For their CDMA phones, they use Verizon’s network, and that has been reliable, with dropped calls being rare and almost no dead zones ever (except a long stretch of I-40 through OK until you get clear to Oklahoma City a two hours later, hoping your car doesn’t breakdown until you’ve got a tower or two of service.)

    But I’ve heard stories from my sister and friends who use Verizon.