Verizon: Big Brother is Sucking- Edited

OK, I posted this once, and when I was tired and cranky. I am a bit embarassed about the quality of the previous post. Ms. Eagleton would have slapped me around for the lack of organization and, you know, the ranting. So I have decided that, since everything on the internet is available to everyone, and if some future employer happens to find this blog and someone see through my screen name, I won't have something this drivel-like available to be trashed. So below, please find a more thoughtful, more organized, and hopefully more amusing piece of drivel than the last post, which has now been mercifully put out of its misery. Feel free not to read this, as it is LONG, but I had to get it out there:

So, if you recall I posted on August 1st that I was having problems with Verizon. The problems were as follows:

- From the date of installation, March 30th, I was being billed for two DVR set-top boxes, and one standard set-top box. My configuration includes one DVR and two standard set-top boxes. For this I was being charged an extra $7 per month

- My old VOIP phone company, Sunrocket, decided to implode one day with no warning. As having Verizon TV and internet service with no Verizon phone caused all sorts of consternation with their service and billing departments, we decided to just get a Verizon landline, rather than go with another VOIP company that might also decide to implode. As it turns out, they have a nice bundle package, anyway, so it wouldn't cost much more than our current bill. A little more, but not much.

I noticed the billing error very quickly, and tried to get it corrected. The first time I called, they simply didn't do anything about it, so I called back. They stated that they would put in an "order" which would reinitiate my service from March 30th, which would then cause my bill to be corrected. This was on May 30th. The next time I got my bill, it was not corrected, so I used their online chat to talk to someone, since my lack of a phone number with my account usually routed my phone calls to Verizon's telephone division. The woman who helped me said that there was an order in the system (apparently that first order) but that the software was being upgraded and that it would take care of itself when the upgrade was complete. In retrospect, how I could possibly have believed that bullshit is a mystery greater than why anyone fricking cares about Nicole Richie's baby. But I digress...

So in late July, Sunrocket went tits up. I signed on with a company called Teleblend, which was apparently Sunrocket reconstituted, but without debt (gotta love bankruptcy), so that I could still have service until I figured out what to do. However, Teleblend's service was horrendous, frequently cutting out and not allowing incoming calls. So we thought we'd go for Verizon.

I called Verizon to order phone service, and the nice man went through the whole nonsense, and told me I would get $50 in credits for "porting" my number from Sunrocket. Yay! However, after 45 minutes on the phone I got cut off before I got to the "third-party verification." So I called back, and put in the whole fricking order again. This time I got through, and was told I'd have service on August 7th, because they needed time to port the number over. Meanwhile, I'm still calling to try and resolve the "order" with the TV service, which for some unexplainable reason is impossible to process. During one of these calls, I asked the technician about the status of my phone order. He doesn't see such an order. Apparently, if there is an existing order in the system, you can't put a new order in and it DISAPPEARS. Apparently, Verizon's computer systems contain a singularity that attracts all orders that are not properly placed, sucking them into the ether.

To make a very long story a tad shorter, I had to call at least 8 times to get this order completed. Nobody knew how to complete it. Finally I got a guy who managed to do something, and said that the order was completed. He sent me to another person who set me up for phone service, and he stated it would be installed on August 21st. This was the Tuesday before our trip to California.

So I worked the night of the 20th, and was scheduled to work the night of the 21st. So I really wanted to sleep. But of course I had to be available for the Verizon guy. Unfortunately, he decided not to show up, despite the fact that their automated phone system said that we were still scheduled. So I called the next morning, and managed to get someone to actually call me back and explain that there was a problem but that a tech would be out that day. Again, I had to work so I tried to sleep, without much success. Finally the dude comes, but we can't ge t a dial tone. He says it should take 30 minutes or so, and leaves. Needless to say, we never got a dial tone. But later that day, I got a message from Verizon asking if my service is working well! Apparently they have no idea when their service is working or not. This added to my confidence-level with them.

Fast-forward to the next Tuesday (while we are having lunch in Sausalito), when I got a call from an actual person at Verizon who had been working my issue. She said that the problem was that they could not "port" the number from Sunrocket because I'm not in the same zone as that number should be. So they have to give us a new number. At this point, I'll take anything, but I can't help but wonder why it took SIX WEEKS for someone to figure that out. Insanity. But, she says, service will be installed the next day. At this point, I'll take that.

So we get home from our trip, and have phone service! Miracles do happen. There just remain two things to do: make sure that the set-top box issue is really resolved, and call in to get all these services combined into one bill. I have no earthly idea why they couldn't do this without me calling back, but such was the case. So I called the billing department. The combining of the bills into the bundle package was no problem. But then I asked about the status of the DVR credits. The guy was quite terse with me, saying that I had been credited, but saying that it wouldn't be on my statements. I told him that I had had a lot of problems and wanted to see the credits on my bill, but that I hadn't received a bill. He couldn't explain why that was and was quite rude about my questioning. And he also told me that I'm not going to get my $50 credit because we didn't successfully port my number. No matter that it was promised to me and that they screwed it up. His exact words were "I can't give you that credit." No apology, no nothing, despite the fact that he can see all the notes in my account for all the problems I've had. Apparently when you talk to billing, they train them to be assholes, because actual money is involved. All the customer service people, though totally incapable of resolving my problem, were very nice about it. So hopefully one day I will receive a bill that shows all this, though I'm sure there will be more calls involved.

The two big things I have learned about Verizon (you ask, couldn't I have gotten to this point sooner?):

- their customer service system is set up so that their representatives have no personal responsibility to the customer. They work in call centers and you can never reach the same person twice. Even their supervisors do not have direct lines. All I wanted was one person to say "I will fix this problem, and if it isn't fixed, call me at X number and we'll work on it." With no ability to do that, there is no personal responsibility. I wish my job was like that. Someone calls me and asks for some piece of analysis, and I just say "sure, I'll call you back with that" and go have a donut. Sounds like a nice job.

- Verizon is the current verson of Big Brother. Yes, you can get some other crappy company's phone service, but they are just leasing part of Verizon's lines, so you're still beholden to them. I have their TV service because Cox Cable blows, too, and satellite TV leaves me short of phone and internet which I'd still have to get through Verizon. Breaking up the AT&T monopoly in the 80s really hasn't changed anything. Next thing you know, their set-top boxes will have little cameras in them that the FBI will subpoena so they can watch me blog from in front of my tv. Verizon as thought police. It could happen.