Posts about Verizon
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Here It Is, Your Lineup For Worst Company In America 2012!
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MIke writes that he's having some catastrophic billing issues with Verizon. He's never had good luck with their customer service, which was fine with him because he never really had issues with his account. The simple act of choosing a new home service bundle set off a chain reaction ended up with Mike receiving multiple bills with different charges for different things, totaling about $1,100 for a 45-day period.
When he threw up his hands and asked Verizon to just cancel his service, waiving the early termination fees for his trouble, they couldn't handle that, either. Update: Verizon has fixed the accounts and given Mike a full refund. More »
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In the weeks immediately following the Haiti earthquake, Verizon and AT&T offered free calls to Haiti as a goodwill gesture to people in the U.S. with family and friends over there. The offers weren't identical, though, and Verizon was only offering free calls made to Haiti, not the reverse. Spc. James Crawford kept calling his pregnant wife each day from his station in Port-au-Prince, and now they have a phone bill for $1,919.44. More »
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When they left, Chris had a sticker stuck to the back of his Droid, and his girlfriend was told to stop wearing makeup because makeup ruins the enV Touch. More »
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Update: Reader's DSL Upgraded, House Still Not On Fire
Michael would like some faster Internet tubes to run into his house. He would be happy to give his ISP, Verizon DSL, money to provide this service, but he can't. He writes that repeated calls to Verizon's sales line resulted in a series of answers that disagreed with each other, culminating in a call where the rep quite sincerely informed him that Verizon cannot give him faster DSL because it will burn his house down. More »
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—>Awhile back AT&T sued Verizon over their "There's a Map For That" advertisements, claiming that the maps were misleading because the empty areas on the maps represented different things. Now Verizon has responded to the lawsuit with some fightin' words. More »
—>As a whimsical follow-up to AT&T's lawsuit concerning their "There's a map for that" ads, Verizon Wireless released their Christmas-themed set of AT&T/iPhone bashing ads today. They're harsh, but also pretty funny. More »
—>Motorola and Verizon revealed the mystery device behind its iCan't ad campaign — the DROID, a 3G phone with a 5 megapixel camera, its own app store, a 16gb memory card packed in and a QWERTY keyboard. More »
—>Codenamed "Project Dark," Tmobile has launched a $79.99 unlimited plan with no annual contract. More »
—>Gregory canceled Verizon, but Verizon didn't cancel him. The company kept on billing him every month, and every month he'd call to get the charges wiped away, which the CSR promptly did. More »
—>Bonnie's elderly parents switched from Verizon dial-up to Verizon DSL, but Verizon didn't turn off their dial-up account when switching them to DSL. They somehow failed to notice when they continued to be charged for dialup. For two years. More »
—>They say that for people going through a divorce it can feel like you're losing half of yourself. As if it that wasn't bad enough, Verizon Wireless has taken away William's unlimited broadband plan on the account he used to share with his wife. More »
—>An Oregon couple signed up for $77.99 Verizon-Qwest bundle that included phone, internet and TV service, and were surprised to see the actual bill come to $158.49. More »
—>Once again, Verizon has been caught leaving its vans parked in front of fire hydrants. More »
—>If you've been holding out on a phone upgrade or carrier switch until the Palm Pre comes to Verizon, you may need to give up the dream. The carrier has "reportedly ditched plans to offer the Palm Pre early next year," says PC World. Apparently poor sales of the device at Sprint, combined with Verizon's interest in upcoming Blackberry devices, killed any enthusiasm the carrier once had. Update: The no-Pre rumor may be false, according to these two analysts. More »
—>Digging through Verizonwireless.com legal notices, Steve found that the company has gone ahead and given itself permission to share your personal information: More »
—>The FCC today proposed new rules to protect and preserve "net neutrality," the idea that ISPs must treat all users the same and not prejudice against different types of customers. In a speech, Chairman Julius Genachowski supported adopting the "Four Freedoms" first articulated by the FCC in 2004 (PDF) not just as principles but as formal rules, and adding two more: "non-discrimination" and "transparency." The big networks are, naturally, incensed. More »
—>WIRED takes a look at why there's no great smartphones on Verizon. The takeaway? Because they can. Having the best network and an exclusive deal with Blackberry seems to be good enough for them. [WIRED] (Photo: Phu Son) More »
—>Reader David's FiOS DVR really sucks. Since it's his 5th one — he's starting to suspect that they all suck. More »
—>If you're a Sprint customer using the company's Everything Data Plan, you can now call any mobile phone on any network without using up any of your plan minutes. Good news? If you're on the carrier's $70 a month plan, which has 450 included minutes along with unlimited data service, it could be — if you don't roam into areas where there's no Sprint coverage (where the meter will start running) and if you have a lot of regular contacts on other cell networks. More »
—>Want to know how to piss people off? Send them marketing crap for deals they can't use. Take this individual. The title of the blog post should probably not be reproduced here, but the basic idea is that unless you can offer TV, Internet and phone from Verizon for $79.99 a month — don't mail stuff to people saying you can. More »
—>On August 14, the Cleveland Plain Dealer printed a column by a business writer who described her 6-month-long ordeal with Verizon concerning a mysterious $1.99 charge for "data usage." The paper says that over 400 Plain Dealer readers responded with complaints similar to the one in the column. Now the paper says they have a promise from Verizon to refund these mysterious and erroneous charges. More »
—>It's bad enough when friends and acquaintances bombard you with text messages, but at least most humans can be reasoned with. Monica, on the other hand, says she's being hassled by a robot who sends here 20 texts a day, and that Verizon has been slow to jump to her aid. More »
—>Ryan's new Nokia Intrigue 7205, which Verizon gave him, doesn't work with the Verizon network: "48 hours ago, the phone began cycling on and off continuously." He's not the only Intrigue owner experiencing this problem on Verizon, although Verizon is following that tired old "it couldn't possibly be our fault so let's make you jump through a dozen useless hoops" protocol. Sadly, a single Google search would give them the quick fix for Ryan and other Intrigue owners. More »
—>According to a lawsuit filed by a Verizon customer in Queens, NY — the tech the company sent out wasn't quite as affable as the ones in the commercials. Instead of fixing the customer's problem — the tech allegedly punched him in the face. More »
—>A new survey from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) compared annual costs around the world for consumers who have cellphones, and the U.S. is in the top three for most expensive. How expensive? DSLReports notes that "on average, the OECD found that Americans pay $635.85 on cell phone service, compared to $131.44 per year in the Netherlands or $137.94 per year in Sweden." More »
—>Erin is one of those Alltel customers lamenting that her cell phone company, and thus her phone plan, were swallowed up by Verizon. More »
—>Verizon is sad that so many of you are jumping ship, so they're hauling out the bargain naked DSL offer again. ("Naked" means no home phone line is required to take advantage of it.) The deal is $20/mo with a 1 year commitment, and they're throwing in a free router—although DSLReports says a Verizon rep told them the router freebie will go away at some point. Also, it's available online only. More »
—>David Pogue's continuing crusade against useless voicemail instructions knocked loose an excellent suggestion for anyone willing to re-record their voicemail greeting. Too often the standard voicemail greeting is: "Hi, you've reached so-and-so. Leave a message, and I'll get back to you." Why not make it more useful, something like: "Hi, you've reached so-and-so. Please press star (or whichever command applies to your carrier) to leave a message." More »
—>Julia and her husband are former unhappy Verizon customers who thought they had escaped by signing on with Alltel, only to be sucked back in when Verizon's took over the company. More »
—>Here's the secret codes for skipping long-ass cellphone voicemail intros that cellphone companies don't want you to know about: Just remember "one star pound." More »
—>Got a Verizon Wireless problem that regular customer service won't fix? Try escalating it to this guy. Just remember to be PP2P: polite, professional, and to the point. More »
—>There is no such thing, dear readers, as a free computer. Particularly, Ray learned recently, in the case of Verizon's "triple play" promotion for new FiOs users, where one of the options is a "free" netbook. Sure, you never expect "free" items to be completely free, but his situation is even more complicated than that. More »
Do you know that Comcast commercial where this homeowner gets FiOs installed against his will and then all these bulldozers tear up his lawn and bumbling contractors cause an electrical short? Lelah's letter describes a process that's very similar, except worse and much longer. And then this salesman just picks up her guitar and starts playing it and singing without even asking first. No wonder, by story's end, she's been driven to the brink of insanity, demanding compensation for 5 missed days of work. So far, they're offering her $25. More »
—>John Hargrave of comedy site Zug.com tracked down the personal info of Verizon's CEO, then showed up with a bullhorn to illustrate what a lack of privacy feels like. "Ivan Seidenberg! I'm here on behalf of Verizon customers. PLEASE DO A BETTER JOB PROTECTING YOUR CUSTOMERS' CELL PHONE RECORDS! Everyone has the right to privacy, including you Ivan! When we don't have privacy, then freaks with bullhorns start showing up on our front lawn." More »
—>It seems like Verizon is still working the bugs out of its One Bill service. Reader Vikram wrote in to warn consumers not to sign up for the service if they'd like to be able to actually pay their bills... More »
—>Verizon announced it will limit handset exclusivity deals to 6 months, a bow to pleas by small wireless carriers, and in advance of possible Department of Justice action on its inquiries on the one-carrier deals for the iPhone, Pre and LG Voyager. In its announcement, Verizon noted 24 rural carriers had asked it to limit these anti-competitive deals. Yes, apparently there are that many small carriers still left. More »
—>Late last year Verizon started replacing its rebate checks with Visa debit cards. You use them as you would debit cards, only without having to tap in a PIN. Long story short — after using one of these cards I'm convinced they're part of a scam meant to let Verizon and/or Visa skim pennies off the tops of rebates owed to customers because once there's only chump change left on your card, you can apparently no longer use it. More »
—>We Consumerist bloggers just love those stories of reader complaints that are generously solved by customer service before we even get around to posting the gripes. More »
—>Yesterday I was musing that Time Warner Cable was passing the cost of customer care off to other businesses, by requiring customers to take half-days or full days off of work just to wait for a cable repairman. Today I think I stumbled upon another hidden economic impact of bad customer service: it's responsible for generating a lot of the "free" content online. The next time you're reading an IMDB entry about "Damages" or "Big Love" for example, you can thank Verizon's collection of angry, confused, and possibly insane employees, and all the idle time they create for a customer who has to deal with them. More »
—>The future of Verizon lies in bundled apps and global domination, according to C.E.O. Ivan Seidenberg. Verizon's head honcho appeared last week on Charlie Rose to chat about a range of things, including FiOs, the decision to build a CDMA network, and the future of your cellphone service. If nothing else, it's nice to put a calm, seemingly rational face to the grotesque anti-consumer corporate monster that we all loathe. Hit the jump for the full interview. More »
—>Verizon told Debbie that upgrading to FiOS was the only way to guarantee uninterrupted phone service because apparently, Verizon's old copper lines are no match for the insatiable appetite of copper-munching squirrels. Never mind that FiOS doesn't work during a blackout for more than a few hours, or that Debbie's problem had nothing to do with hungry squirrels... More »
—>The Washington Post says that a 79-year-old widower died after trying to stop a Verizon technician from pulling out of his drive way. The man was apparently extremely frustrated with his service, in addition to being quite lonely since his wife passed away from a stroke. More »
—>If you're managing cellphones for a family or your parents, or let's say hypothetically you have a boyfriend who says he reads Consumerist but really he doesn't or else he would have known better, you'll probably run into stupid subscription and content fees from time to time. You know how people are when it comes to fake "free" offers. More »
—>Since we first posted this, Verizon has changed its mind and announced that it will provide service credits to storm victims in Southern Illinois who were without service for most of the month. The credits won't be automatic; to qualify for them, affected residents must call 800-837-4966 (1-800-VERIZON) to tell the company that they were without service. More »
—>Ohio police are pissed with Verizon after the company refused to help them find a missing 62-year-old man unless they paid his overdue $20 $20 of his overdue cellphone bill. More »
—>Reader Adam wrote in to let us know that he's switching to FiOS after Comcast credited his payment to the wrong account number, accused him of not paying his bill, disconnected his cable, lied about it, then couldn't get it back on for several days. More »
—>Luis dropped his busted LG EnV in the mail at the end of last year and tracked its progress as FedEx delivered the package to Verizon. Verizon, apparently unfamiliar with tracking numbers, doesn't believe that Luis ever returned the phone, and insists that they're owed a $320 replacement fee. Luis disputed the charge, but rather than investigate his claim, Verizon decided it would be easier to suspend his service. Now they want Luis—a customer of seven years who pays over $350 across six phone lines each month—to pay another $15 to reconnect the service they should never have disconnected in the first place. He writes: More »
—>Say you got a problem with your cellphone company and you want it solved, pronto. You've already called regular customer service and they're either unable or unwilling to help you, or you're just sick of waiting on hold. You've got things to do! That's where executive customer service comes in handy. Just about every big company has a pack of these people who can basically walk on water within the company and get any problem solved. The key is reaching them. Naturally, you won't find them in an overseas call center at the end of the 1-800 number. Rather, they're attached to the corporate headquarters executive offices. Don't worry, we did the hard part for you. Here's up-to-date phone numbers for the executive customer service departments for Sprint, Verizon, T-mobile, and AT&T: More »
—>Verizon continues its recent campaign of turning robocallers into charitable contributions, this time by settling a lawsuit against two of the companies behind those awful car warranty calls. Last time it was for $25,000; this time it's for $50,000, all of which is being donated to the Joyful Heart Foundation, which Wireless Week describes as "a nonprofit devoted to empowering survivors of sexual assault, domestic violence and child abuse." More »
Might I make a suggestion for further Verizon Customer Issue articles? It would be helpful to know where the incident took place. As I'm sure you know, different parts of the county have different installation teams. Here in the New England region, installations are handled by real Verizon employees. Where in other areas, they contract installations to a third party that pass themselves off as Verizon. Also most regions have a VP email address for employees to help expidite such issues. More »
—>A Verizon FiOS installer showed up yesterday to install the service in Sam's house, but misjudged the location of the laundry room by 4 feet and drilled directly into the closet where his wife kept her wedding dress. More »
—>Here's an idea, don't use your phone to send 300 texts a day at school. Not only will your parents not get a bill for $4,756.25, you won't go from As and Bs to Fs and you also won't get your phone smashed with a hammer. More »
—>Reader Beth is impressed with the honesty Verizon displays in the title of the webpage where they try to sell you bundled telecom packages. More »
—>It's strange, the way some customer/CSR encounters go so well when others seem headed for failure before the first sentence is finished. When Nix called to complain about being mistakenly sent a $100 gift card offer that she can't take advantage of, the Verizon rep on the other end not only addressed the real issues, but later sent a $50 gift card to Nix as a goodwill gesture. More »
—>If you live in Rochester, NY, Austin or San Antonio, TX, or Greensboro, NC, your broadband access from TWC is about to be capped. The company is expanding its trial run from Beaumont, TX to these additional four cities, where TWC broadband customers will have to choose one of the company's tiers of service—anywhere from 5GB to 40GB per month. DSL Reports notes that all five markets lack Verizon's FiOS as an option, and TWC faces little to no competition from other providers. More »
—> Which phone giant will taste your fury? Did FiOS burn down your house? Did Sprint's wandering CEO step on your toes? More »
—>Verizon Wireless has settled its lawsuit against those telemarketers who were phonespamming thousands of people back in February to promote a kids' movie. Feature Films For Families has agreed to pay $25,000 to Verizon, which will be donated to the National Domestic Violence Hotline (NDVH). More »
—>Reader Ben says: "This reminds me of the days when Henry Ford used to tell Model T buyers that they could have their car in any color they wanted, as long as it was black. With Verizon, you can have a discount on any plan you want, as long as it's not the unlimited one." More »
—>The State of New Jersey has filed a lawsuit against Verizon, alleging that its marketing, sales, billing and customer service practices for its FiOS television, telephone and internet services are deceptive and misleading. The lawsuit is partly in response to the now-infamous "Free LCD" disaster. More »
