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Old 09-05-2016, 01:49 PM
 
955 posts, read 2,002,337 times
Reputation: 1415

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Quote:
Originally Posted by dkf747 View Post
Be glad you don't have Sprint. They were threatening to send his 2 week past due debt to collections if he didn't pay up now! Imagine what it would cost to send your 42 cent bill to collections.

I know we are getting off topic a little (or a lot here), but I can top that. T-Mobile actually sent me to collections before my bill was due. To summarize as short as possible:

  • Signed up for no contract, month-to-month TMobile service, bringing my existing phone
  • For a couple of weeks, no one could get data to work right (it would work for about 60 seconds after a reboot or a phone call, but then would not work again until another reboot).
  • Due to no data, I canceled the service about 17 days after I initially called for it (which was only about 14 days after I got the SIM card they sent and was officially activiated) and asked about paying my balance due. Was told "don't worry about paying it now, we'll send you a bill". In all honesty, I thought they might even waive the charges, because it never worked, and they had records to know that, but I didn't ask them to, fair is fair and it was I agreed to, and for my 14 days of bad service, I owed a full month of $50-something dollars
  • 13 days later (and exactly one month from when I initially called to place my SIM card order, and only 27 days since my service was "active") I received a collections notice. Never got a bill, yet, just a collection notice for the very first indication of a charge.
  • After calling T-Mobile's customer service, first I was told I was not sent to collections, then after sending them a copy of the notice, I was repeatedly told "since I canceled with a balance past-due, it was sent to a 3rd party". No one could answer how my balance was past-due, if I canceled only 14 days into a no-contract plan, and didn't owe for a device since I brought my own.
  • And to top it off, T-Mobile has some outsourcing agreement with Experian about doing their credit checks and storing their credit data. The T-Mobile data, including SSN, was hacked, so for my 14 days of not-working service, I got a bill, sent to collections, and had my SSN and other information stolen. Thank you T-Mobile.
Back on topic, I've always heard Verizon support for FIOS was the worst imaginable, and it seems it might be true. I'm hoping to not have to ever really need it.
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Old 09-05-2016, 02:51 PM
 
Location: D.C.
2,867 posts, read 3,506,551 times
Reputation: 4770
I absolutely agree 110% with the OP! Verizon billing is a friggin' MESS!!

Long story short - we moved from Brambleton to Leesburg last November. Transferred the service from the old house to the new house. Had a "triple play" with another 18 months on it. Said "no problems whatsoever, we'll just change the address, simple as that". Thought, great!

$150/month billing, turned into $300+/month billing for the EXACT same service in the new house. No new set-top boxes, no new channels, no new anything. It was 100% "plug and play" setup. The more I called, the worse it got, with the max hitting over $500!!!!!

We did get it settled down to a point where I hit the point that "life is too short" at $200/month. They said they'd honor this, honor that, all BS. What seemed to help me though, is that I signed up to Twitter and bashed their account for about a week straight with my story.

One of the absolute most irritating aspects of the entire process was dealing with their 1-800 support folks. Again, nothing against India, but when I'm trying to explain what has happened to someone who I can't understand what they're saying to me, is just ****-poor service, period. I grew so angry that I wanted to get in the car and drive over to their VA office location and pitch a fit. I didnt, but I at least got the USA number to call....

(855) 384-4158

It's their Arizona call center. Still took me 3 attempts, but at least they were a little more productive than "what the heck are you saying to me?"

My understanding is that during this time for me was when they were having their field tech strike. Had an old neighbor who was an "office worker" - was given two days training and put into the field to do install work 7 days a week until the strike was over.

Verizon probably owes me $500 in overage charges due to that screw up. But, honestly, I'm afraid to even touch it for fear of some inept idiot screwing everything back up again.
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Old 09-06-2016, 08:45 AM
 
529 posts, read 745,690 times
Reputation: 255
I have been having FIOS since beginning of 2007. I had once billing issue. Once I returned a faulty router at a local FIOS store and got a receipt. But magically their system never recognized that, so they charged me over $200. I had to make few calls and wait for few months to sort this out. Luckily I had the receipt which helped me to resolve this.

