Verizon Lets Me Down When I Need Them Most

Image via WikipediaI've never been one to expect a lot from big faceless corporations. If you do you're bound to be disappointed, but boy did Verizon screw up big time this week when transitioning my sister from one plan to another. It's a long sad tale.

It started several weeks ago when my sister's husband died very suddenly one Sunday morning. It was as tragic and horrible as it sounds and my family and I set out to help her as much as we could. My first practical task was to check out her phone and DSL service and see if she could get a less costly plan.

I spoke to Verizon customer support and they offered her a single cost plan about $25 cheaper than she had been paying. I was happy (for about a minute). I started dealing with a sympathetic customer service person who assured me that the transition would be smooth, her service wouldn't be interrupted and her DSL wouldn't go down. Boy was he ever wrong.

Over the next weeks and many calls to customer service, we started on a nightmare of a journey. Against the backdrop of a death, it was particularly frustrating. The DSL didn't work. She called. I called. I went over and checked connections. We called again. First she could get email, but not access the Web, which seemed bizarre to me. Verizon assured us the connection from them to the modem was strong.

Then yesterday I got them to finally "fix" the issue or so they said. Apparently the account had been left in a pending limbo and that was why things weren't working as they should. The supervisor I spoke to assured me that she had fixed everything and it would work fine. I spent time on the phone with my sister walking her through the Verizon install, then 62 percent of the way through we got an error message. I put my faith in Verizon and said call them, they'll know what it means. Boy was I wrong again.

My poor sister was on the phone for 2 hours with a young girl in the Philippines. In the background she could hear voices in a large room full of people talking. She could barely understand her English and my sister is not technical. The girl suggested she uninstall (uninstall!) her network card. My sister did as she was asked, only afterward did she find out she didn't have the driver to reinstall. Oops.

Now, as though she doesn't have enough to worry about, she has a computer that can't access the internet because she doesn't know how to configure her network card. I'll be going over there this week to try and figure it out, but I'm not happy with Verizon at this point as you can imagine.

As though that weren't enough, we got sent on a run-around just to set up the voice mail service on her phone. After trying for a couple of days, being given two different access numbers, I made call to Verizon and found out the voice mail box hadn't been set up yet.

Verizon this has not been your shining moment, and I can tell you my sister is seriously thinking about moving on, only she's afraid what will happen next if she switches carriers. Believe me, getting a new phone company is pretty far down the list of priorities right now, but when the time comes, she will move on, you can be sure of that, and your company, and its horrible customer service is to blame.

Comments

[Dan Keldsen]

Ron - definitely feel your pain. Have had several truly annoying phone calls with tech support at Verizon for my home DSL, including completely purposeless questions such as "Are you using a Mac or Windows PC?" "Both, why do you ask?" "I need to know which you are using to check with the appropriate tech." "It has nothing to do with my computer - it's the line or the modem/router." I'd repeat the whole tap-dance, but in the end IT DIDN'T MATTER as all she wanted me to do was to login to the modem/router via a browser (any would work, didn't matter what platform or what browser), and reset the link in software.

Didn't work.

Still in process to nail down what in blazes in wrong. It's been over a week since issues first came up.

(sigh)