—>Call it a "you're not making us enough money" fee. If you don't make at least 12.5 minutes of long-distance calls, Verizon is assessing some home phone customers a $3.49/month "shortfall charge." If you want to get rid of the fee, you can, but you'll have to pay a one-time $5.50 fee. Verizon told KING5, "that even if a person doesn't make long-distance calls, they still have access to the phone network. The "shortfall charge" helps pay for maintenance of the network." What a crock. More »
—>BoingBoing Gadgets says that Verizon has been mailing out a leaflet to its customers informing them that the company intends to sell their personal information unless they explicitly opt-out. More »
—> Comcast is testing WiFi service at about 120 NJ Transit rail stations in an effort to retain broadband customers who might otherwise be tempted to switch to FiOS. Will it work? More »
—>Hooray for Verizon Wireless! Wait, what? The cellular carrier has just filed a lawsuit against Feature Films For Families for illegally telemarketing. Specifically, they're accusing the company of using an auto-dialer to cold call hundreds of thousands of Verizon Wireless customers earlier this month, which is illegal according to NJ state laws (where the suit was filed) and the Federal Telephone Consumer Protection Act. More »
—>A class action lawsuit has been filed against Verizon Wireless accusing it of passing directly to customers a "metropolitan commuter transportation district" tax that the company was actually supposed to pay. Albert Levy, who filed the lawsuit, points out that Sprint has never charged the tax to customers. Verizon Wireless calls the accusation "silly," and says they're billing it correctly. Perhaps not surprisingly, the actual wording of the tax law leaves the matter up in the air. More »
—>Sigh, someone get a school counselor. It's two years later and Verizon still hasn't mastered this whole counting thing. The telecom now believes that selling a $29.99 charger for $29.99 somehow equals a 25% discount. It doesn't. It equals no discount. Verizon's board should try this with C.E.O. Ivan Seidenberg's salary. Pay him the same, but tell him he's getting a 25% raise for his exemplary counting skills. (Thanks to Justin!) More »
—>Verizon just can't seem to get their act together and decide how much their DSL service costs. Last month, we reported on a man who couldn't get Verizon to commit to a price. More »
—> Reader Ronak found out that Verizon overcharged him on a few of his billing cycles. A quick call confirmed that an error in their system overcharged him, so he requested a correction. In a confusing counter-offer, Verizon offered only 25% of the money that they mistakenly charged him for back as a refund. Now, Ronak is confused. Full letter inside. More »
—>Leigh's father has a heart condition, and has had three heart attacks. Because of this, Leigh's family would really appreciate it if Verizon would fix their landline so that they can call 911 in the event of an emergency. Unfortunately, Verizon can't seem to keep an appointment. More »
—>This is like one of those ghost stories where the hero joins up with a fellow traveler, and then at the end of his journey discovers that his travel companion never existed. Oooooo! Only it's about AT&T, so instead of being spooky it's just annoying. Especially the part at the end where he receives a bill. More »
—>One of our readers was able to save $89.76/year in surcharges on his Verizon bill by changing his primary area of use to NJ from NY. More »
—>Brian begged and pleaded but Verizon simply wouldn't tell him how much his DSL would cost after taxes and fees, unless he signed a one-year contract. The customer service representatives staffing Verizon's operation centers claimed that it was too difficult to figure out all that math nonsense for every jurisdiction. When Brian pushed and insisted that surely they had to know how much their service cost, he was told that "there wasn't anyone in Verizon that knew the answer." More »
—> Google has decided to throw its weight around when it comes to Net Neutrality; the search giant announced a plan to let end users see what their Internet Service Providers do with their bandwidth. What does this matter to you, the aforementioned end user? Inquire inside. More »
—>Sounds like that Verizon guy is too busy making commercials to show up and install your DSL. Reader John-Paul just wants Verizon to keep their appointments... is that so much to ask? More »
—>Here's how Stephanie saved $230 on her cable and phone bills after following the tips in "3 Ways To Lower Your Out Of Control Cable, Internet And Phone Bills" More »
—>Inside, email addresses, phone numbers, and addresses for over 100 different companies to inject your customer service complaints into their corporate executive offices, and get it well on the way to success. More »
—>Reader Bill was getting the run around from Verizon— but he wasn't even a customer yet! His dramatic ordeal started on October 9th, and by the 16th he'd taken a full day off of work, called Verizon nine times and still he was without FiOS. More »
—>The national wireless carriers have responded to the Senate's request for information on why its text-messaging fees have doubled over the past three years. Their collective response: they haven't gotten more expensive, they've gotten cheaper—and your public suspicion of our business practices has led to lots of class action lawsuits! More »
—>Verizon's so-called "policy blog" is a grotesquely self-serving marketing orifice, perhaps the worst corporate blog we've ever read. We decided to stack Verizon's inane sales schmaltz against the internet's preeminent bullshit-spewing chatbot, SmarterChild.... More »
—>Reader Jacob says that he's been getting the runaround for months after signing up with Verizon during their free $200 Circuit City gift card promotion, but he finally reached his breaking point when a Verizon rep told him that the promotion never even existed. Too bad it did exist, and we wrote about it. More »
They acknowledge the router got an upgraded firmware image automatically (forget the fact I had explicitly disabled that feature for this very reason), but I'm shit out of luck. Even though the fact my formerly perfectly working 6100 is now bricked because of something Verizon did without my approval or knowledge, they will not provide me with a new one for free because the router is out of warranty. More »
—>Facing increased pressure from consumers and lawmakers alike, Verizon has announced that they will begin offering monthly cellphone plans with no early termination fees. Consumers wishing to take advantage of the plans will be required to pay full price for a phone, or provide their own phone, as Verizon will not be subsidizing the cost of handsets. More »
—>If the website Boy Genius Report is correct, next week Verizon Wireless will start offering contract-free, month-to-month service. Pretty much everyone will be eligible for it, but of course you'll have to pay full price for a phone or bring your own, there'll be an activation fee that can't be waived, and if you take advantage of any special offers that require a contract, you'll have to switch over to a contract agreement. It's supposed to start on September 21st. More »
—>Verizon, which has no problem helping the government spy on its customers, suddenly turned stupid in June when a police department asked them for help finding the body of a woman who had been abducted on camera. Despite pleas from the woman's parents, the police, and the FBI, it was four days before a technician was sent out to the appropriate cell tower. When that technician gave the police the location info, they found Kelsey Smith's body within 45 minutes. Verizon won't respond to requests for an explanation of why they couldn't help sooner. More »
—>Reader Laurynn wants to warn Verizon customers to stay away from "OneBill," because according to several of the 7 different CSRs she talked to today, it's "not ready yet." More »
—>Reader Rob has cc'd us on the Executive Email Carpet Bomb that he launched on Verizon due to the fact that he has been unable to get them to send him a bill. Each month (for the past 3 months) Verizon has been deducting random amounts of money from his checking account, and when he asks them to send him some sort of bill (electronic or paper) they assure him they will — and then they don't. By his calculations, Verizon has overcharged him $117.68 over the last three billing cycles. More »
—>Verizon and AT&T have jumped head-first into the shallow end of the social networking pool. The companies will charge consumers up to $35 per year to access unpopular social networking sites, a feature they're respectively billing as "SocialLife" and "My Communities." Not part of your social life or your community: Facebook. More »
—>Wanna get in on the Verizon Early Termination Fee class action settlement? I did and went to verizonETFsettlement.com just like the postcard told me. Basically, if you were a Verizon Wireless customer from July 23, 1999 to August 10, 2008, and you were either charged an ETF, whether you paid it or not, you could be eligible for a piece of a $21 million pie (after the attorneys get their fees first), just file a claim form by October 14. In typical fashion, I tried filing a claim but the site keeps timing out. Something to bookmark and check in on later and hope they fixed it. Even when you think you're giving Verizon its comeuppance, somehow you get screwed over. UPDATE: The website seems to be fixed now. By the way, at the end you will have to print out and mail in forms. They want you to attach documentation of your ETF. If you don't have documentation, you can still make a claim but you will get a lesser amount. More »
—>The next time you're disputing a 900 number call to a sex hotline and the CSR tells you nobody else could have made that call, remind them of this story. Over the past 10 months, a Verizon technician made 5,000 calls to sex chat hotlines, totaling 45,000 minutes of dirty talk at a cost of $220,000. He placed the calls from over 950 tapped residential and commercial accounts throughout Bergen county in New Jersey. He has since resigned, and been charged with theft by deception and theft of services. More »
The similar price increases, coming at similar times, Kohl said, "is hardly consistent with the vigorous price competition we hope to see in a competitive marketplace." More »
—>Palisades Collection is offering Jeremy a great deal: he can pay half off his debt of $237.64 and get the account settled! Small snag, though, Jeremy never ordered the Verizon service they're trying to collect on, the debt has passed the statute of limitations, and he got it expunged from his credit report years ago. Still, Palisades persists in sending collection notices for him to his grandma's house. What's a boy to do? Read on and find out. More »
—>The phone number in this Verizon mailer connects to "an exciting new way to go live with hot horny girls." Can you hear me now, big boy? More »
—>A two-year investigation has concluded that most Verizon FIOS installations fail to meet national safety standards, and could cause fires or electrocutions. FIOS is famous for house fires, but New York's Public Service Commission first started its investigation back in 2006 after several inspectors discovered improperly grounded installations. More »
—>Is this Verizon promotional email being over-enthusiastic with its subject line, or is it actually misleading? A phrase like "you've earned a new ___" doesn't usually get followed up with, "Just pay us anywhere between $100-$200 for it," unless it comes from a scam vacation offer. Or Verizon. As Bryan notes in his email to us, "The subject line must mean something like when you tell Verizon, 'You've earned my suspicion and contempt.'" More »
—>Here's an odd situation: Reader Stephen says that Comcast (his old cable company) disconnected his new Verizon cable. He's not sure what exactly he should do about it and would like your advice. More »
"There is no indication of any change in the near future regarding the current state of competition. Market forces have not yet met the challenge of controlling price increases." More »
—> At least Verizon is being honest about the fact that they're not going to read your emails, right? More »
—>Reader Kevin wanted to sign up for Verizon's One Bill service, so he called to see if he qualified. The CSR told him that he did, so he signed up for it. Turns out, the CSR secretly signed him up for a more expensive DSL plan because his current one did not qualify. Now Verizon wants an early termination fee for the new, faster DSL and an activation fee to put Kevin back on the plan he used to have. Yuck. More »
—>You know those Verizon ads where someone is trying to make a call and like 100 Verizon people show up to help them do it? Arelene's story is sort of like that. Except they all showed up to help her change her address. And they were one at a time. And it was over the phone. And it took several days. Here's her tale, and how she eventually won... More »
—>Call 1-800-483-7988 and press 3 to reach the Verizon Customer Advocates for landlines and DSL. Other valid executive customer service contact information: More »
—>Whoever or whatever they've got working the phones at Verizon doesn't seem to understand the concept of "fire." As in, "my house burned down and everything inside it is melted and charred." It's not a difficult concept, but James's father in-law was unable to explain it to Verizon. More »
—>Yesterday, we told you about a outsourced door-to-door salesman who was soliciting for Verizon when he was caught masturbating while watching a woman work in her garden. He's been charged with two counts of "lewdness, resisting arrest and criminal trespassing," and now Verizon tells us that they've suspended all door-to-door marketing in Delaware until they're done investigating the incident. More »
—>We're not big fans of door-to-door marketing, and today we bring you another example of why we feel this way. According to the News-Journal, an employee of a marketing firm contracted by Verizon has been arrested and charged with two counts of "lewdness, resisting arrest and criminal trespassing," after a man in a Verizon t-shirt was spotted "masturbating while watching a woman work in her garden." More »
—>Meet Dr. Herman I. Libshitz, a retired radiologist and potential Verizon customer who would like DSL. Sadly, Dr. Libshitz was informed that he could not use his name in his email address or as his user name because it has "shit" in it. More »
—>Identity theft reports to the Federal Trade Commission show that Verizon was the most frequently named company, averaging over 900 events per month in 2007. According to an updated study by Chris Hoofnagle, senior fellow at the Berkeley Center for Law and Technology, the number of complaints involving Verizon nearly tripled from 2006. Rounding out the top five are AFNI (a collection agency), JP Morgan Chase, AT&T, and Capital One. More »
—>908-717-3115 is the number for the NJ Verizon Escalation Hotline. This is the number they're giving out to Verizon customers in NJ who signed up for FiOs and are still waiting for their free LCD TVs. Leave your name and number and they'll call you back. More »
—>866-673-9561 is the number to reach Verizon Wireless executive customer service on the West Coast. Only use it when normal routes of customer service have repeatedly failed, be nice, be able to condense your story in about 2 sentences, and don't forget these tips for dealing with executive customer service. More »
—>Verizon FiOs recently doubled its download speed for consumer and small businesses from 5 to 10mb, but reader Lindsay says she wasn't automatically upgraded. Luckily, if you're in the same boat, you can upgrade by calling 800-688-2880, entering the phone number on your account, pressing 3, then 5, then 2. Lindsay writes, "I got to a rep very quickly and she got everything switched. It cost me $3 more due to a rate change since I signed up, but that’s not too much to ask for double the download speed." More »
—>Movearoo.com is a new website that appears to offer free assistance with your move, helping you set up things like phone service, gas, and electricity at your new address. The site calls itself "Your Total Moving Resource." It's a helpful site, sure, but you should be aware that it's funded by AT&T, Verizon, and Qwest, and exists primarily to promote their services. In other words, you won't find a comprehensive list of competing phone service providers through Movearoo, only those offered by the three sponsor companies. A consumer advocate points out the drawback of making Movearoo your sole relocation resource: More »
—>As the second coming of the Jesusphone 3G draws near, we wanted to remind customers of other wireless carriers that there are ways to escape your existing cellphone contract free of early termination fees, and trade your piddling Verizon, Sprint, or T-Mobile bills for hundreds of pages of gloriously itemized AT&T charges. Or just switch carriers. More »
—>You may think this dog is cute, but that's bullshit. This dog is a deadbeat that doesn't pay its Verizon bill. More »
—>Verizon has agreed to pay $21 million in a California class action lawsuit brought over early termination fees. The plaintiffs alleged that the fees violated California state laws. Next case: Sprint, which Californians are suing for the same reason. More »
The Senate passed the FISA bill today, which effectively puts an end to any chance of legal repercussions for telcos who helped the government spy on citizens. Senator Obama voted for it, Senator McCain didn't vote, and Senator Clinton, for what it's worth, voted against it. Find out how your senator voted here. [TechCrunch] More »
—>With the debut of that new super iPhone thing only a few short days away, now is the time to threaten your current cellphone company. What's that? You have no intention of switching cellphone companies for the iPhone? Sprint, T-Mobile, and Verizon's retention reps don't know that. Do they? More »
—>Here at the Consumerist we get a lot of emails requesting more "happy stories." While we wait for some to happen, here are 13 headlines we would love to write. They are in no particular order. More »
—>Discounting or pro-rating the early termination fees that cellphone companies love to tack on to their contracts is becoming more common, so we thought we'd make some graphs that show the strengths and weaknesses of the different policies. As you can see, T-Mobile 2-year ETF doesn't make any discounts until fairly late in the contract period — and their ETF of $200 is higher than either of the other two companies that offer discounts. (Sprint does not pro-rate or discount its ETF.) T-Mobile's ETF does, however, reach a point where their discounts are steeper than Verizon and AT&T's pro-rating. More »
As the new FISA bill—the one that grants retroactive immunity to wiretapping telcos—moves closer to a final vote in the Senate (and a threatened filibuster), Ars Technica looks at the money. AT&T, Verizon, and Sprint donated double the amount to House Democrats who supported the bill than to those who opposed it. [Ars Technica] More »
—>Verizon, who had been using proprietary data to seduce former customers into returning, received a stern message from the FCC to discontinue such practices, according to the Washington Post. Local cable companies complained that Verizon would offer $200 American Express gift cards to keep their customers and send them letters via express mail which promised steep discounts. A majority of members from the FCC said that using this information to contact ex-customers is illegal and infringes on consumers' privacy. Details, inside... More »
—>Update: Voted! Passed 293-129.
