I have had Verizon (or what ever their latest name change is) three times, yes three times. Each time has been a nightmare, here is my story.
1.1997: ISDN made its appearance into the world. Of course, we wanted to move beyond dial-up and so I got the ISDN modem.installed it and it worked right and this went on for (about) 3 weeks (to say it). After about three weeks, (one day) it died. It stopped working I mean the modem just would not work, and I couldn't do anything with my computer.
I called the (wonderful) customer service (in those days), it was called Bell Atlantic. What did Bell Atlantic do? Bell Atlantic talked down to me, and "assumed" in so many words and w/o saying a whole lot that the whole thing was my fault. They had me crawling under my computer stand, going out to the wire box on the back of the house. And of course nothing was wrong on there. Bell Atlantic just couldn't seem to figure out what the problems was. But the problem was "all" in my head and this customer was doing something wrong. They were also going by their book. And besides it didn't fit any of their book problems, they didn't have an answer for me, and "of course" again the problem was all in my head and my entire fault and "of course" I was doing something wrong. What was I going to do?
Got tired real fast of their blame games on this customer. One day, while working I went onto the Bell Atlantic website, and started looking for managers to call. I found the name of the Internet Services manager and got that person's name. I though, "well" I had two options, either write him at work or at home. If I wrote at work, it probably would not get to him. And second, I could write him at home if I found his home address. I ended up finding the Internet Manager's name with the company and then found his home address. He called me within 4 days after I wrote him. To fix the problem, he sent out the head of the union. The problem stayed fixed for about a month and then bombed again.By that time, I've had enough with Verizon (or whatever their latest name change was), and then I cancelled the service and went back to my trusty dial-up.
2. DSL came out to my neighbourhood. I subscribed to "this" service. Got it in th4e mail, instlal4ed it and it "worked" (for guess what), the typical 4 weeks, then this of course bombed, like anything else that Verizon had. I called them, they of course "again" talked down to me and everything was my fault. Now mind you, half my neighbourhood has DSL, but mine didn't work. I finally raised so much fuss and they came out to my house. Their reply was this. We can't come into your house; you don't have Verizon as your phone. This is part of the SCC rules. I said, show me the rules, I want to know where they are, who wrote them and I need some credentials. They refused to do anything else. This was plain out discrimination. Verizon would not fix my DSL, but again, most of my neighbourhood has "this" service, but yet mine would not and I repeat would not work. They said I had to wait for FIOS. FIOS came in July of that year "06". What happened next is the worst horror story of my experience with Verizon.
3. July of 07, it was installed and worked the best of the three experiences that we had. Even though at times, it was slow, it still worked. At that time, I also wanted to get my other computer connected to the internet. Verizon customer "Tech" support along with all their fancy MCSE etc; promised me and swore up and down that they would help me over the phone. When it came down to doing this task (which would have been so easy); like other times, they screwed it up big time. Each time I would call them, their head was "up their funny bone" (I'm being nice). Finally I got tired of their games and called Best Buy Geek Squad. Just as Geek Squad came into my house to fix the problem, the girl from Verizon calls me. I told her, you're a day late and a buck short honey and hung up on her.
This like everything else, we'd had through Verizon didn't last very long.in Sep of '06, we had a billing problem, that got fixed and they should have "immediately" turned the service back on. Nothing ever happened. I was still talking to manager's 4 days late, "yes 4 days later". The FIOS never got fixed. I got tired of it and ended up going to another service provider (cable company).
Finally here is an example of just how Verizon thinks of customers making complaints and blames everything on the customer. I was the EA to the Director of DSL customer services for over a yr. They were having so many problems with customers dropping DSL and going to other providers that they "hired" a contractor to find the problem. I took a look at the list of complaints one day, and said to myself. The problem is with the CSR's and not the customer. But no Verizon didn't see that and "of course" blamed everything on the customer.
I was out yesterday at one of their promotional events (they were signing up customers). Of course, they didn't want to hear my story. It would be negative towards signing up new customers. I did talk to a regional sales manager who took my name down and promised to call me the next week to see "if I wanted to sign up". The only want I will sign up again is this. I will have the name of a high-level VP to call if I have problems. When I call I expect them to jump. If they want this customer back, they will have to jump through hoops to get me to come back.
Now that you've read my story, think twice about going to Verizon. Nothing has changed in the company, except they want your service. Verizon is top-heavy with managers and knows it, but doesn't care, that is part of their problem.
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