On few other cases when I had issue with FIOS, I used their App to fix issues, reorder router etc. It was always simple.

Except their price, I have no complaints against them. I have made several calls to their CSR, but never got Indian CSRs, not even once.
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Old 09-06-2016, 10:58 PM
 
Location: MID ATLANTIC
8,643 posts, read 22,792,393 times
Reputation: 10461
Quote:
Originally Posted by LuvVA View Post
I have been having FIOS since beginning of 2007. I had once billing issue. Once I returned a faulty router at a local FIOS store and got a receipt. But magically their system never recognized that, so they charged me over $200. I had to make few calls and wait for few months to sort this out. Luckily I had the receipt which helped me to resolve this.

On few other cases when I had issue with FIOS, I used their App to fix issues, reorder router etc. It was always simple.

Except their price, I have no complaints against them. I have made several calls to their CSR, but never got Indian CSRs, not even once.
Yep....same. Too damned expensive, but 0 service calls, ever.
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Old 09-09-2016, 07:25 PM
 
40 posts, read 35,014 times
Reputation: 73
Quote:
Originally Posted by NC211 View Post
I absolutely agree 110% with the OP! Verizon billing is a friggin' MESS!!

Long story short - we moved from Brambleton to Leesburg last November. Transferred the service from the old house to the new house. Had a "triple play" with another 18 months on it. Said "no problems whatsoever, we'll just change the address, simple as that". Thought, great!

$150/month billing, turned into $300+/month billing for the EXACT same service in the new house. No new set-top boxes, no new channels, no new anything. It was 100% "plug and play" setup. The more I called, the worse it got, with the max hitting over $500!!!!!

We did get it settled down to a point where I hit the point that "life is too short" at $200/month. They said they'd honor this, honor that, all BS. What seemed to help me though, is that I signed up to Twitter and bashed their account for about a week straight with my story.

One of the absolute most irritating aspects of the entire process was dealing with their 1-800 support folks. Again, nothing against India, but when I'm trying to explain what has happened to someone who I can't understand what they're saying to me, is just ****-poor service, period. I grew so angry that I wanted to get in the car and drive over to their VA office location and pitch a fit. I didnt, but I at least got the USA number to call....

(855) 384-4158

It's their Arizona call center. Still took me 3 attempts, but at least they were a little more productive than "what the heck are you saying to me?"

My understanding is that during this time for me was when they were having their field tech strike. Had an old neighbor who was an "office worker" - was given two days training and put into the field to do install work 7 days a week until the strike was over.

Verizon probably owes me $500 in overage charges due to that screw up. But, honestly, I'm afraid to even touch it for fear of some inept idiot screwing everything back up again.
Thank you so much for the US contact number - I'm sure that will come in handy.

This happened to us, as well.. only moving from Ashburn to Leesburg. We lost digital voice since our new location's lines did not have that capability, so our voicemail number changed. They didn't let us know that, however - we had to call multiple times until someone understood what we were asking.

On top of all this mess, when we had the installation done at the new place, the installer specifically said to create a new account during the online walk-through that they have you do. Unfortunately it never gave me that option, but things seemed to proceed fine so I didn't worry about it.

A month later I got the first bill, and that's when all the double & triple charging started. That took nearly 6 months to finally completely fix, because when I had done the online walk-through their system wiped our account of every record of the first address. I could not look at old bills or payments, etc., They also charged again for our router, which we had paid for (and paid off) the first 3 months at the first address. I had to request a paper copy of the last couple months at the old address (they could see the old account information, it just wasn't available on our end) which they did, but charged me for even though it was the fault of their computer system. Just on and on.

I can't say I'll quit and go to Comcast, though, because we went through a nightmare with their billing as well, then when we moved here from out West they insisted we had not returned our equipment, sent us to collections and even threatened to garnish my wages.