Today the House votes on a new compromise FISA Bill that will make the NSA's formerly questionable activities—like spying on Americans—legal, and will grant conditional immunity upon the telephone companies that aided the NSA in spying on their customers. It's "conditional" because there will still be a court review, but nobody seems to be taking the court review seriously: Senator Russ Feingold, D-WI, calls it a "capitulation" in the ongoing fight over holding the telcos responsible, and Rep. Roy Blunt, R-MO, says the review will be a "formality." Looks like you're about to get off free, Verizon and AT&T! More »
—>If you've ever received cell phone spam, you know how infuriating it can be—especially if you pay by the message. David Pogue of the New York Times recently got hit with a spate of junk text messages on his Verizon plan, and he figured out how to block most of them. If you're with AT&T or Verizon you can block any messages sent through the Internet, as well as change your text message address to an alias to thwart number-guessing spammers. Sprint will let you block specific addresses. T-Mobile lets you block email messages and set up filters based on specific phrases. Login info below. More »
—>Employees at the Verizon store in Millington, Tennessee told reader Josh it would cost an extra $3.99 to pay his bill with cash. According to the employees, the charge was to offset the cost of "new money software." More »
Verizon confirms that it is buying Alltel. "This move will create an enhanced platform of network coverage, spectrum and customer care to better serve the growing needs of both Alltel and Verizon Wireless customers for reliable basic and advanced broadband wireless services," said Lowell McAdam, Verizon Wireless president and chief executive officer. [Yahoo!] More »
—>CNBC is reporting that Verizon Wireless is deeply involved in talks to buy rural cellphone giant Alltel Wireless for an estimated $27 billion. Alltel was recently taken private TPG and Goldman Sachs Capital Partners. More »
—>Verizon announced last week that they accidentally sold over 12,500 private addresses and phone numbers to a phone book company in West Virginia. "We certainly apologize to those customers whose numbers were published. ... We're taking accountability for that," said a Verizon spokesman. Translation: they're calling customers to let them know what happened, offering to change their phone numbers for free, and offering to pay the fee to have an unlisted number ($1.98 a month) for a year. Since this is the second time Verizon has made this mistake in the past four years, we wonder if "accountability" can also include taking steps to find out how the numbers keep getting offered up for sale. More »
—>We get a lot of questions and complaints about the cellphone shopping process, so we thought we'd put together a list of 5 things consumers say to cellphone sales reps that they really should just keep to themselves. Enjoy. More »
—>One more number to add to the Verizon Wireless Executive Rolodex: 866-237-9122. More »
—>Here are a several direct lines for Verizon Wireless executive customer service reps, good for when lower level customer service reps and their supervisors fail you. These are the folks imbued with godly powers to fix customer service problems at all levels. It's like playing Super Mario Brothers using Game Shark. More »
—>Laurel writes in to ask what Verizon means when they say their DSL is "full." She's trying to transfer her existing account to a house in the same zip code, but Verizon is saying "No." More »
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—>It's a good thing Lynette has a healthy relationship with her husband, because Verizon is telling lies about techs showing up at her home. In addition, Lynette is getting really sick of answering calls for some other family whose phone number now randomly rings her house. More »
The Florida AG is fining Verizon up to $6.5 million for what he says is the telephone company's willful violation of service laws, in particular, taking too long to repair customer's landlines. [The Tampa Tribune] More »
—>This is Round 36 in our Worst Company in America contest, DeBeers vs Verizon!Inside, readers comments from previous rounds on why they hate each company... More »
—> More »
I've heard anecdotal evidence of increased numbers of heart attacks at call centers due to stress, but here's a local new story from WYFF so now you know it's true: More »
—>Here is another phone number to reach the Verizon Wireless executive customer service desk: 845-365-7700. If that number doesn't work, here are some others to try. More »
—>Back in February of this year, Verizon posted the following message titled "MLB Coming to FiOS, Mom and Apple Pie Rejoice!" on their Policy Blog: More »
—>Here is a new number for reaching the Verizon Wireless Executive offices: 908-306-6750. They picked up right away for us. 910-794-6232 for Lisa Bennett, Executive Customer Relations, still works, as does a general executive office inline, 910-794-6200. Use the info in this post to guide your contact through the process of dealing with executive customer relations. More »
—>James at Verizon Fiber Solutions Center, this is The Consumerist calling to say that you deserve a beer. One of our readers shared with us a story about how you went above and beyond the call of duty to get his router fixed. You could have just left Jeff with "the tech should arrive," but instead you took a personal interest in Jeff's case and got his problem solved. You rule. Jeff's story, inside... More »
—>The IBEW 824 union is generating good business for the stick and sign makers of western Florida. First they picketed over Verizon ignoring the quality of its copper lines at the expense of pushing out FiOS. Now they're picketing over what they say is Verizon's poor customer service. One self-identifying union member said in the comments on this local news bit, "We are losing customers because of billing problems. We are losing customers because when the customers call in with billing or installation problems the employees are told to focus on "educating the customer on Verizon products and services" not on correcting their problem or answering their questions. " Verizon's response was that they haven't gotten many complaints from customers. More »
—>While Barbie was in Greece serving in the US Military, her cellphone account was hijacked by a strange scammer in Texas. (Barbie is not from Texas.) Because her Verizon account is supposed to be on hold, it took her awhile to figure out what was going on with her her supposedly dormant account. Now Verizon Wireless doesn't believe her case is really fraud, and she's sent this letter of complaint to the FCC. More »
—>These internal Verizon emails, sent by the same insider and as a a followup to "LEAKS: Insider Says Verizon Isn't Fulfilling Advertised Discounts For Tens Of Thousands," shows why some of our readers have complained about Verizon offering them one price and billing them another, and then being inflexible in offering service credits. It appears to show that Verizon mailed out a half a million "Blitz" promotional rate cards, then decided it was an error and pulled the offer from the computers. Then Verizon let people get the advertised offers, but only if the customer specifically asked for it. Around the same time, on March 3rd, management cuts the discounts reps can give to $150. Two weeks later, it's $50. Two weeks after that, it's zero. Even if a customer was overbilled and legitimately deserved a credit, tough titties, Texas, you weren't going to get it. Verizon insider's explanation, rebuttal to the response by Verizon PR pointman John Bonomo, and the internal emails, inside... More »
—>Here's a new number to replace the old number we posted that directly connects you to US-Based, native English-speaking Verizon DSL reps in Columbus, OH (strangely, the old number is now a busy signal, I wonder why). The tipster who passed the number off says the Columbus "Get Conected DSL Gate, "has no handle time (east gate is notorious for passing people off or making up RTVs (return to vendors) because "floor walkers" pester people after times get past 13 minutes) and can help with as many supported issues as you want." The number is 614-219-5927 (the old, non-working number was 614-219-5900). More »
I waited all morning for Verizon to come fix our landline (our cell phones barely work in our apartment), and around 11:30 I had Sam call them from work, and they told him they had come by the apartment and no one was there so they left, and that they had called my cell phone. More »
—>Verizon assured Erich that he could transfer his dry loop DSL service to his new apartment, but now that he's moved, they're telling him he can only receive traditional DSL service with a dial tone. Since Verizon is failing to live up to their contractual obligations, Erich asked to cancel without an early termination fee. Verizon refused to waive the fee, claiming that Erich was at fault for moving. More »
—>The Tampa Bay Tribune has a fascinating article about the sales-centric culture at Verizon's customer service call centers. The CSRs are given large bonuses (sometimes thousands of dollars) for selling services to people who call in looking to correct their bills. More »
—>If you can't free up any time from 9-5 on a weekday to have your Verizon DSL installed, the company will still bill you for the "service" you're not receiving says reader Joshua. If you'd like them to stop doing this, they'll charge you a $79 disconnect fee. More »
—>Florida Verizon workers are going to picket Verizon HQ on Monday because, in their quest to lay down the fiber, the union says Verizon is neglecting the copper, reports DSL reports.
"Verizon is not letting us do our jobs, and not letting us take care of the customer," said Doug Sellers, president of the union that represents Verizon call center and repair workers, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, Local 824. "Customers are waiting up to 10 days to get their phone lines fixed ... If you have something as simple as static on your line, that could be out 10 to 15 days.Customer complaints have gone up, and union workers says preventative maintenance has been largely forgotten about in some places, an accusation supported by the findings of several state public utilities commissioners. Are you a Verizon landline customer? Have you noticed things getting worse? Let us know in the comments. More »
—> A class-action lawsuit has been filed in California against Verizon and several third-party companies, alleging that they promoted illegal gambling by enticing customers to pay to enter contests in which there was an "infinitesimally" small chance of winning, reports RCRWireless. "The suit centers on 99-cent charges levied on wireless consumers who played contests associated with popular TV shows like 'Deal or No Deal' and 'Sole Survivor.'" The plaintiffs claim that the contests were less promotional sweepstakes than "illegal lotteries designed to generate revenues far in excess of the value of the cash awarded." More »
—>A mysterious letter was anonymously faxed to our headquarters by a self-described "disgusted" Verizon customer service rep angry at how he/she says Verizon is screwing over landline customers. Here's the highlights of his gut-spilling:
- 30,000+ people nationwide have still not received the free HDTVs Verizon promised new FiOS triple-play subscribers
- Verizon totally screwed up the "blitz" promotion, leading some customers signing up and not getting their discounts, others getting too much discount, and others not getting their discount for months
- Employees issued over $1 million in credit in January '08, double what was given out in Jan '07
- $250 in discretionary credit has been reduced to $50
- Internally, Verizon refers to customer service reps who give out "too much" credit due are called "offenders."
—>Ben is getting some crappy customer service from Verizon in attempting to get FiOS installed. His phone is disconnected, they made a half-assed install, don't show up for installs, don't call, oh, and he still doens't have FiOS. He writes:
To file amongst other I hate Verizon articles. Typing and summarizing while on hold with Verizon for approximately the 8th time... More »
—>The AP made a major correction to a Verizon FiOS story we posted about yesterday. In that story, Verizon's head of FiOS stuff for apartments said that Verizon wouldn't be able to run optical cable up to all the apartments in two Manhattan apartment complexes and would use coaxial for the last leg. Verizon said not all apartments have the specs needed to install a necessary wall-mounted box. After the story came out, Verizon now says that it does plan to run optical to all the way up apartments that order FiOS. You may have to give up your medicine cabinent, but hey, you're blazing with the speed of FiOS, baby! More »
—>A Verizon store employee in Monticello New York was charged with criminal possession of a weapon after threatening two customers with a switchblade knife after getting into an argument with them. The disagreement spilled out into the parking lot where the 27-year old employee, Shereem S. Burch, continued to wave his blade at the couple. Most likely they were probably trying to get out of contract without paying termination fee and Shereem decided to take matters into his own hands and exact a little termination fee of his own devising. More »
—>CORRECTION: Customers Will Get FiOS Optical All The Way To Their Apartments, Verizon Plans More »
—>This is round 8 in our Worst Company in America 2008 contest, Allstate vs Verizon. More »
—>Choke back the tears, kids—Verizon, not Google won the majority of the wireless spectrum actioned off by the FCC. More »
—>Verizon snipped one of the few remaining threads connecting Charles Whiting to his dead wife when they upgrade the 80-year-old man's phone system. The update erased his wife saying, "The Whitings aren't home," a message Mr. Whiting listened to every day for the comfort it gave him. When Whiting called to complain, he was left on hold for an hour and was then disconnected. Then he waited on hold for another 90 minutes, only to be told that his wife's voice was lost forever. Whiting said, "It was like she was still with me when I heard that. Now they took her voice away." After his story hit the news circuit, Verizon restored the previously "irretrievable" message. Amazing how a little bad press works to get good customer service. More »
Further distancing itself from its problematic free TV promotion (which for some customer has so far been lacking in free TVs), a reader in the Bronx reports that Verizon FiOS triple-play bundle ads on the radio are now offering $200 gift cards for Circuit City. As previously noted, the TV ads are now touting free Samsung digital cameras. More »
—> Another person has stepped forward to allege that a "major wireless carrier" may have aided the FBI's warrantless wiretapping program. He claims he was brought in to work with the company on something called the Quantico Circuit, "a high-speed line from the wireless carrier to an unnamed third party. Quantico, Va., is the site of a U.S. intelligence and military base."
