Jenni on Skype: jclayville 
Yes. That is the title of this post.
I should clarify that I am not unhappy with Verizon Wireless. We don’t use them… we use Sprint and LOVE them. However, our home stuff is with Verizon.
A couple of years back, we went from Comcast and Dish Network into a consolidated love-nest with Verizon. The reason being our last house didn’t have a direct line of site to whatever Dish Network needed, so we had to find another option for cable.
FIOS TV had just come out and they gave us an offer we just couldn’t refuse. The bundle option (internet, home phone and cable) with Verizon would save us over $60 a month. What idiot wouldn’t take that offer?
When we first switched over, we were in LOVE. Then… we moved back to Bethany in May.
Me, in my normal administrative ways, made changes in all our services. I made sure the right things were set up in the new house and old things were shut down in the old place. Verizon was not any different. I informed them we were moving and ordered the “moving package”.
Somehow, the representative that was helping me that day signed me up for a NEW ACCOUNT. So now, not only did I have an old account that continued to rack up costs, but I had a new one with all NEW costs.
Long story short, since May, I have spent over 38 hours on the phone with Verizon to remedy issues that have stemmed from this ONE mistake – a mistake THEY made. This is counting all my “hold” times, “transfer” times and ALL the extra time I’ve had to spend explaining the situation to each and every rep I got transferred to. I have to say, out of the 38 hours, I’ve only been unkind in maybe 15 of those minutes. That was today.
I got transferred to “Billing” from “Repair” after an hours wait, when it wasn’t a billing issue. Oh yes… we’ve paid our bills! When I finally got there, I kindly told the man my story again:
“My voicemail is set up, but when you call it, you don’t get sent into my voicemail. The phone just rings and rings till you decide to hang up.”
The rep said, in a really annoyed tone:
“I’m not sure what you want me to do.”
“Um… I’d like for you, the man currently representing VERIZON, to help my voicemail work appropriately so that I can effectively receive my messages since that’s what I’m paying for.”
“I’m in billing. How do I do that?”
“I’m not sure – I thought I got forwarded to you because you had some kind of magical power.”
“Well, Mrs. Clayville, you need the REPAIR department.”
“The REPAIR department just transferred me to you.”
“Well… what am I supposed to do about that?”
*blink*
Hmmm… I thought I was pretty clear in what I wanted.
I should have asked for his manager.
After a few more exchanges of words… pretty much saying the same things as noted above, he said he’d transfer me. I said, “Fine… as long as this issue gets remedied today, I don’t really care.”
He transferred me to a Chinese automated system. How do I know? Because I’m flippin’ Chinese. Except it wasn’t like he planned it that way since my last name is Clayville. I’m pretty sure he was being a jerk.
I’m not really sure why each department sucks at communicating with each other. You would think they would WANT to work TOGETHER to keep our business… since there is no reason to actually HAVE to stay with them. I’m pretty certain a few other companies wouldn’t mind our business.
I am OFFICIALLY in the market in search for a new bundle opportunity.
We’ve got Verizon DSL + phone + Comcast cable. Bundling seems good to us. Verizon tells me I don’t have FiOS available. After I watched them dig up my front yard to install the fiber optic cable a few years ago. I’ve requested they send someone to look at the Verizon can in my yard and tell me I can’t get it… we’ll see. Otherwise it may be on to Comcast’s bundle. Though it seems to be technically not as good as FiOS and Comcast likes to raise rates on you regularly and often.
We used Comcast before and liked them alright. They were consistent and rarely messed up on anything. And when they did, they were quick to fix it and gift you something extra. But you’re right, Tommy… they DO jack up prices regularly.
Yeah comcast has been fine for us. Just really expensive. Can’t do fios…doesn’t come to us….can’t do a dish because we’d have to pay our apartment people cause they are lame too.
I have used PCCW and 3. I like 3 better as a cell provider because it’s pretty stinkin’ cheap. But PCCW does the bundle and it’s still fairly reasonably priced.
…Oh wait, you want something NOT in Hong Kong???
When the FIOSTV Bundle folks came to my door, they incentivized the whole thing with “and we’ll give you two $75 gift cards!”. I was already going to switch, and I figured $150 would be kewl to have, too.
Never got that money. Called them. “Oh, no, there never was any such offer. There was a free 19″ TV offer…”
“Mkay, I’ll take the TV.”
“Yeah, but it wasn’t valid in Oregon.”
MUST. CONTROL. FIST OF DEATH.
LOL Helen & Seth.
*approx three years ago*
Got a letter from Verizon saying that my area was eligible for DSL (yes…DSL is sooo 2005).
Ordered the DSL packaged. Installed it at home, added my router, etc. Worked fine for a month, then my connection dropped to about 5kb/sec (remember dial-up?). It was like that for many months. Called customer service, etc. Finally somebody came to my house on a Saturday and looked at it
“Uhm…sir, after looking at this, your line is not really equipped for DSL”
Huh?? Are you working for the same Verizon that sent me the letter almost eight months ago??
Long story short- my problem remained unresolved. I took off the $60 wireless router, and it ‘improved’ the problem just a little bit.
Fast forward MONTHS into the future- I couldn’t handle the slow connection and I made another call. Somebody else came and looked at the inside connection (in my house).
“Ah…whoever looked at your connection before didn’t know what he was doing, looks like your line was not really split between the telephone line and DSL line, that’s why you’re running slow”
Merely five minutes later…I went to 5kb/sec to 80K/sec.
So yes, happy ending for me.
My family had a similar horrible experience with Verizon. My dad got his wallet stolen, so the CC number changed. One day without warning, letter or phonecall. Our internet was shut off. When we called to give them the new CC number, we got transferred and transferred. I spent 2 hours on the phone. Then my mom spent 3 and after making a complete cycle she was in tears.
I called the next day and once again was told I had the wrong department, i no longer cared and asked for the manager. That person again told me i was in the wrong department, i asked for their manager, and then he transferred me to the right place.
Got the account reactivated, but they told me it would take 3-5 days for the connection to be restored. I said, ya right, i can buy stocks online and other stuff instantly, you can turn it on. So again talked to a manager, and then his manager. And he made the calls for me, to all the other departments and I had an internet connection in 45 minutes. We ended up getting 3 months free service.
Then two weeks later we were mailed an invoice for the equipment. I called the manager back left him a voicemail and the charges went away.
Moral of the story. Escalate.