Verizon Fios--HORRIBLE (Orange: 2015, transfer, living in)

[Carlingtonian]

Originally Posted by spencgr

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.

Even mine?

I believe these offices were set up because cable TV is considered a public utility on the order of gas, electric and water, in that its installation requires alteration of public infrastructure, such as telephone poles and the electrical doohickeys attached to them.

And in the era of very limited free over-the-air TV channels (with spotty reception), I think they're even more of one. Because we can't survive without TV, now can we?

"Don't tread on Spencgr!"

[spencgr]

Originally Posted by Carlingtonian

"Don't tread on Spencgr!"

I might get a t-shirt made with that!

[SmartMoney]

Originally Posted by spencgr

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.

Continue to be dismayed because that is one of the main functions of all of our elected officials, funded by tax dollars. Every elected official's office spends a large portion of their office's time on Constituent Services - running interference between their citizen base an government agencies and utilities and services. The county offices also have dedicated personnel to handle HOA and condo association complaints, health care provider complaints.......it goes on and on.

It's a great example of government growing larger and larger, but only a fraction of the population starts there for resolution.

[cully]

Originally Posted by Carlingtonian

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.

Wonderful. It never fails to amaze me that these things can be done....and that there are dozens, hundreds, or more in offices that really don't care to accomplish anything real besides getting paid weekly. And they are encouraged in this.

We had a similar Verizon problem. I called our state senator who lived not far from us at the time. His assistant gave a number for someone higher up in Verizon. Now that guy was wonderful. Actually he was absolutely shocked to find out how many people were getting Verizon service...but "getting" only so to speak. There were tons of people in that area that had been growing for decades that was somehow off Verizon's map and yet somehow a lot of people still were trying to get by with Verizon. This guy seemed like a nice responsible old school guy and he was upset that he didn't know how many used the service in our area.

But he was right on it. We saw repair people at all the area Verizon utility boxes around like busy bees. The service did get better.

Then when heard of a little old lady with a problem I gave his name to her daughter. This guy high up in Verizon actually called the little old lady. She was amazed and so happy.

Eventually we left Verizon phones for just cells but forgot about the one wall phone. One day it rang. No service, we paid no bills but it rang. I happened to be near this phenomena....a land line ringing. Hadn't heard that in a few years. Long story short it was another little lady trying to locate her daughter who just moved to the area we were in at the time. I got her info and with Verizon help tracked down the daughter. Somehow the little lady's wrong number had rung on my long dead disconnected line. Everyone was happy.


There are the really nice people. If you can just get to them.

[SmartMoney]

Okay, something is getting sketchy w/ Verizon. About 2 times a night, screen goes black for about 30 seconds, then comes right back. Then about 2x a week, we get a "you are disconnected, check your cables for connections.". First words out of my live-in tech support 's mouth, " no freaking way we disconnected a cable." Then, about a minute in, we are told to hit our menu button. Going on now for 2 weeks.

Sumpthen goin' on they ain't tellin' us 'bout.

[JasperJade]

I'm not fond of Fios either. I live in a highrise that was upgraded and rewired before I moved in. I have all three--TV, Internet, and phone. Thing is, when I hang up the phone, I can't look at anything on the Internet for several minutes afterward. It's like being in the 90s with dial-up. It just disconnects. Best part is, they couldn't figure out how to get it all to work with just one jack, so I had to get a jack splitter and still, no good.

The cable company doesn't seem much better, from what other people here have said. Regardless, I have one more year here and then I'm moving when my lease is up in August. Maybe I'll have better luck with a connection wherever I end up.

[JasperJade]

Originally Posted by cully

Eventually we left Verizon phones for just cells but forgot about the one wall phone. One day it rang. No service, we paid no bills but it rang. I happened to be near this phenomena....a land line ringing. Hadn't heard that in a few years. Long story short it was another little lady trying to locate her daughter who just moved to the area we were in at the time. I got her info and with Verizon help tracked down the daughter.

Sounds like fodder for a great horror story. The ending would be a bit different though, MUAH HA HA HA HA!

[cully]

Originally Posted by JasperJade

Sounds like fodder for a great horror story. The ending would be a bit different though, MUAH HA HA HA HA!

Verizon said sometimes a call goes through to an empty line even though it was meant for another line. Hmmm...when the number didn't work on that other line?

Yeah, maybe they're right about a problem with Verizon.

[ICS67]

Originally Posted by NC211

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.

NC211, I would rep you 100 times if I could for providing us that U.S.-based number for Verizon customer service.

I am in the process of having to migrate from copper-based wiring to FIOS, since Verizon has announced it is terminating copper service in my area. With the gun to my head, I had been meaning to call Verizon to set up the transfer, but this morning Verizon called me first. I had the most frustrating conversation imaginable with a customer service rep based in India -- a nice enough woman, but a bad connection, an accent that was difficult to make out, and no way she could answer any of my questions without putting me on hold to check with a supervisor. I finally told her I had to go (before my blood pressure shot up any more than it probably already had) and disconnected.

So, a few hours later, I called the U.S.-based Verizon number you provided and got everything taken care of in a calm, efficient manner with a customer service rep who knew what he was doing and who could answer nearly all my questions. For the technical questions he couldn't answer, he connected me with a technical specialist who could.

The price I'll pay for FIOS service (phone and Internet only) is approximately the same as what I'm now paying for phone and a DSL line that never delivered the speed I was promised. We'll see how the installation goes a couple of weeks from now, but again, thanks for throwing us that lifesaver of a customer service number.

[NC211]

Hey, you're welcome and happy that it was a help for you too!


I've heard from friends who work at Verizon that during the strike when all of this went sideways for a lot of folks, that in certain areas of the company, staff was furious and were actually sabotaging accounts with screwing up the billing process and so forth. I'm thinking that is what happened to me. I'm still paying far more than I should, and far more than I was promised, but at the end of the day, I really really really really really don't want to call that company ever again! My experience was about the worst I've ever had in my life when dealing with this type of situation. Just awful.


No offense to anyone out there, but there really needs to be a better way to make sure communications between your company and your client base is clear and understandable. Every time I got connected to their India-based help desk, I had such a hard time understanding what was being told to me, that I had to hang up a couple of times and call again to see if I got connected to someone else that I could understand a little better. I felt really bad for asking the very nice lady if they had a US-based number that I could call instead (after about 10 tries). Not saying or suggesting anything negative here with this, just that I honestly could not understand roughly 70% of what they were saying to me.

But that being said, I'm married to a southern girl, and I haven't understood 70% of what my mother in law has said to me for the past 15 years! And I'm southern too! But that eastern North Carolina accent is tough to follow sometimes, bless her heart!