All of them require bucket loads of patience and none of them are 'better'. I blame them for all of my grey hair.
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Old 09-16-2016, 08:59 PM
 
Location: MID ATLANTIC
8,643 posts, read 22,792,393 times
Reputation: 10461
It really is a matter of lesser evils. When I no longer need internet to make my living or I can watch TV 24/7 or I can return to using RedBox, I will wean myself off the corporate monsters......maybe even go with Dish or Direct.......The big dogs better be shaking in their shoes, as the majority continues to age, Gen X and millennials stream, they are going to be left out in the cold.
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Old 09-17-2016, 06:34 AM
 
70 posts, read 83,826 times
Reputation: 82
Quote:
Originally Posted by SmartMoney View Post
It really is a matter of lesser evils. When I no longer need internet to make my living or I can watch TV 24/7 or I can return to using RedBox, I will wean myself off the corporate monsters......maybe even go with Dish or Direct.......The big dogs better be shaking in their shoes, as the majority continues to age, Gen X and millennials stream, they are going to be left out in the cold.
They are still the only ISP in most places (if you are lucky you get to choose from 2 giant cable companies), so they'll just make basic internet access $200 a month when you don't want their cable TV and $40/month DVR from 2005. This is why the idea of municipal ISPs as competition has them so scared. Just internet, and at a reasonable price? Lets cut some checks so politicians realize how this is horrible for the consumer!
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Old 09-17-2016, 07:37 AM
 
Location: Alexandria, VA, USA
1,110 posts, read 887,109 times
Reputation: 2517
Quote:
Originally Posted by Carlingtonian View Post
Posting this for those in the future who may be looking for reviews.

We've had Fios for six years. We were happy with it till recently, when a billing error has become a nightmare.

When our contract is up, I'm going with Comcast or RCN.
I had a billing situation with Verizon that reduced me to tears and the shakes (with rage). I was fine until the credit card used for billing was due. They wanted a new card expiration date, but the new card had not been issued yet, so I gave them another credit card number. That card was due soon also, so I tried to switch back. I forget the details, but a payment was late, so they refused to honor an cc number, and I was forced to mail in my bills. When the banks started to offer bill pay service, I jumped on this, and have not had a problem with Verizon since. I would never use direct billing with them again, due to their card expiration policy, and the inability to resolve the issue within the company.

Customer service is not a priority with them. I will say one good thing about them. Their offshore technical support team is excellent.

https://www.consumeraffairs.com/inte...izon_fios.html
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Old 09-17-2016, 01:24 PM
 
Location: New-Dentist Colony
5,759 posts, read 10,671,449 times
Reputation: 3952
UPDATE: I finally contacted Arlington County's Cable TV Administration Office via email:

https://topics.arlingtonva.us/cable-...-inquiry-form/

They sent a quick acknowledgement, and then about a week later, I got a phone call from a gent with "Verizon Executive Relations" in New Jersey. A native English speaker, no less. He was great. He got the nonexistent second STB removed and even comped this month's bill in its entirety. He even called me back to follow up!

Why can't they just have someone like this--with common sense, English fluency, and the authority to fix the problem--available from the get-go? This could've been fixed in five minutes.

Although it's a satisfactory ending, I'm still displeased it took such much of my time to get to this point.

I would imagine most jurisdictions in NoVA have a municipal cable-TV office capable of escalating complaints at the corporate level.

Last edited by Carlingtonian; 09-17-2016 at 01:33 PM..
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Old 09-17-2016, 01:36 PM
 
9,863 posts, read 13,987,540 times
Reputation: 21673
Quote:
Originally Posted by Carlingtonian View Post

I would imagine most jurisdictions in NoVA have a municipal cable-TV office capable of escalating complaints at the corporate level.
While I am glad you were able to find a successful resolution, I find it a bit dismaying that public tax dollars are being used to resolve commercial consumer complaints.
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