"The circuit was tied to the organization's core network," Pasdar stated in the affidavit. "It had access to the billing system, text messaging, fraud detection, Web site, and pretty much all the systems in the data center without restrictions."More »
—>Talyor was able to leave his Verizon contract without paying an early termination fee by launching an executive email carpet bomb loaded with a polite email. In it, he says that customer service reps have refused to transfer him to a supervisor and now he needs some help. In the ensuing email exchange with the executive customer service rep who helps him, he tells her how he wants to leave because of the raise in text message rates. Frequent readers of The Consumerist will remember that when a cellphone company raises its text message rates, it's a material change to the contract, meaning that the original contract is void and the other party can walk away from the contract without penalty. Taylor wins because he's polite, professional, persistent, and acts like he's conducting a business transactions, which is exactly what he's doing. Read his blow by blow exchange, inside... More »
—>A former employee has stepped forward to tell us what it's like to work as tech support rep in a Verizon DSL call center. Learn about how the supervisors aren't really supervisors, the numbers and call times the reps have to meet to keep their jobs (and the sneaky tricks they use to meet these numbers), and more... More »
—>Some cellphone problems are like a nagging itch in the middle of your back you can't reach, if and Tier-1 customer service can't either, some of the five Verizon Wireless muckety-mucks after the jump might be able to help you scratch it if you call or email them. More »
As a followup to the people who complained about not getting their free TV from the FiOS triple play promotion, I saw that they changed their commercials. Instead of advertising a free Sharp 19-inch LCD HDTV, they're now saying that you'll get a free digital camcorder when you order your triple-play bundle. They must really be having problem fulfilling those orders. According to sometimes broken Verizon PolicyBlog, every one who qualified for a TV will get one, you just have to have patience and give Verizon a break; their TV-giving division just isn't as advanced as their money-taking division. More »
—>Two Marines, a husband and wife, found Verizon had an unpleasant welcome-home gift waiting for them when they got back from serving in Iraq: canceled cellphones, a $500 bill, and their phone numbers were given to other people. Under the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act, when a soldier goes off to war, they're able to send their deployment letters to their service companies and get their service put on hold. Apparently in the case of Haley Katz and her husband, that letter wasn't good enough. When they complained a reached a manager, the manager told them it was their fault they owed the money, and then hung up on them. Read their letter as published in Stars and Stripes, inside... More »
—>Verizon has posted a Q&A that tries to address some of the concerns their customers were having over an LCD TV promotion that's gone awry. More »
—>if you have a Verizon landline issue that has been escalated to management but you're still not getting a satisfactory answer, you may want to try kicking it up to the CEO or his close cadre of immediate minions. Maybe you can ask them where your f***ing "Free LCD TV" is. More »
—>Reader Mary says that she ordered Verizon FiOS during the "free LCD TV" promotion they were running, but she still hasn't received the letter she needs in order to start the rebate process. More »
—>Nick was able to actually get decent Verizon tech support. But to do it, he had to trick the phone system and select "install problems" instead of "tech support" when he called. He writes:
I live in northwest Pennsylvania, an area formerly held by telecom company GTE (GTE North to be specifically I believe?). This has been particularly troublesome to the folks at Verizon when I'd call for tech support. Over the past few years of getting DSL from Verizon when the need would arise to call tech support I would cringe. I *knew* they wouldn't be able to find my account, it always happens.More »
—>Verizon DSL customer service draws complaints because it's mainly outsourced to people from India with thick accents and little comprehension of how to fix your problem, but one reader says he's got, "a direct number to Verizon's Teleperformance-run, Columbus, OH call center. No Pasig or Hyderabad agents." More »
—> We found this photo on Flickr and were comforted to know that other people had not only thought of decorating their house for Verizon day, but had actually gone ahead with the plan. More »
—>Starting in November, reader Roberta has called Verizon 21 times about her lack of DSL, and has yet to reach a resolution. She also launched two EECBs, both of which were ignored. More »
In response to consumer backlash, Verizon has decided to make it so alarms on its new phones don't go off on its phones when you dial 911. This is so if you hide and call 911 when a prowler breaks in, you don't give them a handy homing signal. [KOMO] More »
—>Starting February 19th, Verizon will begin offering a supposedly unlimited cellphone minute plan for a flat $99 per month. It's only really a deal, though, if you use more than 1000 minutes per month. More important than the actual value is that a brand-name cellphone carrier is offering a flat-rate unlimited minute plan. Notably, Verizon's move came on the heels of Sprint's new CEO suggesting last week that Sprint might be headed in that direction. I predict a flurry of plan-matching by the other carriers. The breakdown of the various new Verizon unlimited plans, inside. More »
—>Reader Brian sent us this transcript of a conversation that he had with a Comcast rep. He was considering switching to Verizon and was wondering if Comcast could come up with any reason why he should stay. They couldn't. In fact, Comcast's CSR "Mike" said: "my advice is to go ahead and switch, and if you find Comacst provides a fast and more reliable service we will welcome you back." More »
—>Reader Joan once had a phone number. 15 years ago, she disconnected it. Now she's being charged for someone else's FiOS and she's not happy about it. For the past 6 months she has called Verizon to ask that the error be fixed and each month she's been told that the stranger's FiOS has been removed from her bill and that she'll be credited for the error. It hasn't actually happened yet. More »
—>Andrew writes: "I had been a satisfied customer of Verizon for several years - I have had phone service with them since the days of Bell Atlantic and have had their fiber-optic internet service (FiOS) since March 2005. In March 2007, I decided to switch cable providers and signed up for Verizon's FiOS TV service as it was cheaper than Comcast and supposedly provided superior picture quality. As the saying goes, "you get what you pay for." More »
Verizon has penned a light-hearted response to the funny TWC "fiber" commercial that we posted earlier:
Bottom line: these guys may be selling some soggy cold cereal, but FiOS is an all-you-can eat buffet.For what it's worth: here's our response to their response. More »
—>After Andru's story about Verizon not taking his privacy concerns seriously hit our pages and the front page of Digg, the Verizon Damage Control team swung into action. Andru had this problem where whenever he logged into his Verizon FiOS account, he saw the personal information on some other guy's account. When he contacted the guy, the other guy said he saw Andru's info as well. Over eight months of broken promises by Verizon and the problem wasn't solved. So Andru blogged it. Once it started getting internet attention, Andru got two calls and several emails from Verizon people and a Verizon exec ended up having a tech stay on the line with Andru for an hour getting it fixed. Andru then asked for compensation for his three quarters of a year of hassle. Verizon gave him 10 months free FiOS, a $1500 value. Ii think it's actually good thing when the customers can force the big corps to do right," Andru tells The Consumerist. More »
—>Analysts are saying that Google is probably out of the running for the "C Block" of wireless spectrum that it had been bidding on. More »
—>AT&T and Comcast may be willing to help Hollywood control piracy on their networks, but Verizon wants none of it, says the New York Times. More »
—>Faith writes:
It began the beginning of Oct. 2007. My credit card expired, and I contacted all of my utilities to update my credit card information. It was an annoying process, but it went smoothly. That is, until the notices started coming. More »
—>Few consumers realize they can ditch their monopolistic service providers in favor of local, independent telecoms that often offer similar services at competitive rates. These smaller outfits depend on service, not size, as reader Sharpstick recently discovered:
In the Charleston SC area we are fortunate to have local a internet / phone / cable provider called Knology that has made customer service an art form. More »
—>Tmobile is yet again as number one in customer care., according to the J.D. Power and Associates 2008 Wireless Customer Care Rating. Tmobile scored 105, Verizon comes just behind at 101, Alltell and AT&T tie at 99, and Sprint puts in a poor showing at 83. The survey measures quality of interaction with customer service reps, automated response systems, in-store visits, and online chats. Tmobile consistently ranks high on the survey due to a company culture dedicated to solving problems on the first call. As for the other providers? The subheading on the rating agency's press release says it all, "When Customer Care Issues Are Handled by an Automated Response System Wireless Provider Performance Drops Dramatically" More »
—>The New York Times is reporting that the auction for the C-block of wireless spectrum (Read: the Google part) has may have been won by someone... but we don't know who. Oh, the suspense! More »
—>Moriconi writes in to tell us how he was able to save $950 this week by uprooting the hidden fees and renegotiating the things in his life he was paying too much for. Awesome! Here's his true story: More »
—>Somehow, an arbitrator has approved a massive $1 billion class action lawsuit against Verizon over their early termination fees. In letting the lawsuit proceed, the arbitrator wrote, "...millions of class members are entitled to adjudication of the central common questions of fact or law in this arbitration related to whether the $175 early termination fee imposed by respondents Cellco Partnership d/b/a Verizon Wireless ... is based upon an unenforceable liquidated damage clause." With cellphone companies switching to prorated ETFs and the rise in ETF-related lawsuits around the country, one wonders if we won't see the death of ETFs in the next few years. By that time, cellphone companies will have figured out a new technique to keep people from leaving their contracts. More »
—>Until now, we've been telling people trying to escape their cellphone contract without early termination fees based on a raise in text message prices that it's necessary that they don't have a text message plan. However, reader Mtman says he used a novel argument to get out of his Verizon plan, even though he did have a text message plan! More »
—>Whenever Andru logs into his Verizon FiOS account, he sees the personal information on some other guy's account, including name, address, email address, last four digits of credit card and social security number. He's contacted the other guy, and the other guy also sees his. Verizon has said they will fix it in the next 24 hours. They've been saying that for the past eight months. This is supposed to be the future of the internet and they can't even fix a simple account error? More »
Okay so I read the script from last years price hike on messaging rates, to get out of your contract scot-free. I thought I read some where else that they were going up again to 0.20. So I called Verizon and ran the script on them. No one in cancellations had heard about it. I called the general customer service line. Of course the csr didn't know anything and wanted me to pay the ETF's. So I went to her supervisor. His name was Aundra (pronounced Andre), employee # 7817 out of the Birmingham office. More »
Bidding for the national franchise in the C block started at $1.037 billion in the morning and was raised to $1.245 billion in the afternoon. The reserve price for the national C block is $4.6 billion. (Google has said it will bid at least $4.6 billion for this block, but there is no requirement that it place a bid in that amount at first.) More »
—>Team AT&T is absolutely kicking everyone's ass all over town, adding a record 2.7 million new wireless customers in the 4Q, says MarketWatch. They also added 396,000 high speed internet customers and 105,000 U-Verse TV customers. More »
—>Lots of companies are pushing deals for their bundled internet, tv and phone plans, but which are best? Consumer Reports surveyed its readers and here's how they ranked the service providers: More »
—>This is a picture of a Verizon call center manager sleeping on the job, according to The Call Center Blogger, who writes:
Mr. Operations Manager with last name Changco ( previous from Sykes! Anybody know him? ) is always in the habit of sleeping on the floor during work time and could care less if others, especially his agents, see him on the floor dozing off to Lala-land. My friend says he also has a penchant of passing his deliverables to his subordinates while he comfortably takes his shut-eye. He also reminds the poor agents to submit the reports to him instead of his boss supposedly so he can take credit for the agents' work! Ang sabi pa "Ang dali lang pala nito!" Nyahaha!If you've ever wondered why outsourced customer service sucks, maybe it's because they're hiring jokers like Corey Changco to run their call centers. More »
—>Wayne shares a cool Chevy/On-Star/Verizon billing hack that reduces his monthly bills:
I just bought a new Chevy Trailblazer which came equipped with On-Star and hands-free phone service. The hands-free service was provided through a pre-paid plan with Verizon Wireless. I called Verizon and they actually put my Chevy onto my already existing Family Plan for $9.99 a month. Now, my car is a giant cell phone with all the same calling features of a regular phone ( Verizon to Verizon for free, free evenings and weekends, etc... ).Sweet deal, no doubt it would work for any other car prequipped with On-Star. Anyone else hack their car's hands-free service in a similar way? More »
—>Wayne writes:
I read one of your post last week concerning Verizon Wireless changing the terms of agreement concerning text messaging and my wife and I immediately contacted them to drop a very unneeded contract. It took two days to cancel, but everything in your post was accurate and made our case a slam dunk. To be fair, Verizon may have dragged it out a bit, but they didn't fight it and their rep, Becky, called us back three times ( as promised ) to finish the request. A big thanks to The Consumerist!More »
—>If you're having an intractable problem with your Verizon telephone, internet, or FiOS TV, that calls to regular customer service can't solve, here is one cat you can call. Remember to state your case clearly, calmly, and succinctly. This is not the place for histrionics or epic sagas, just let 'em know what they need to fix. More »
Verizon is now offering 7.1Mbps downstream, 768kbps upstream DSL, but only to new customers. [Broadband Reports] (Thanks, Edju!) More »
—>David and Jenn were sick of Comcast's unreliable service and decided to switch to Verizon FiOS. It only took 5 appointments and nearly two months. More »
—>Verizon customers can escape their contract without paying an early termination fee, thanks to a recent text message rate increase. The cost for people without a bundled message plan went from 15 to 20 cents, and this constitutes what is known as a "materially adverse" change to contract. That means they're giving you a new contract and you have a new opportunity to say yes or no to it as they want you to pay more than you agreed to in the first place. This post on SlickDeals gives you the play by play you need to cancel without paying termination fee. Print out their post and keep it in front of you when you call. The poster on the forum says that using his techniques, he's already canceled five people's accounts for them. More »
—>910-794-6232 - Lisa Bennett, Executive Customer Relations More »
—>Are you a a FiOS customer with your Verizon-supplied Actiontec MI424-WR router that keeps rebooting itself? Apparently a recent firmware upgrade, the software that runs the router, is buggy, but there is a solution. You can get it if you call and complain, that is, if you're able to make it through the phone lines that are all bogged up from other customers calling about the same issue. Reader Jarrod writes, "My entire neighborhood is experiencing this issue and the only resolution I can find online says to call them and complain and then they will fix it. Too bad the support lines are jammed and after I did get through I have been on hold for over 1 1/2 hours." More »
—>It has now been 72 hours since Verizon took control of reader Matt's phone, according to his new website www.verizon-fios-sucks.com. He originally tried to order FiOS way back in November, but when no one called to schedule an installation, he was told that his order didn't exist and would need to reorder. More »
The official list of bidders for the 700 mhz spectrum is out. Google Airwaves, LLC joins Verizon, Cox and AT&T in the ultimate spectrum battle. Get your popcorn ready. [Ars Technica] More »
"Have I got a deal for you," he said. More »
—>Verizon is finally installing FiOS in my area. But I'll never use it. I'll never sign up for another Verizon account in my life, and I'm encouraging my parents to change to a different service when their Verizon cell contracts end soon. Over the course of eight months, I've become completely appalled at the horrible customer service I've gotten from that company. More »
—>Comcast told its employees to vote in the Consumerist reader poll asking readers what they thought was better, Comcast, or FiOs. Above is the employee email blast they sent, provided to us by several different Comcast employees: Now, we're definitely more amused than this than anything else, but it certainly was odd. Why would Comcast want to interfere with the torrents of peer to peer opinion sharing? In any event, Fios won, 784 to 277. More »
—>We asked the readers to solve one of the great mysteries of life: Which is better Verizon FiOS or Comcast? More »
—>Sometimes we get questions we just can't answer, and this is one of them. More »
—>One day after work I pull into my apartment complex and notice that there are quite a few Verizon trucks and vans parked outside of our apartment office accompanied with "SIGN UP FOR FiOS TODAY" signs plastered just about everywhere you can see. At first I shrugged this off because I am not, and have never been, a fan of Verizon. Then my girlfriend gets home and suggests we at least check it out. So we go over to the little reception they are having and talked to a nice girl about the speeds of their FiOS internet (which is what I was interested in) and the HD TV (what my girlfriend was interested in). More »
—>Verizon's next generation of devices will run on the GSM network that will be used by AT&T and T-Mobile, meaning that in a few years, customers with unlocked phones will be able to move between the three providers without purchasing new equipment. Verizon currently uses a CDMA network along with Sprint, but last week announced that it would use the GSM-protocol LTE (Long Term Evolution) for their fourth-generation data services. Note, Verizon's LTE phones will not be backwards-compatible with the current GSM networks run by AT&T and T-Mobile. Both are expected to support LTE. And don't expect to see the new phones anytime soon... More »
—>Google announced today that they will be bidding in the 700mhz auction! For real. More »
—>This ad for Verizon cellphones is placed right next to an AP story about a South Korean man who may or may not have been killed by a cellphone exploding in his shirt pocket. Someone should invent a fancy technology that excludes advertisers from appearing next to articles when the name of their core product appears in editorial proximity with "death" or "exploding." More »
—>Verzon Wireless announced today that it will be opening its network to any compatible device. Verizon uses the CDMA network, a technology it shares with Sprint. According to Verizon Wireless Chief Executive Lowell McAdam, Sprint phones could work on Verizon's network "if they pass Verizon's testing procedure." Sadly, GSM phones used by AT&T and T-Mobile, including the iPhone, can not work on Verizon's network. More »
—>Dialing 911 sets off a loud alarm on newer Verizon phones, potentially putting customers in danger. Imagine dashing under your bed at the sound of an intruder breaking through the front door, only to wonder if you should call 911 from your cellphone because it would reveal your location. A Texas woman was forced to make a similar decision when she discovered that the security chain guarding her vacant property was missing.
