So, Verizon's still in business?
They caused an uproar in Salem, MA with deplorable DSL service and constantly dropping connections. I've been fighting constantly with their "technical support" trying to get them to acknowledge that their system was screwed up.
Since the customer "service" reps knew nothing about the system and little about computers, they always ended up telling me that my computer was "corrupt". B.S.! I knew it and they knew it. I reloaded my ethernet card drivers (futile), replaced my ethernet card (futile), replaced my ethernet cable (futile) and told them to send me a new adsl modem, knowing that wasn't the problem either. Only after they did that and it didn't resolve the problem did they acknowledge that there might be somethingwrongon their end.
They checked the line going back to the central office and found it normal. Of course it was, since the problem, as I'd been trying to tell them all along, was their outgoing connection to the internet backbone. I was just about to tell them where to shove their dsl service, and my local phone service as well, when the sh*t hit the fan on the front page of the local paper...
It appears that while I was having my problems, a good part of the city was going through the same thing. The Chamber Of Commerce found that almost all of their business members were frantic over the system dropouts, weren't able to process orders, payroll, send or receive email or FTP file uploadsand other crucial functions. The functions of the city's administrative offices and court systems wereseriously impededand the police department, when told by a "tech" that they couldn't estimate when the problem would be addressed, dumped Verizon on the spot and switched.
There's going to be a huge class-action suit filed by Salem businesses against Verizon over this and the loss of revenue it caused. The mayor has gotten the state reps involved.
Additionally, in a frantic pr statement issued intended to cover their worthless, incompetent butts, they said they'd been unaware of the problem - this after fielding what must have been thousands of calls from the same region citing the same problem over a fortnight. The next day they announced they'd discovered a faulty modem connection - to the backbone, as I'd told them... in their facility in Lawrence!!!
In a job prospectus they've issued, Verizon claims to value diversity. I believe it, since when you call them for support, you get routed to Pakistan or India and have to deal with someone who doesn't understand English or their system.
Finally, this follows on the heels of Verizon's debacle regarding the government's discontinuation of the $2.97 monthly Universal Service Fund charge. Rather than pass the savings along to customers as they should have done, Verizon greedily pounced on the opportunity to substitute its own "Supplier Surcharge" for about the same amount. Pricks!
Following a firestorm of protest from consumer groups and a show-cause demand by the FCC, they did an about-face and withdrew the charge while attempting to give the impression they'd decided to do their customers a favor.
Verizon SUCKS!!! I've taken my business over to and they have been less of a problem than Verizon!
Ben
Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts
U.S.A.
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