Thank you for being a Verizon customer

by philg

After my initial one-year deal with Verizon FiOS ran out, they sent me shocking near-$200 monthly bills, so I downgraded my service to the bare minimum last fall. I had Internet plus a lifeline phone. Then they started filling my mailbox with an offer to go back to the glorious world of Verizon unlimited phone, Internet, plus some TV for a $65/month teaser rate, escalating to $95/month for a total two-year period. I finally took the bait and upgraded my service via the Web site that they provided.

Five minutes later, my Internet stopped working. I called FiOS tech support. “You placed an order for new service, so of course we had to shut off your old service,” they helpfully explained. When would the Internet that I was already paying for be restored? “You’re scheduled for an install on April 9th.” So the upgrade process has a designed-in two-day service outage? “No. Sometimes people are cut off for a week or more.”

7 thoughts on “Thank you for being a Verizon customer”

  2. You can get fiber to your house, but they can’t have a business rule that is smart enough to carry over service for existing subscribers.

  3. …and I thought AT&T U-verse was clueless when I’d use the cell phone to report that the TV, land line and Internet were out…
    “Have you visited our web site?” No, it’s down.
    “Can we call you back on your home phone?” No, it’s down.
    “Have you reviewed our introductory videos on channel xxx?” No, it’s down.

  4. New strategy – if downtime is inevitable, switch to cable for a month, and then insist on a better “come back” package.

  5. Please remember this incident next time you’re are moved to compose your next “the government never does anything right” screed. Private companies are perfectly capable of spectacular idiocy. Intelligent voting is the antidote to stupid government just as intelligent consumer choice is the antidote to stupid corporate behavior.

  6. Seth: I don’t think that people who advocate for a smaller government want it replaced with bureaucratic monopolies like Verizon. Nor does it make sense to say “Verizon only has one competitor [the cable company] and is huge but we don’t like it; probably a bureaucracy that is even larger and has no competitors would do better.”

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