She grabbed her new Casio G'zOne phone from Verizon Wireless, which to her horror made an audible alarm when she called 911. More »
—>Verizon is rasing prices on its standalone TV FiOS service, says BusinessWeek. More »
—>Verizon was willing to refund the late fee on reader Steve's bill, but only if he paid through Verizon's automated phone system. Steve instead offered to give his billing information to the Verizon CSR to whom he was speaking, an offer that was refused. Steve writes:
I used to work at a call center for a certain mobile provider. I understand exactly what reps deal with. I've had my manager tell me I need to cut back on bathroom time. I've had them tell me I need to get my calls shorter. I've had them tell me I can' waive reconnection fees. I've been there. I know. More »
—>Vonage's appeal was rejected by a U.S. appeals court, and so troubled VOIP provider Vonage will have to pay $117.5 million to Verizon as punishment for infringing their patents. In addition, Vonage will be required to donate 2.5 million to charity. Ouch, ouch, ouch. More »
—>Reader William forwards us an email he got from Verizon. He's concerned that they're going to try to force FiOS on him. More »
1) What is the data overage rates for the basic 10MB data package for $29.99? More »
—>T-Mobile sent reader Ivan's account to collections after he twice cancelled his service. He first cancelled in August, but T-Mobile mysteriously lost the cancellation letter. Ivan faxed over a second cancellation letter while a CSR waited on the phone to confirm receipt. Having switched to Verizon, Ivan didn't care when in September, someone stepped on the T-Mobile phone lying in his car, breaking the screen. T-Mobile is now demanding that Ivan pay a bill that lists only a reinstatement fee. Ivan writes: More »
It is not true that "Verizon is only offering the couple $1,800" as their lawyer has told the press. We have paid the couple that amount as an advance to cover some of their initial expenses, and we are attempting to negotiate an agreement to cover the remainder of their loss. Meanwhile, we are providing temporary housing for the couple at a nearby suit hotel while their landlord is renovating their rental apartment. Nonetheless, the couple involved in this case has decided to sue Verizon.... More »
—>Net neutrality advocates are gathering momentum to take Comcast to the woodshed for an old fashioned populist beating. Comcast believes that deliberately destroying connections to the popular communications protocol BitTorrent amounts to "reasonable network management," which the FCC permits. Advocates figure if they can't ride the net neutrality pony to Congressional passage now, it will forever lie dormant in the stable munching on BitTorrent packet hay. More »
Verizon FiOs Install Results In Gas Line Breach
Verizon Spins Causing Electrical Fire During FiOs Install Into Sales Pitch
Verizon Techs Blow Out AP Reporter's Electrical Box During Installation
Verizon Continues Weird, Pointless Flame War With Networkworld Blogger
(Photo: davidbivins)
Dear Consumerist, More »
Eric and Sarah write:
Thanks to the executive email listing found on Consumerist, I was able to fight back against the invasive marketing of Verizon Fios! Here's the email I sent last week: More »
—>The FCC approved a rule banning apartment building cable deals today, and Comcast is all mad about it. More »
—> Google's not answering any questions, and Verizon is being all coy about it, but anonymous sources have told the press that the two companies are in talks right now over installing Google apps on Verizon phones—an interesting idea, though not quite as dramatic as installing the full-fledged phone operating system that Google has supposedly been working on for a while now. The big questions (for consumers) are: will Google apps help subsidize the cost of phones or plans, or will Verizon just invent new inefficiencies to justify swallowing any new revenue? And will Google applications mean ads before making calls or sending an email? Also, Google already has some great (and totally free) applications out there for mobile devices—so what could they be offering through Verizon that's so special? More »
—>Customer satisfaction with buying cellphones at stores fell this year, reports J.D. Power and Associates in the recently released 2007 Wireless Retail Sales Satisfaction StudySM-Volume 2. More »
—> Sprint will relinquish unlock codes to departing customers in good standing as part of proposed class action settlement.The class was formed last year by California consumers who argued that the locked phones bound them to Sprint by making it more expensive to switch carriers. Sprint claimed that releasing the codes was unnecessary since the service contract clearly informed consumers that phones would only work on Sprint's network. More »
—>Well Vonage, you lost. Huge. The New York Times is reporting that Vonage has settled with Verizon for one of two amounts, depending on whether the courts will rehear the case. More »
—> You know telecoms are behaving badly when a business columnist who just a year ago argued for a hands-off government approach has reversed his opinion. "I've changed my mind," he writes. "The behavior of the top telecommunications companies, especially Verizon Communications and AT&T, has convinced me that more government involvement is needed to keep communications free of corporate interference." More »
—>A woman who worked at a Verizon store at the Green Acres Mall in Valley Stream, NY is accused of stealing the identities of more than 25 customers and using their personal information to obtain credit cards. More »
—>According to NY Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, Verizon Wireless has agreed to reimburse $1 million to customers for wrongful account termination after falsely advertising their wireless plans as "unlimited," when in fact the company sets limits and terminates the accounts of heavy users. More »
Verizon Wireless abandoned its legal challenge Tuesday of the Federal Communications Commission's rules for its upcoming auction of radio spectrum, removing a potential obstacle to the much-anticipated sale. More »
Wired is assembling a list of where each senator stands on the issue of granting immunity to phone companies who participated in wiretapping—which could be decided as early as today. The list includes phone numbers so you can call if you don't see a response for your senator. [Wired] More »
—> Yesterday, the leaders of the Senate Intelligence Committee "reached a tentative agreement... with the Bush administration that would give telephone carriers legal immunity for any role they played in the National Security Agency's domestic eavesdropping program." The senators who have been reviewing classified documents related to the phone companies' participation in the program are now saying that they believe the companies "acted in good faith" and "that they should not be punished through civil litigation for their roles." More »
When Verizon calls you to upsell you on a higher text message plan, it costs you minutes. Reader Alex got a little ring-a-ling from Verizon this morning:
After he identified himself ("Mike"), I immediately asked the salesperson if this call would count towards my daytime minutes. The representative informed me that, yes, it surely would. Needless to say I wasn't exactly pleased with this revelation. More »
—>Today at 10 a.m., the Senate Commerce Committee will pry through bone and muscle to see if cellphone companies really do have hearts of pure stone. The Committee will question the industry's most egregious practices: junk fees, illegal contract extensions, and early termination fees. The industry is working overtime to cast itself as the consumer's best friend, with AT&T recently agreeing to prorate ETFs as part of a desperate attempt to show that federal regulation is unnecessary. More »
—>Apropos of, "Verizon Harasses You For 3 Months To Switch To FiOS, Then Never Shows Up To Install It," if you sign up for FiOS and they don't show or they have to reschedule, don't forget to call your current phone provider and get them to change the disconnect date. Otherwise you can find yourself without phone service because they're still going to use the same disconnect date they have written down. More »
"The company said it does not determine the requests' legality or necessity because to do so would slow efforts to save lives in criminal investigations." - Verizon Says It Turned Over Data Without Court Orders [Washington Post] More »
—>Verizon says the information sharing opt-out notices it sent to customer, that we told you about a month ago, are only so other Verizon companies can market discounted service bundles, and is not for resell to third-party advertisers. More »
—>Just a little over a month ago, we alerted Verizon Wireless users to an opportunity to opt-out of Verizion sharing some of your information with unnamed third parties. Specifically, the information is subscriber's CPNI, which consists of what numbers you call, what numbers call you, and how much the call costs. It is not linked to your name, number, or address. More »
—>Here's the current text-message rate plans for the different cellphone providers. Most providers also offer unlimited text message plans: AT&T: $19.99 a month, Sprint: $20 a month, T-Mobile: $14.99 a month, Verizon: Unlimited messaging isn't optional feature, but it is part of the America's Choice Select Plan. More »
Our favorite moment: when Halleran asks, "If I cancel my account with you guys, will that stop the mailing?", and the man on the other end just sighs in angry exasperation. More »
—>Reader Kevin has a problem with Verizon and the zombie debt collectors they've unleashed on the account Verizon said was paid off and closed... More »
—>Starting October 7th, Verizon Wireless users will be able to adjust their plan's minutes and features without extending their service contract. Previously if you made any sort of change it meant you were locked into a contract with them for another 1-2 years. It's just Verizon's way of saying "Thanks!" to the community, by screwing it just a little bit less! More »
—>Verizon can charge you $175 if they decide they feel like canceling your cellphone contract before the term is over. More »
—>According to Google, Sprint is the suckiest cellphone company. When you query "____ sucks," filling in the name of different providers, Sprint returns the most results. Here's how all the providers stacked up: More »
—>Verizon announced today that they are ending the often complained about practice of extending contracts when customers request rate plan changes. More »
—>According to Google, Verizon is the coolest cellphone company. When you query "____ is cool," filling in the name of different providers, Verizon is tits. Here's how many results were returned for each company: More »
—>Criticizing AT&T DSL as a subscriber can result in them shutting down your service, according to their Terms of Service: More »
—>Verizon recently rejected a request from Naral Pro-Choice America, an abortion rights group, to make Verizon's network available for their opt-in text message program. More »
—>Last time we heard from Dan, Verizon wouldn't give him his FiOs account number and kept charging his credit card that he told them not to charge. Now, through a mix of social engineering and knowing some tricks with the Verizon online account system, he was able to get all his problems solved. He tells us how, inside... More »
—>The Senate Commerce Committee is poised to extend the internet tax moratorium by the end of next week. The moratorium prevents states and localities from taxing internet access, but will expire on November 1 unless Congress acts. There are two competing proposals that pit state legislatures and the National Governors Association against Google and Verizon. More »
—>You know the Verizon "Can you hear me now?" guy? Of course you do. Verizon has been pouring branding equity into the lil fella for years. You can't leverage a character across a big company like that without developing a special "style guide" Verizon developed to govern how his likeness is used in various marketing campaigns. It's quite hilarious, and a former company employee sent it to us to share with you. More »
—>The L.A. Times read the privacy policies of several bundled service providers and found that they are feverishly monitoring their subscriber's activities. With the ability to monitor internet, phone, and television preferences, bundled service providers are able to track nearly every aspect of their subscriber's digital lives. While Google retains personally identifiable for less than two years, some ISPs like Time Warner cling to your data for an astounding fifteen years in order to "comply with tax and accounting requirements." It gets worse.
There are red flags to be found in each telecom provider's privacy policy. A close reading of Time Warner's policy reveals: More »
—>When Google lobbied successfully for the inclusion of an "open network" requirement in the upcoming wireless spectrum auction, it was seen as a coup for consumers. The open network clause would mean that consumers would be able to take their handsets and devices to the network of their choosing. More »
—>One Verizon FiOs install results in breached sewer pipe. Another, a breached gas line. There was no explosion, or even smoke. Some unpleasantly scented puffs of air, though. Guess they're getting better. What do you expect to happen when you have guys drilling through stuff? Accidents, that's what. Unfortunate and statistically insignificant accidents. It all comes out in the wash. Like blood. Blood comes out in the wash, right? Still, it's almost like some of these guys have no idea what they're doing. "It's true QAM." Yes, we have true qualms. More »
—>Verizon Wireless customers who don't feel like having their personal information and account information sold to marketers can opt-out by calling 1-800-333-9956. A notice tucked into our recent bill told us we had 30 days from receiving the notice to do it. Considering that Verizon just sold 1,000,000 old accounts to a debt-collecting agency who tried to bully people into pay debts that were already paid off or never incurred in the first place, calling this number might be a wise move. More »
—>
To whom it may concern: More »
—>Cellphone text message spam is still rare, but annoying, especially as each one usually costs you. If you're experiencing a deluge, often the only way to fight it is to turn off text messaging entirely, but which providers let you? More »
—>A reader whose wife received a debt-collection notice from AFNI regarding a seven-year old Verizon account was actually just one of over a million consumers getting a similar letter, WSYR reports. More »
Hello Ms. Marco, More »
When will Verizon wonks learn that it's in incredibly bad taste to insert a sales pitch in the middle of your apology for yet another FiOs technician causing yet annother electrical fire at a customer's home?
The good news is that Wilen loves his FiOS service...now that it is up and working. As a friend wrote to me earlier, "If he had this sort of problem when it was installed, and still likes FiOS this much, it must be a great service!"Never, it seems, never. More »
—> Even our readers can't agree on whether net neutrality is a good or a bad thing, so we thought we'd stoke the fire with a nice side-by-side comparison of sample broadband options for consumers in two "free markets," the US and the UK. Art Brodsky of the Huffington Post (oops, we probably already lost half of you) writes that a British man he met while traveling showed him a spreadsheet he'd put together that compared 59 different broadband providers, so he'd know which one to do business with. More »
—>Verizon FiOs techs have flubbed another install, hitting an electrical wire and leaving the electrical box smoking. This time, the customer was an AP reporter. Oopsy poopsies! More »
—>David would like to know if Verizon Fios techs can't afford glasses. Otherwise, why would it be necessary to spray paint their sidewalk three times within the past year? The dots are supposed to indicate where to dig up to install the vaunted "last mile" of information HOV lane, but it really seems like overkill. After all, it's not like they need to be concerned about the dots deteriorating. "It never goes away," David writes us. "Brushes, power washing, passage of time — nothing." More »
Verizon gets skittish if you call South Korea or Arabic countries, and if the "High Toll" department doesn't correctly report that they were able to get in contact with you to verify you intentionally made the call, you could find your service disconnected. More »
—>According to Verizon, being held to a high standard is unfair.
