After a decade as a Verizon DSL customer, I know how they operate very well. As I found out, better than they themselves do.
In early April 08, I placed a call to Verizon customer service to determine if an area in Southern California was in their service area. I have had an @Verizon.net for over a decade, and I was not happy hurry to relinquish it, and their online tool had failed me again to positively identify service area, as it so commonly does.
This call proved to be a huge mistake. About a month later, Verizon cancelled my email account - the first step in the 5-day process necessary to discontinue my service.
My personal communication has never been an issue, and at no time did I indicate in any way that my service was to be terminated. I am in an interview process, which, if successful, *might* take to Southern California *in about 4 month's time*.
But the damage was not only done - it was irrevocable. Email was already cancelled, my internet service was next (those lights will go out either tomorrow or the day after), nothing can be done to stop it (according to India), a new service request needed to be requested (with the associated start-up fee), it would take a week, and I couldn't be proactive in asking for the new service now - I needed to wait until my current internet DSL service was terminated.
When the problem was discovered long before sunrise here in Seattle, your only recourse is India, where I was told no end of absurd things. I cancelled my service online. No, I did not do that. My DSL service needed to be renewed each year and I failed to do so. No, I've been a Verizon DSL customer since 1997, and that is *not* how your company operates. It's always automatically renewed.
We'll call her Ms. Green, a senior representative right here in the US, who was my 19th call seven hours later. She appealed on my behalf to file a stop-order for an incorrect DLS termination (she was the first one I spoke to who even knew you could do this), and told me if I'm having a good day, this will restore things. And if not, worst case is you'll only be without DSL internet for 3 days. Oh, and for your time, trouble, and taking the day off work, here's the maximum I can offer you in compensation for *our egregious mistake* - please, take *fifteen dollars*.
Thanks a pantsload, Ms. Green.
I was actually very lucky to have been connected with Ms. Green. My experience with Verizon Internet told me the odds were woefully against me to have stumbled across someone with this knowledge and competence level. This disaster should have been much worse, by all indications.
It didn't deter me from editorializing. "Ms. Green", I told her, "allow me a moment to tell you what I've told thousands of my technical students for over a decade about Verizon DSL. Once installed, it's solid, reliable, plenty fast - if you can pick up the phone and hear a dial tone, you can expect a solid internet connection. It never goes down.
But the installation, change, modify and termination process has been *horrendous* and *dysfunctional* for a decade. And I've been failed by it yet again, now, haven't I?"
Ms. Green assured me that a trouble ticket at this level always goes to a decision maker. "I know, " I responded, "I've been a customer for over a decade, so I'm familiar with that part of the process. Doesn't really seem to work, now, does it?"
What I didn't tell Ms. Green was that Verizon's fifteen bucks was nothing less than insulting...
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