Telecom companies often have a hard time grasping the subtleties of single words like “unlimited” or “guarantee.” So a three-word phrase like “price for life” is likely too complex for a company like Verizon to begin to parse. This is what Consumerist reader Karen recently found out when trying to sort out what should have been a simple problem with her bill.

In 2007, Karen signed for Verizon DSL service during one of its “price for life” promotions, which promise a rate of $29.99/month in perpetuity. So when she got her Verizon bill earlier this month and saw that the price had jumped, she contacted Big V, which promised to fix the problem.

Alas, “fixing the problem” somehow translated into “turning off her service.”

Karen, the floor is yours:

I have spent many hours on the phone with them, been disconnected numerous times, and I started over on every call. They promised to fix the problem, their fix didn’t work, and no one followed through to make sure that my internet was working. I was given turn on days of July 7, 11, 15, and 18. All which came and went with no internet.

I even agreed to go to a higher priced plan because they told me that the “price for life” service was no longer available and they couldn’t turn my internet back on under that plan.

On July 18, I finally got in touch with the “Customer Solution Team” at 866-506-9656 option #2 for retention. They connected me with technical support and Joe actually called me back three times on that day to keep me updated on his progress in trying to fix the problem.

Not surprisingly, my internet was not turned on as promised on July 18, but when I called back to retention on July 19, [the CSR] stayed on the line with me and spoke to technical support. She finally got through to a higher level DSL technician, who worked through the problem, got it fixed and my internet is back on July 19.

So while we’re glad that Karen was able to get her service turned back on, it should never have been turned off in the first place.

Regardless, Verizon (but not Verizon Wireless) customers may want to take note of the above Customer Solution Team number as it seems to have been helpful in helping Karen eventually get her issue resolved.

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