Verizon will get a chance at the end of September to argue to Virginia state regulators that the state's dominant phone company should be held to a lower standard for restoring lost phone service. More »
—>Roger's bank messed up and his Verizon bill didn't get paid, resulting in his account being shut off for non-payment. While the phone and internet were back on almost immediately, Roger toiled fruitlessly trying to get the TV service turned back on, finally writing to Consumerist in frustration. More »
—>We're feeling philosophical this morning after being confronted with two very different accounts of what went on at a small house on Pine Grove Street in Needham, Mass. Was there a fire? Was there not a fire? What is the definition of fire, anyway? More »
—>What's worse than Verizon not showing up for you appointment? Verizon techs showing up for you appointment, only to set fire to your home. More »
—>CBS 13 has the story of a 13-year old kid who saved up his money and bought a pre-paid Amp'd mobile phone from Circuit City. The phone was $100 with a $120 rebate. More »
—>Verizon has violated Maryland state regulations by missing more than 20% of its scheduled appointments in 5 of the first 6 months of 2007, according to the Baltimore Sun. More »
—>Poor Jason. Eight months after ordering Verizon FIOS, he is still without decent phone, television, or internet service, though not for lack of effort on his part:
I have spoken with 115 service representatives and 44 supervisors over a period 64 hours combined on the phone with Verizon. I have been hung up on 37 times, placed on hold a total of 21 hours, and been promised callbacks, which I did not receive, a total of 18 times. It has been 8 months since I ordered the service, and I still have not been given a single resolution.Jason's full ordeal, after the jump: More »
A Verizon Wireless online pre-sales specialist has joined the chat. You are now chatting with chelsea. More »
—>You win some, you lose some. Google's bid to created an open wireless network was only partially sucessful today as the FCC rejected some of the search giant's conditions, but adopted others. More »
—>If you've got a cellphone with Rural Wireless (also known as Unicel) your contract has just been purchased by Verizon Wireless. More »
—>Amp'd Mobile will shutter its ailing service on July 24th at 12:01 am, meaning that today is the final day to port your number to another carrier. The mobile virtual network operator has worn a giant "Kick Me!" sign ever since it filed for bankruptcy after half of its 175,000 customers failed to pay their bills; securing its fate, Amp'd costs Verizon $370,000 per day and owes the telecommunications behemoth over $56 million. The goodbye text Amp'd sent its customers, and information on porting your number, after the jump. More »
—>Google has announced that it will invest 4.6 billion dollars to acquire radio frequencies being abandoned by television broadcasts as they turn digital. The frequencies could be used to provide wireless phone and data services. More »
—>Verizon will pay $6 million to businesses in Louisiana, Florida, and Alabama for sending 10,145 junk faxes advertising its services. The Telephone Consumer Protection Act bans businesses from sending unsolicited faxes, and allows for fines reaching up to $1,500 for each violation. Verizon will pay class members only $625 per fax, despite their crack legal team's best efforts to deploy novel and absurd legal arguments in Verizon's defense. More »
Verizon Wireless said that as of June 23, Amp'd Mobile had incurred $15.6 million in post-bankruptcy charges and is costing the carrier $370,000 a day, but still has not obtained debtor-in-possession financing that would assure the carrier that its bills will be paid. Verizon Wireless said it has received one payment of $2.5 million, which was supposed to placate the operator and allow Amp'd Mobile to have continued access to its network.At the time of the bankruptcy filing, Amp'd had already run up $41 million in unpaid bills to Verizon, in addition to the aforementioned $15.6 million.The Pioneer Press reports that Amp'd has about $9,000 in cash. This means that you are likely richer than Amp'd mobile. More »
—>You can call 1-888-226-0799 and request a $40 Customer Appreciation Service Credit off your Verizon landline, says Huster $$$ Blog. Just tell 'em you got a promotional notice in the mail. It's said to have been tested and to work for California, Florida, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York, Ohio, Texas, and Virginia. We tried it this morning and got the credit, $10 off for the next four months. They tried to pitch us DirecTV but we told 'em we just read books and newspapers. More »
The speed sounds great, but did you know Verizon also removes all your old copper phone lines when they install FiOS? More »
—>In case you're wondering why Consumerist isn't writing a bunch of posts on how to hack your iPhone to get it to work on "any network," here is why: More »
—>Just when you think you've head everything, Rebecca writes you. She thought she'd set up her Verizon DSL with automatic payments. When she could suddenly no longer log in to her Verizon email, she called them up and found out that she was way overdue. Once she paid her past balance, and waited several days for Verizon to turn her service back on, she logged in to her account and sure enough she did have automatic payments set up: More »
—>Vonage offers a $3.99 per month retention plan to customers who might jump ship to providers with more certain futures. The plan is meant to shore-up Vonage's customer churn rate, especially as the internet telephony company struggles to stay alive amidst a patent dispute with Verizon. Vonage's churn rate last quarter was 2.4%, high enough to spook investors or anyone considering a potential acquisition. A comment left by a self-avowed Vonage flack tries to put a positive spin on the offering: More »
—>The U.S. International Trade Commission has banned Qualcomm from importing cellphone chips that infringe on a patent held by rival Broadcom. The chip in question, which is found in almost 80% of Verizon phones, uses a patented process to save power in the absence of cell coverage. More »
—>One upon a time if you knew someone's name, you could go to a thing called a "phone book" and look up their phone number and where they lived. More »
—>In case you weren't aware, Verizon charges you a $2 fee for the "ability" to make long-distance calls. The only way to get this fee removed is to have your long-distance service blocked or to make more than $2 worth of calls every month. Sound stupid? Well, according to the bill that reader Troy just got, that stupid fee is about to double. More »
—>Christy is upset. She got a call from a strange Verizon sales rep who claimed he had sold her a phone. (He didn't.) The stranger told her that she could have VCast free for one month. She declined. More »
—>You know, the cynic in us says that the answer to the question "Which ISPs Are Spying On You?" is "all of them," but Wired actually bothered to ask the 8 largest ISPs about their data retention policies. The sad part? Only 4 responded. More »
—> Let's face it. Cellphones are here to stay and you need to know a little something about how they work if you're going to know which one is right for you. Over at Yahoo! they've got a list of some cell phone acronyms that you could learn, thereby increasing your knowledge of the world around you. We know most of our readers are pretty well versed in everything cellphone, but its still worth taking a look. More »
—>We're not sure if it's hip to be on Team Vonage, but to hell with it. We are. At least, we'd like them to stay in business so they can worry about things like improving their crap customer service and not "Oh God, are we going to be able to feed Tiny Tim this Christmas?" We're pro-capitalism like that. Anyhow, we're pleased to announce that Vonage claims to be able to work around Verizon's parents. More »
—>Here's a roundup of all the contract clauses regarding "materially adverse changes" for all the major cellphone carriers. When they starting charging new fees or raise the price of a service, you can use this section to argue that you need to be let out of contract without early termination fee.... More »
—>Materially adverse changes to contract mean the contract is void. Is Verizon's new surcharge for calling Mexico a materially adverse change? The following was included in customer's April Verizon Wireless bill: More »
—>Michael tried to cancel Verizon without early termination fee because they raised the basic text messaging rate from .10-.15 dollars. Two customer service reps approved the disconnect without fee, but then it got rejected by the disconnect department. Their reason was that 1) 60 days had passed since the notice of the change was sent out and 2) Since Michael hadn't used "enough" of the text messages, the change wasn't materially adverse. More »
"Even though I don't have a plan with them, they say I still have the ability to make a long-distance call if I ever need to, so I have to pay them $2 a month?" Bius said. "What am I supposed to do? Am I supposed to pay them $2 for no reason?"More »
Earlier this year, AT&T's Cingular division and Travelocity both pledged not to advertise anymore via adware—programs that slip onto PCs and inject ads into a user's browser. Verizon took a stance against computer invaders when it became a sponsor of an antispyware initiative. Yet, in March, ads from all three companies were being distributed through adware. More »
—>One of Vonage's friendly PR guys IM'd us the other day to let us know that Vonage was starting a website with the intention of saving themselves from the tyranny of evil known as Verizon. (Dare we speak its name!) We've been following this story for what seems like 12 years at this point, so we figured we'd go ahead and link their site. More »
—>If you're calling 911 from your house, use your land-line. If you don't have one, be prepared to give your address or location to the 911 operator. Why? From USA Today:
Owing to limitations in Emergency-911 technology, the dispatcher probably won't be able to pinpoint your location. Unless you can get to a pay phone — not an option in this case — you'll probably have to give the dispatcher detailed information about your location so emergency personnel can find you. More »
—>According to the Chicago Tribune, Rep. Susana Mendoza, a Chicago Democrat is fed up with her lemon cell phone. That's why she's sponsoring legislation in Illinois that would :
allow the state's 8.5 million wireless customers to cancel their contracts without paying early termination fees if a phone must be replaced or repaired at least three times within a contract period. More »
—>NY Attorney General Andrew Cuomo lambasted Verizon for taking too long to fulfill customer repair requests. Current standards mandate Verizon perform fixes 80% of phone lines within 24 hours of getting a customer call. The AG said that Verizon is letting copper telephone lines stagnate, shunting those resources instead for laying down more fiber-optic. More »
The inability of students and others at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Va., to make cell phone calls during the April 16 shooting tragedy added to the chaos surrounding the events of the day, students and others have reported in media interviews.According to the article, Verizon is the only wireless carrier admitting to call blocking during the emergency. Cingular claims to have experienced higher volumes but no service interruptions. More »
—>According to reader Greg, Verizon reps are still confused about the difference between .002 dollars and .002 cents. More »
—>Bye-bye, Mike. Vonage CEO Michael Snyder "resigned from the board effective Thursday, and Chairman Jeffrey Citron will be interim CEO until the company finds a replacement," according to CNNMoney. Vonage will "reduce its general administrative expenses by $30 million through the rest of 2007 by cutting its workforce and consolidating operations. More »
During the evaluation, staff discovered that Verizon didn't automatically issue rebates to customers who experienced more than 24 hours of interrupted service. Human error and programming glitches were part of the problem.—MEGHANN MARCO More »
—>Vonage caught a break and can continue to sign up new customers after being found guilty of infringing patents belonging to Verizon. According to Marketwatch: "A federal court of appeals issued a stay that allows Holmdel, N.J.-based Vonage to continue to do business as usual until an appeal is heard. Vonage is seeking to make the stay permanent." So, to amuse ourselves whilst we await the outcome of the appeal, here's some intelligent analysis of the infringing patents. More »
Roger Warin, a lawyer for Vonage, told the court the choice between a partial stay and a total prohibition on using the Verizon technology amounted to "cutting off oxygen or a bullet to the head" for Vonage. More »
"Verizon became the new market leader in terms of total direct retail subscribers/customers, with a total of 56.8 million, against 56.3 million for Cingular," said IDC's Julien Blin in a statement.Meanwhile, Sprint is losing customers due to its general ineptitude. —MEGHANN MARCO More »
—>RFJason documented the 6-month ordeal it took to get Verizon FiOS installed. More »
I watched on the LG phone and was struck by the video's sharpness and detail — it felt as if I were watching a miniature HDTV. Under an overcast sky, the screen wasn't that viewable, and on sunny days, forget it. But in a car or on a bus or indoors, reception and clarity were great.Watching TV in cars makes us revisit our last meal, so we'll pass. —MEGHANN MARCO More »
If just half of one percent of the group's 5 million members sign up for NWF [National Wildlife Federation] Mobile, the program stands to generate more than $100,000 a year, says Greg Griffith, director of cause-related marketing at NWF. The organization's other affinity programs and corporate outreach generate some $3.5 million a year today. Based on the response to NWF Mobile's first ad, Griffith expects as many as 5% of NWF's members to sign up&—more, in fact, than the number currently using the group's affinity credit cards. "People will say, 'I spend this much on a phone anyway, I might as well spend on the cause I care about,' " Griffith says.Bad news for Virgin Mobile, good news for panda bears. —MEGHANN MARCO More »
—>Verizon actually helped someone. His name is Matt, and he lives in Texas. Of course, he might be a fiendish undercover Verizon mole hiding behind a normal-sounding name. "Matt" claims to have purchased a Treo 700p on eBay, which was quickly felled by a faulty memory chip. Matt brought the paperweight to one of the notoriously unhelpful Verizon stores, where he got... help?
He said they didn't have any 700p's in stock, but he could offer me a 700w, the Windows version. I said no thanks, I want the same phone. He apologized profusely, told me they could ship me one, and that I'd have to talk to someone on the phone. He dialed a number, handed me the phone, and a customer service guy took all my information. He told me they'd ship me a new phone and a prepaid address label — all I had to do was send the broken phone back. "How long will it take?" I asked, expecting to hear "7-10 business days." More »
—>Verizon will allow potential customers to try their wireless network for 30 days "virtually risk-free." The offer, dubbed Test Drive, begins tomorrow.
If at any point during the 30-day Test Drive customers are not satisfied with their experience and take their number to another wireless carrier, Verizon Wireless will refund their money for their calls, equipment, activation fee and taxes, as well as release them from their contract without an early termination fee when they return their phone within the Test Drive period.Not included are the cost of data services, V CAST, and "certain Verizon Wireless surcharges." More »
This particular device was involved in a landmark United States regulatory decision related to telecommunications. The 1968 Federal Communications Commission allowed the Carterfone and other devices to be connected directly to the AT&T network, as long as they did not cause damage to the system. This ruling created the possibility of selling devices that could connect to the phone system and opened up the market to numerous products, including answering machines, fax machines, cordless phones, computer modems and the early, dialup Internet.The Carterphone provision was never applied to cellphones, giving providers a closed system. If Skype successfully petitions the FCC, cellphones could be "unlocked" to third-party applications such as Skype. This could be good for you, the Skype-loving consumer. —MEGHANN MARCO More »
—>Kim just wanted to buy a Samsung i730 smartphone for $199 with $100 rebate, just like Verizon advertised. More »
—>Our anonymous reader could not convince Verizon to take his money after noticing a mark from the telecom on his credit report. Our reader paid his bills in full throughout 2006, yet his credit report showed a collection request in October for $0.00. Verizon usually charges more for everything. Our reader called Verizon.
Apparently when I switched billing plans they canceled my old account and opened a new one, which left a balance on the old account. I never received a bill on the old account, but according to Verizon and Elliott they were mailed out and better yet I paid a mere $50.00 to the $95.08 balance of which I have no record and did not come from me. So low and behold I do have a balance of $45.08 not the $0 balance reported on the credit report. I asked Elliott at the time how this is possible and I would be happy to make good on any money I owed. I did not want my credit wrecked over this incident. Elliot did not want my payment and stated there was nothing he could do to help.Nobody at Verizon wanted our reader's money. More »
—>Reader David sends us a heads up about a blog entry that nicely sums up Verizon's consistently awful customer service. More »
—>Verizon accidently charged Michelle $480 for nights and weekends that should have been free; correcting the problem was a nightmare. Michelle worried the erroneous charges would be deducted from her account through Verizon's autopay. Verizon told her to cancel autopay and assured her no money would be withdrawn, even though her online account showed a pending charge. Two days later, worried about the charge that was still pending, Michelle tried to stop the payment through Verizon; she was referred her to the bank, which promptly sent her back to Verizon. More »
—>Over the past week, it's been quite a learning experience here at The Consumerist. Former and current reps from all of the major wireless companies have written in, sharing their tips and tricks and confessing their sins. It's been a fascinating look inside the daily life of a sales rep, but what have we learned? More »
—>A tipster recommends Verizon's mediation process for untangling especially messy problems. Verizon charged our tipster $300 per month for overages beyond 450 minutes, despite assurances she was on a plan with 1,000 minutes. Though Verizon promised to resolve the problem, our tipster's service was disconnected while she was traveling on business. When further calls failed to resolve the situation, our customer invoked Verizon's mediation process. According to Verizon's FAQs:
Mediation is an alternative dispute resolution process in which a neutral third person (a mediator) aids the parties in jointly resolving their dispute. Unlike arbitration, a mediator does not decide the dispute for the parties. Instead, he or she helps the parties resolve it themselves (usually in a form that will be final and binding). Nothing said in the mediation can be used in a later arbitration or lawsuit.Our tipster and Verizon jointly resolve their dispute, after the jump... More »
The jury hearing the case awarded Verizon $58 million in damages and said that the VoIP provider must pay royalties of 5.5 percent to Verizon if it wishes to continue using Verizon's IP. More »
Apparently, Verizon ties 3 addresses to your account which can all be different. There's your BILLING address, YOUR address and your CELLPHONE'S address. The tax rate is tied to where your CELLPHONE resides which can be completely arbitrary for all they care. More »
—>New Jersey has had enough. The New Jersey Assembly Consumer Affairs Committee has proposed several bills directed at cell phone companies, once of which is called the "Wireless Telephone Consumer Protection Act." It would require "full disclosure of service levels and fees and set standards for cell phone advertisements, contracts and billing," according to the Star-Ledger. More »
—>After a long battle, which we posted, Marie is getting out her Verizon contract without penalty. She writes: More »
—>Verizon's latest attempt to needle customers comes as a longer, inescapable greeting that subscribers must endure each time they check their voicemail. Reader Ben, one of Verizon's unwilling test subjects, writes in to share the 'new and improved' script.
