Reader David has been trying to get his Verizon FiOS installed and running for 35 days now. He’s escalated his complaint to the highest level and it seems that Verizon is simply powerless to fix the problem. We’d ordinarily suggest he cancel and use another company — but he’s locked into Verizon by his homeowner’s association. Even if he doesn’t use it (and currently, since it’s not working, he’s not using it) he has to pay for it.

David has been chronicling his ordeal on his website, and here’s today’s update:

Update Friday 10/31/08 (Day 35):
No surprise updates today, another day of the same BS. I get a call back from the above person I’ve been dealing with (Barbara Bell), telling me that the main problem was the original people did not actual close the service from the previous owners. They took care of this, and literally once it propagates into the system, it will automatically put mine in and everything will start working.

Then around 3:30, I receive a call from dispatch saying they have a tech coming to the house to fix the video part of the order. I was confused, Barbara told me that everything would just start working. I felt like there were two separate stories going on, so I asked the dispatch lady to call Barbara and ensure they are on the same page before I waste my team by leaving work and potentially waste a tech’s time coming to my house.

Dispatch calls back and says that Barbara agreed to send the tech out. Ok. I go home and wait. The tech comes, goes downstairs, looks at the yellow light on the router, and turns to me saying “this won’t work”. Ahhh, of course not. He said that the order flowed through the system, but on the last step there were errors, so it didn’t actually go through all the way. He goes back and forth between the house and truck a few times, and the last time he just says “I have no idea what to do, your orders are just completely jacked up”. Of course they are, they only told me on the phone that everything had been cleared up. Apparently people had been ordering and canceling and ordering and canceling and changing names, etc that everything was just a huge mess.

So I get on the phone with the HOA Verizon group, who can’t do anything because everybody is home. Even though they are open until 8pm, they apparently can’t actually do anything. The tech was just amazed at how ridiculous the situation was. So after being on the phone for another 45 minutes of getting nowhere, I just told the rep I would call Barbara in the morning since she told me to. I call her around 9am, she’s on the line with somebody else and will call me right back as soon as she’s off. It’s over an hour later, still no call back yet.

I can’t wait to see what happens today.

David has already sent an EECB — which clearly didn’t work. We wish we could tell you to cancel, David. Maybe you should consider small claims court? Or sending an EECB every week like that guy in the Shawshank Redemption?

Is The Verizon Fios IT Team Completely Incompetent? [DP]
(Photo: TeachingThomas )

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