"You have one message whose retention time is about to expire. You have two new voice messages. You have nine saved voice messages. First voice message."That's almost three times longer than the current greeting. If you try to escape to your messages by pressing "1," you're rewarded with a one second pause... and the greeting continues.
This is a good 25 seconds wasted every time I call to get voicemail. A year ago, you could just hit "1" as soon as you called and it would play. But not any more. And of course, multiply that 25 seconds times millions of customers and they are simply stealing. It was an intentional feature being disabled to increase profit. It's just wrong.Recordings of the new message, and Ben's correspondence with Verizon, after the jump... More »
—>Customers can use a new Verizon fee increase to cancel their contracts without penalty, reader eightkid points out in the comments. More »
—>Marie needs help getting her Verizon contract canceled without termination fee. The supervisor she wrangled with decided that he's going to reinvent standing contract law... More »
—>Rumors are flying that the largest rural cell phone provider, Alltel, is being stalked by Verizon like an alley cat on a delicious plump mouse. Is it true? Maybe, but probably not. Even though both carriers are CDMA (T-mobile and Cingular are GSM, a different technology), it's likely that the price of Alltel would be too much for Verizon, despite the fact that a merger between the two companies would make Verizon the nation's largest provider. From ZDNET:
"Verizon has had a significant amount of success growing organically," [an industry analyst] said. "I just don't see any reason why they would need to buy Alltel. They can build their own network for a lot less than $30 billion." More »
—>We snapped a picture of these Verizon techs parked in front of a fire hydrant while they get their grub on at a Brooklyn corner diner today. Naughty. They were probably just addled in the brain from the toxic benzene plume which is most certainly not emanating from their depot down the street. — BEN POPKEN More »
—>For those of you not familiar with the landscape of the borough of Kings, this is a photo taken from inside of the site of a new Whole Foods store in the Gowanus neighborhood of Brooklyn. Currently, the site is home to an underground toxic plume of benzene that may or may not have originated at the nearby Verizon fuel station. Verizon denies that the fuel station, which is at the epicenter of the toxic plume, is the cause of the mess, despite the fact that there have been 5 oil spills on the site. More »
—>We've got a directory of contact info for the offices of 14 top Verizon executives, with full name, position, address, email address, phone number and fax number More »
Vonage, which is one of the best-known brands in the Internet phone world, acknowledged last week that it doesn't have a plan for getting around use of technology that Verizon claims violates patents it owns. More »
I recently tried to cancel my Verizon Wireless service because of the text messaging increase. Spoke to 6 CSRs who all gave me really bad excuses but I pressed my case and finally found a CSR who I thought was going to do the right thing and let me go. I spoke to a CSR name Donnesha (#2569) who after speaking to her supervisor briefly said she will cancel my contract with an ETF but as soon as I receive written notice in my bills for the text messaging charge increase I can call back and have a CSR waive my ETF. I then asked her again "So you will make a written note on my account so that as soon as I receive my next bill with a notice of the text messaging charge increase, I can call Verizon Wireless, speak with a CSR and based on the note you just made, I will get my $175 refund with no problems whatsoever?" She replies with "yes, absolutely". I thanked her and promptly hung up. The next day, I called Verizon again and spoke with a CSR name Troy (#9840) to check on the little note Donnesha made, lo and behold, the note does not exist! Troy then proceeds to email Donnesha to inquire about where the note went. Donnesha emails back within 5 minutes to say that I had agreed to eat the ETF and that no refund will be given.Hang contacted the BBB and escalated the issue to a supervisor, but Verizon is standing firm. They believe Donnesha. Do you? More »
Bills for thousands of Montgomery County cable viewers will increase by 4 percent starting March 1, when Comcast Corp., suburban Maryland's largest cable television provider, raises rates throughout the Washington region. More »
When he follows the instructions included with the phone his activation is unsuccessful. The really sad part is that when he tries to call for help, the phone still doesn't work. Ahh, Catch 22. Not exactly a scandal, but we like his video. There's something all too familiar and sad about it. Does anyone want to lend him a phone?—MEGHANN MARCO More »
—>Customers following our Script For Escaping Verizon Contracts Without Fee, Based On Text Message Rate Raises are running into a small snag: Verizon is making them fax in their old contract. More »
—>From the LA Times:
Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa outlined plans Tuesday to blanket Los Angeles with wireless Internet access in 2009, in what would be one of the nation's largest urban Wi-Fi networks. More »
—>Contact information for the CEOs of major cellphone companies. You'll never get to talk to them, but at least your issue will get under the noses of their near and dear underlings. More »
—>Just before Poodleman filed a motion to seize Verizon's property, he received a check from the company. More »
Use this aggressive step-by-step script for leaving your Verizon contract early, without paying $175, in under 30 minutes. More »
—>Joe checks his credit report and sees a ding from Verizon. Calls Verizon. They say, you have an outstanding balance. Which we never told you about. But we reported it to the credit bureaus. No you can't pay it off. It's not in our system. Our system doesn't keep track of outstanding amounts under $50. No we won't fix your credit report. Let me transfer you to someone who can help... For English, press one. Para espanol, marques dos... More »
Consumers who switch to Verizon's new FiOS TV or Internet services will find a change to their existing Verizon phone service: Their copper-wire phone line will be replaced with a fiber-optic line. More »
Eric Savitz at Barron's took a look through the transcripts of the call that CNBC's Jim Cramer claimed contained a vow by Cingular to offer free service for 18 months to Verizon customers who switched for the iPhone. What did he find? Nothing. Zip. More »
We're not really buying this one, but apparently Jim Cramer, former hedge fund manager, director of TheStreet.com and host of CNBC's "Mad Money," is telling people that Cingular will give away 18 months of service with purchase of an iPhone. More »
—> More »
- Cellular phone carriers like Verizon, Sprint and Cingular, now the new AT&T, are beginning to test and roll out advertising on mobile phone screens, and by next year, cellphone advertising is likely to be more common. More »
Hey there. It's us, your friendly Consumer blog. We know you'd like to cancel your Verizon contract, but it can be a little intimidating... particularly because Verizon doesn't want to honor the terms of your contract, and you may be afraid of them. That's sad, but it doesn't have to be this way. Come with us now as we take a journey to month-to-month bliss. Remember, a contract goes two-ways, regardless of what some companies may think. More »
- Effective March 1, 2007, the price for receiving TXT messages from customers of foreign wireless carriers will increase from $0.10 to $0.15 per message.
We've been getting quite a few letters from people who are saying that the reason Verizon won't let them cancel is because they haven't Txt'ed enough in the past. One rep even went so far as to tell Reader Andrew that he had to have sent 34 text messages to qualify. More »
- IF THE CHANGES HAVE A MATERIAL ADVERSE EFFECT ON YOU, HOWEVER, YOU CAN END THE AFFECTED SERVICE, WITHOUT ANY EARLY TERMINATION FEE, JUST BY CALLING US WITHIN 60 DAYS AFTER WE SEND NOTICE OF THE CHANGE.
—>We are retarded. More »
—>Do we sense a theme here? Verizon is raising their text message rates for those without a messaging plan. Loyal readers of this blog will know what comes next, if the rate increase constitutes a "MATERIAL ADVERSE EFFECT ON YOU" you can "CAN END THE AFFECTED SERVICE, WITHOUT ANY EARLY TERMINATION FEE". More »
—>Verizon's intellectual property lawyers are demanding the removal of tshirts parodying their inability to tell the difference between .002 cents and .002 dollars. The legal beagles say in their letter [pdf]: More »
John called asking about the ads Verizon is poised to put ads on the internet services accessed by its cellphone users. More »
From The New York Times: "Beginning early next year, Verizon Wireless will allow placement of banner advertisements on news, weather, sports and other Internet sites that users visit and display on their mobile phones, company executives said." More »
According to Comcast, reader Peter's house does not exist. More »
George Vaccaro posted an open letter to Verizon after winning a public battle over his wireless bill, a fight that hinged on Verizon Wireless employee's inability to tell the difference between .002 cents and .002 dollars. More »
—>Inside is the phone transcript of another user experiencing the same problem as George. Verizon told Peter he was to be charged .0015 cents per kilobyte for data usage. Instead, they charged him .0015 dollars. More »
It only took them five days, but somehow it got through to Verizon that they were wrong. They issued George an official apology letter and promised to teach their reps the difference between dollars and cents. More »
5Six different video have already gone up on YouTube in response to our upload of George's original "Verizon Can't Count" phone call. More »
Peter goes through several employees who can't understand the hundredfold difference between dollars and cents. He escalates to and wrangles with a supervisor. At the end, Peter asks for his charge to be refunded. More »
—>UPDATE: Verizon Still Can't Count More »
—>Now that your phone is your own, you can unlock it. Depending on the type of phone it is, unlocking can be as simple as getting a code from your phone company, or as difficult as "drilling into a shield over the main circuit board to tap into the right contacts and kicking the phone into a special diagnostic mode to get at the unlocking code." Uh, yeah. Thankfully there are smart people at PC Magazine who can give us the lowdown on the formerly shady practice of unlocking a cell phone.Yay! More »
A customer successfully sued Verizon after they double-billed him, ruined his credit, lied about not receiving his letters, and refused to fix their mistake. More »
Consumer Reports has released the results of their cell phone customer service survey. Sprint and Cingular were among the lower-rated performers, while Verizon came out near the top of all cities surveyed. Apparently in Cleveland, Pheonix and Tampa there is a company called Alltel that people are very fond of as well. More »
Verizon is obsessed with internet video. One day after inking a similiar deal with internet video giant YouTube, Verizon has added the ad-supported video service Revver to their VCast service as well. More »
Marketwatch reports: "Verizon Wireless will become the first mobile-phone company to allow customers to watch videos from the popular Web site YouTube on their handsets beginning next month, the two companies announced Tuesday. Under the deal, Verizon customers who sign up for the company's $15-a-month V Cast wireless Internet service would be able to access "a sampling of the most popular videos" from YouTube. The service would be available exclusively to Verizon customers for "a limited time," though they would need to upgrade their phones to see the videos." More »
The gory details on Verizon's plans to prorate early termination fees emerged Friday. More »
—>The crumpet dropped from our gnashing maw when we spied these portents. More »
Just because Verizon gave it link love, you didn't think we would let that post, "Why Net Neutrality Is Bad," get away with standing there unopposed, now did you? — BEN POPKEN More »
—>Inside, the phone number and mailing address for the CEOs of every major US cellphone carrier. More »
—>If you would like to reach the head of Verizon and tell him what an awesome company he has, here's his corporate contact info. More »
—>Man gets rid of his landline, or "snail phone," but maintains his DSL service, saves money, lives to tell the tale. More »
—>Verizon is so busy never stopping working for you they forgot to hire a proofreader. More »
—>"We never stop working for you... This page is temporarily unavailable..." More »
There was a time when the best place to charge our cellphone was near an open window in our apartment. One day, it stopped working and we took it into the Verizon store to get it fixed. The first thing they did was open up the battery case. On top of the Verizon LG phone battery was a small dot, normally white, that changes color when the battery has been exposed to water. As such, they phone was no longer covered under warranty and we ended up signing a new contract just so we didn't have to pay full retail for their phone. We wished that instead we had known about these neat tips (again, at WikiHow) on saving your wet cell phone. More »
You know, sometimes, you practically need to diagram out the labyrinth of a customer-company horror story. It's a maze of dead ends and twisted passages. More »
—>Rick needed a replacement earbud gel on his Jabra Bluetooth headset. He's a Cingular customer so he went into a Cingular store to buy one. They told him he would have to buy an entirely new headset. More »
—>A base assumption of consumerism is that the product you buy will actually work. This, as we all know, is rank naivete. But it is also apparently naive to believe that the product you just purchased actually exists: it doesn't. More »
—>Verizon customer service just got a hell of a lot better. More »
To save money, Justin got his dad to switch from Verizon to Vonage and port his business number over. Three weeks later, after running back and forth between the two companies, calling the number results in a "sorry, your call did not go through" message. Needless to say, this had quite an adverse effect on Pops' business. More »
Seems like just about everyone wrote us over the weekend to tell us just how wide Verizon was stretching the starfish of all its Unlimited Wireless Broadband customers. So let's give 'em a shout-out for thinking of us! Thanks, jpac, Travis, Jeff, Uncle Bob and Sarlac, to name only a few! More »
A great hack for dealing with the interminable queues at Verizon Wireless stores. More »
—>The Borderline Blog has a great expose on Verizon's attempt to virally influence debate about subjects like Net Neutrality through the Channel Changer blog... which (surprise!) has become password protected since the shit hit the fan. More »
—>Katy calls Verizon Wireless when the screen on her Motorola RAZR breaks for no reason. The CSR tells her she must have gotten it wet. Katy points out that for this to have happened, an unprecedented miracle would have had to occur, in which her purse's contents suddenly transmuted to liquid then immediately transmuted back. They strongly insinuate she's lying. More »
—>Today it's Verizon, not T-mobile, that draws the ire of the Consumerist readers. Doesn't anyone have some shit to talk about U.S. Cellular? We seems to be missing them this week. Anyway, John lives in different time zone than his girlfriend. He uses T-mobile. She uses Verizon. They wanted to use in-network calling, so John, being the chivalrous guy that he is, trucked on over to a Verizon store, ported his number, bought a phone, and thought that was that. More »
—>Coming in a year later than the original post, a Gizmodo reader wrote in to supplement their Lies Verizon DSL Support Has Told Me Today post of May 25th, 2005. More »
—>Last year, the federal government finally eliminated a charge to DSL consumers that subsidized phone service in underdeveloped rural areas. Good. It was a silly, antiquated fee that has long since been irrelevant. More »
—>Nine days after installing a new "supplier surcharge" fee to essentially replace one government regulators dropped, Verizon DSL decided to stop levying the fee. Verizon came under heat from customers and received a letter from the FCC asking it to explain its actions. BellSouth, which also received a FCC letter, announced it would drop a similar charge. More »
—>It's raining and dreary, a perfect day for an indoor project. Like forgery. To escape our Verizon contract, we told them we're moving to Cambodia to work in the US Embassy. The 30 days for us to send them proof of this is coming up. We know this really pissed a lot of people off when we first did this so let us explain. We were told that one way to break your cellphone contract was to tell them you're moving to an area out their service range. Cambodia certainly fits the bill. Almost too well, it can be argued. More »
—>George just can't get a break. First he found out that in order to receive a mailer and get 100 free Anytime minutes from Verizon, he had to receive a mailer. In researching that matter, he found another secret door. VcastVIP. It too was locked. More »
Inspired by our Verizon 100 Free Anytime Minutes investigation, George called up to try and apply. He's got two Verizon accounts and pays at least $200, so he should be eligible, right? More »
—>As we know, it's someone who eligible to get 100 Free Anytime minutes from this site, which is not a phishing site. More »
—>After all these emails arrived chastizing us for sending people to a phish site in hopes of attaining 100 free Verizon minutes, we called Verizon to check it out. More »
UPDATE: We called Verizon and they confirmed this is a legitimate offer. More »
Another fine example of people using their cars as anti-corporate billboards. What really makes this one, however, is what the owner decided to park his car in front of. More »
—>Crunchgear has a nifty transcript of a conversation a reader of theirs had with Verizon. This person was trying to figure out various means by which they could get the new Motorola KRZR (which is like the RZR, except crazy). More »
—>Verizon announced in an email sent to customers that starting August 14th, Verizon Online will stop charging the FUSF (Federal Universal Service Fund) fee. This fee cost customers $1.25 or $2.83 a month, depending on their plan. FUSF was a fee "assessed" by Verizon's DSL suppliers, but since they've stopped "assessing" it, Verizon will stop "recovering" it. More »
—>Verizon is inviting people to call in and get their calling plan reduced. More »
—>5. A word or maybe a number that causes even the most profane to turn a pallid green; that triggers the bile reflex in even those who can listen unblinking to Bob Saget's version of The Aristocrats. So claims Verizon: amongst words like "fleshpopsicle" and "whiteswallow", it stands testament to the deepest depravity of the human soul. More »
—>The Ruby Red Bag is back, along with it's thirty four foul-mouthed compatriots! And then fifty obscene lodge brothers. And the mysterious number "5". More »
—>Everyone in America can call Chris's Sprint voicemail for free, except for Chris. He gets charged for it, and in fact, doing so made him go over his airtime minutes. More »
Verizon customers in Maine asked the Public Utilities Commission to investigate whether the cellphone company handed over their phone records to the NSA. A July 28th letter from the DOJ to the PUC asked them to demure, and intimated at possible legal action. More »
—>UPDATE: We don't mean to say that you should actually lie to your cellphone provider and do this. In the interest of following up on advice we previously posted, which also appeared in Wired, we wanted to see if this worked. So we gave it a shot. More »
An upcoming Business Week article socks phone companies right in the kisser for their squelching of new technologies. More »
—>Consumer Affairs recently got a terse cancellation note from Verizon Wireless' Unlimited BroadbandAccess service: More »
—>Back in April, we were obsessed by a Miami telemarketing company scamming people, in Spanish, on their cellphones, using a robotic autodialer. After pounding the e-pavement, our efforts to angle in on the bastiches fizzled, since we were neither a telephone company processing the calls, nor an aggrieved recipient, we couldn't do much about it, except advise people to report it to the police. Just last week we received a few complaints. More »
—>Exactly how bad is the industry standard for customer service when telephone companies are being absolutely trounced in customer satisfaction polls by cable companies? More »
n marquee boldface, a revised Verizon customer agreement arrived in customer's email boxes last night, screamed that contract language was changed as part of settling a class-action lawsuit and that, "UNLESS YOU TELL US THAT YOU PREFER YOUR EXISTING CONTRACT LANGUAGE, HOWEVER, THIS NEW CUSTOMER AGREEMENT WILL REPLACE YOUR EXISTING CONTRACT LANGUAGE." More »
—>It's nice to tell Verizon they can't have any more of your money. Less nice? When they decide to just take it anyway. More »
—>Saying goodbye need only be as proportionally painful as the depth of the relationship, Verizon Wireless announced Wednesday. Starting this fall, the termination fee charged on its two-year contracts will be pro-rated. This is a further goodwill gesture in addition to Verizon's lower cancellation fee, $175 versus a standard $200 or even $250. More »
—>Jeffrey Zeldman used his electrically charged noodle to figure out an excellent way to report a problem line to Verizon, a company that otherwise plugs its fingers in its ears and screams at the top of its lungs to make convolutedly impossible the process of reporting a line fault to them. More »
—>Inspired to by Mike D's Vonage story, Austin writes in a hot tip for all of looking to pole vault low-level CSR and reach the Valhalla of customer service. More »
—>The buzz this morning is that Vonage could be a sweet "acquisition target" i.e. dismembered whale lumbering through shark waters i.e. their recent stock drop could have takeover kids licking their mandibles. Maybe their new daddy is someone willing to give their call centers a hot beef injection? (We mean that in the best way possible...) More »
—>Consumer Affairs raises an interesting question in its summary of the theft of 26 million social security numbers on a burgled laptop: are these targeted thefts? More »
We want you to have $1000 and will give you a prize for just trying to collect it. More »
—>And that stands for privacy. More »
—>Consumer Affairs has an article up called "Florida Opens Cramming Probe." They've got that the order jumbled up. Let me give you the advice my father gave me: "Son, first you probe, then you cram." More »
—>Leaving nary a moment to spare, two public interest lawyers filed suit against Verizon on Friday for $5 billion, for gross violation of citizen's privacy in the telcos' sale of phone records to the NSA. More »
—>Although doubtlessly guilty of insider trading, former Qwest CEO Joe Nacchio has one moral feather tucked beneath the diamond-encrusted ribbon of his Mr. Moneybags-style top hat: when the NSA approached Nacchio and demanded Qwest phone records to stave off the terrorist threat, Nacchio told them to go fuck themselves. This is while executives at companies like Verizon, AT&T and Bell South gleefully capitulated to what amounts to an illegal and unconstitutional request. More »
Here's a funny window into the issue of net neutrality, depicted by characters from the shoot-em-up smash hit, Halo, spotted here. More »
Straight from the source: that Verizon Wireless phone you're planning on dropping a bill or two on won't last two years. From Lars: More »
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- "Messieurs and Mistresses Consumerati: More »
—>Now that Verizon has defined the list of prohibited ring tone terms for their network, everyone who wants a ringtone of someone screaming "Sit on my face with your teabagging ruby red bag!" is going to have to learn to make their own. Jamster can no longer supply. More »
—>In a preemptive move to prevent the FCC from regulating mobile phone content, Cingular and Verizon have come up with a comprehensive list of prohibited terms that vendors can't use in content sold over their services. More »
—>Remember that strange Spanish phone spam scam that was going around? Two weeks after we first started reporting it, and hundreds of people complaining about it, it's still going on. And from the same number, 305-503-8068 . More »
—>Like ten thousand spoons when all you need is a cellphone to work the way its supposed to, some users can't get high-rez pictures off their high-end Verizon phones. To protect its "Get It Now" multimedia revenue model Verizon cripples the Motorola's capabilities by implementing a 300kbps transfer limit. More »
"If someone claimed you ran over their foot and asked you to pay them money, would you give it to them?" More »
—>Courtney tips that she's received a Spanish spam call, this time from 301-392-8219, based out of La Plata, Maryland and registered to Verizon. We've also received reports about 305-503-8068. If anyone gets calls from these numbers, report it to your cell phone company and even the police. The police have the ability to access the records to trace these calls back to their source. More »
—>In the town of Red Bank, NJ Verizon has applied to operate a cable TV service over their fiber optic network, but not everyone is thrilled. More »
—>John Brownlee here. I just want to tell you all that I love my Mom. A four foot eleven firecracker who followed her recent stroke up with a healthy regime of climbing up twenty foot ladders to chainsaw branches down from the roof, she's a hell of a girl. More »
Here's the results of our week-long look into how long it takes humans at various cellphone companies to pick up the phone. Sprint was dead last and an old-school Nextel support line, first. Verizon and T-Mobile trailed not far behind. More »
Only two more days to go in this week's look at how long it takes a human at various mobile phone companies to pick up. More »
—>With the depressing defeat of the Net Neutrality bill before the House Telecom and Internet subcommittee yesterday, many Internet users are getting a bit nervous. Are we on the precipitous edge of one of those nefarious slippery slopes people are always talking about? Will common sense prevail? If it doesn't, can we trust providers like Verizon and AT&T to not cripple the Internet? More »
Today's results in our week long trial to see how long it takes mobile phone carrier's humans to pick up on the customer service line. More »
All the mobile phone carriers performed very well today. More »
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—>Eric hates Verizon DSL. All he wanted to do is switch around his contract to save $8.00 a month. More »
Here's how long it's taking to reach a human at various mobile phone carrier customer service lines today. More »
In the wake of purple ribbons, zombies and looking up words in the dictionary, we thought we might want to try something resembling journalism. To that end, we've started the Time to Human project. More »
—>It isn't so much the incompetence, the obfuscation, the confusing pricing plans, the high prices for absolutely base minimum support. Those things annoy us here at the Consumerist, but at this point we're almost stoically resigned to them as immutable physical laws. No, what really elicits the wailing and gnashing of teeth here is just how easy it would be for most companies to do the right thing and just how rarely they ever do. More »
—>Business as usual for Verizon Customer Service Representative #1: a customer writes in, frustrated but polite, with a cogent complaint. When shopping for their phone, they were misleaded and/or lied to about the phone's functionality by a Verizon employee. While the customer does not demand a refund, they are looking for some sort of acknowledgment that they have been wronged and want to know what Verizon is going to do in the future to prevent their sales reps from selling products based upon misleading and dishonest claims. More »
—>Everyone's all about the Razr's "cutting edge" HAR HAR HAR super-thin construction but it looks like they might've left something out in the design, as glitches are causing phonecalls to drop. More »
—>Another day, another major American company loses the confidential information of millions of customers or employees. More »
Ladies and Gentlemen, your Tier 1 champions! Some no-brainers, squeakers and absolute pummeling. More »
—>New incentive to pay your phone bill on time, Verizon will now provide your bill payment histories to credit report agencies. The practice is becoming common among companies that issue monthly bills. More »
—>We love whiny CEOs here at the Consumerist. There's something special about men with net worths greater than most small nations complaining to Congress about unfairness that tickles our irony receptors. In this case, Ed Whitacre, CEO of AT&T (pictured) and Ivan Seidenberg, CEO of Verizon Communications, traveled to the Capitol to bitch about the regulatory barriers-to-entry that telephone companies have when trying to get into the video delivery business—a business obviously dominated by cable companies. More »
Reader Adam Higley wrote in to ask the throbbing hive-mind of Consumerist readers for their wide-ranging expertise in solving an issue he's having with his Verizon DSL service, after the local exchange was upgraded from copper to fiber. Ever since that upgrade, he finds he is unable to access certain web sites and forums — specifically, a private forum he set up for friends. The problem appears to be that Verizon has blocked certain ports on their end which they are absolutely unwilling to open, citing their refusal as a security measure. Does anyone have any decent advice for Adam? More »
A new book called The $200 Billion Broadband Scandal claims to detail the variety of tax breaks and compensations offered to the Bell-spawned phone companies to build out our nation's fiber-optic network—a network designed to bring 45-megabit per second connections into every home. We don't know about you, but we are sending this text via a rickety old copper line, using the best 1-megabitish DSL connection Verizon has to offer. More »
John Strong (really!) writes in with a story of the all-too-rare case of good customer service: More »
—>It looks like the relative ad-free environment of your cell phone is about to be populated with advertisments, reports The Times. Verizon and Sprint are said to be testing "short" video ads on their services in March. More »
A Republican state senator in Georgia has filed a bill that aims to prohibit cell phone service providers from forcing customers to restart their contracts just to move to a new rate plan. The pandering doublespeak from the cellular service providers in this article is sickening.
Kristin Wallace, spokeswoman for Sprint Nextel. "In principle, Sprint Nextel believes the competitive wireless marketplace is serving its consumers well and that regulation of wireless service would be harmful to innovation and costly for consumers."
Caran Smith, a spokeswoman for Verizon Wireless, said ... "By limiting a carrier's contract options, the state in effect is limiting a consumer's flexibility to move to rate plans and take advantage of services that meet their wireless needs."We understand that to subsidize the cost of phones your carrier wants to lock you into a contract—really, we get it. But there's no way to justify the inability to switch plans to suit your needs within your contract period. (Not to mention the inability to purchase your own phone independent of the carrier subsidy and use their service on a month-to-month basis without using pre-paid.) (Thanks, Erendira!) More »
—>Verizon does something evil? Surely not our sweet, beatific megacorp! Yet that is the claim levied by the wicked town of Lonaconing, Maryland, whose annual Christmas lights were banned—for safety's sake—by Verizon. Each year Lonaconing's Christmas Light Decoration Committee would string their vine-like lights across the same poles used by Allegheny Power and Verizon to provide light and warmth to hundreds of poor children in the coal town.
''If a wire is hanging at 15 feet, a truck could snag it. It could snap a pole, and someone could get seriously injured," Verizon spokeswoman Sandra Arnette said. ''We never said the town should not hang the lights. But safety is the first thing."The first thing is safety, Lonaconing, not your vile, pagan celebration! We would wish you coal in every stocking if we did not already imagine it would give your dwarvish children great joy to fondle each sooty treasure betwixt their stumpy mole fingers. And to put an inflatable Grinch balloon next to the Verizon office? Take your idolatry elsewhere, Lonaconing. We'll have none of your craven imagery in this, the season of plastic, light-up Jesus. More »
—>Want to know exactly how to reach the appropriate customer service tech at Verizon? Just look them up on this handy list of every number they have. More »
It's precious when web nerds use computer analogies to describe something that should probably seem obvious to those who have experienced the touch of real, human flesh, but Khoi Vinh has a good point: "Customer service lines are user interfaces, too." On the whole, he's pretty much just complaining about his phone company—which hey, we're into it—but he's clearly giving some thought to the inherent flaws in the customer service infrastructure, as well. More »
• It would appear the Dell coupons for the Canon 20D Digital SLR Camera are already kaput, but there's still time to sneak in a 20% coupon for the Digital Rebel XT Silver Body. Add coupon code: TDZ2BZCXTN?PMX, add in another discount from The Dell Game, and use the $75 Rebate for a total of $600. Not shabby at all for a great camera, although you'll still want to purchase a lens. [via Slickdeals] More »
The internet is all around you, flying invisible through the air, clawing silently at your eyes. Oh, and your wallet. New '3G' cellular data services from Verizon, Sprint, and Cingular are top notch, technology-wise—seriously, we love the ability to have highish speed internet wherever we can get a cell phone signal—but the pricing is a bit out of hand. Wireless nerd Glenn Fleishman takes all three to task specifically for their used of the term 'unlimited.' More »
