Verizon digging up for FIOS (Gainesville, Columbia: HOA, house, neighborhoods)

[fdeitz]

Originally Posted by camrynh

We had Verizon FiOS at our last house. I LOVED it, and was disappointed when it wasn't available at our new place. It was a lot less expensive than Comcast, or satellite, with more features. The intstallation took less than a day (maybe 4 hours?) and went smoothly. The service itself was fabulous. Their customer service is TERRIBLE.

I agree - installation for me was also half a day at most and went smoothly. But customer service over the phone is awful. First level support is in India for billing problems, and they are very polite and make many promises but are terrible. It takes too much effort to escalate, and I had to escalate several times to finally get someone in middle management who really got on top of my billing problem and straightened it out.

I also have the problem of having moved from where FIOS was available to where it isn't, and am stuck with unreliable Comcast. The internet goes out once a week on average - 2 weeks ago it was out all day Saturday. Verizon FIOS (and their DSL for that matter) never ever went down. Also FIOS HD TV is much better than Comcast, and the whole package is cheaper.

[imisscarlsbadcalifornia]

Originally Posted by fdeitz

In regards to FIOS installation, I got it in Manassas in my old townhouse when I lived there. Before that I had Verizon DSL. The tech that came and did the installation was great and everything worked right away. However, billing was another story. They kept billing me for DSL even though my DSL line was turned off at the same time FIOS was turned on! This went on for 9 months, and I had to go through many many phone calls and many hours over the 9 month period until they stopped billing and refunded my money.

Then, when I moved out of the house, I gave them my new Gainesville address and while I was doing automatic monthly payments and using online billing, they cut off my online account and stopped my monthly payment. They never sent me a final bill, and then I got a notice from a collection agency saying I owed Verizon $69.11. That actually showed up on my credit report of course! Now I'm fighting to get it removed from my credit report as I paid it right away as soon as I found out about it, even though I still have not seen a final bill, and I don't even think $69.11 is what I owed them. Verizon billing is a disaster, and good luck getting anyone sympathetic until you finally get up several levels of management. At first you are talking to someone in India who is very apologetic but does nothing. The first American person you get is someone who isn't helpful at all and just sounds angry that you are wasting their time!

Anyway, FIOS itself is great, I've heard some installation horror stories but mine went very smoothly. Billing is another story, and if you currently have DSL and go to FIOS, good luck with that!

I feel your pain on the billing issues. I had a similar experience with T-Mobile.

Apparently in some markets the television advertising led customers to believe that their Verizon cellular bills could be rolled into their home billing for voice, video, and data and that too, created a great deal of confusion and disappointment in which ever market that was. Given that they are two separate business units my understanding is that IF there are ever any plans to integrate those billing platforms they are quite a way down the road.

Thanks to everyone for the feedback. We have DirecTv right now and have another six months until the contract is up. Verizon telemarkets us constantly as our neighborhood is just now being completed; we'll look at it again in the fall. I know that fiber to the home is a huge infrastructure investment and that they are eager to shorten their ROI window on their capital expenses.

[oneasterisk]

I've heard complaints about Comcast outages, but never experienced one myself. Go figure...

[slduvall]

Originally Posted by imisscarlsbadcalifornia

I feel your pain on the billing issues. I had a similar experience with T-Mobile.

Apparently in some markets the television advertising led customers to believe that their Verizon cellular bills could be rolled into their home billing for voice, video, and data and that too, created a great deal of confusion and disappointment in which ever market that was. Given that they are two separate business units my understanding is that IF there are ever any plans to integrate those billing platforms they are quite a way down the road.

Thanks to everyone for the feedback. We have DirecTv right now and have another six months until the contract is up. Verizon telemarkets us constantly as our neighborhood is just now being completed; we'll look at it again in the fall. I know that fiber to the home is a huge infrastructure investment and that they are eager to shorten their ROI window on their capital expenses.

Watch it with Verizon on the issue of rolling stuff into one bill. If you already have one service and then add another it can be a nightmare. I ordered two cell phones and a home phone at a bundled rate, setting up auto pay. We weren't even in the house yet, so I didn't realize they never actually set up the home phone. I had a number they had emailed me, but it didn't work. Every time I called the wireless people would say it was the home people etc. Finally I got a new home number...but it had previously belonged to an obvious foreclosed homeowner. The calls I got were sad..but another thread on that. Since it was auto pay I really didn't look at it, when I did I had quite the surprise. Almost double what I was quoted. They said it was because they were billing me in arrears...for phone service I never had! OK, whatever. Then it started getting higher and higher, almost $300 a month. I was freaking out, calling everyone I could get to answer. Then came the call from hell. It turns out that they are two separate companies, and don't even speak the same language. Verizon wireless actually bills Verizon which in turns bills us. Since they were set up at different dates, they were off cycle. So they would add the amount that wireless sent in, then add the monthly charge that it was supposed to be essentially billing me twice. When I finally got the wireless people to see it, they called the other people, and we had a three way (not a fun one) the wireless person got so frustrated with them, on my behalf. They were yelling at other. The wireless person finally said they will sever the bills, and the Verizon person said they couldn't without permission from me, I was on the call..agreeing! They said they needed it in writing etc. I then told him I wanted to cancel the entire service with them. He started yelling at me! The wireless person hung up on them. He went ahead and severed the bill. They then refused to credit the money back to me. They paid it back to the wireless people (even though I paid them) who in turn added it to my account. I had $1400 balance.

Just my experience!

[fdeitz]

Originally Posted by imisscarlsbadcalifornia

I feel your pain on the billing issues. I had a similar experience with T-Mobile.

The worst was MCI WorldCom back when they had a cell phone service, which really wasn't theirs but they rebranded. Several months would go by without a bill, then a huge bill would come with no way to figure out how they arrived at it. Everyone had the same problem, and you could call their customer service number and be on hold for 4 hours. It took forever to get through, then the problem would repeat 3 or 4 months later. Eventually they gave up on that service, this was long before MCI Worldcom went bankrupt - this was back in 1999. On the internet everyone was posting their huge bills and complaining how they couldn't get through to customer service. What a mess that was.

I have had T-Mobile since then, and fortunately haven't had any billing issues with them, so I guess I'm lucky. Then again I'm on a very simple plan of 1500 minutes a month for $39.99, and I don't ever exceed those, so maybe that's why. Of course I had something similar with MCI and they still succeeded in screwing it all up with their infrequent billing.

[fdeitz]

Originally Posted by slduvall

Finally I got a new home number...but it had previously belonged to an obvious foreclosed homeowner. The calls I got were sad..but another thread on that.

About 15 years ago Verizon assigned me a number that belonged to a woman someone was making harrassing phone calls to. A month or so after I got the number, I started getting these crazy calls at 2 AM in the morning. Even though I was by myself and a male, the calls continued. Eventually the police tracked it down to this same nutcase, but it was hell for awhile until it stopped. Actually, it never really stopped, the nutcake started doing it from pay phones. In the end I had to change my number at MY expense. Verizon was not sympathetic to the fact they knew this number had previously been cancelled due to having harrassing phone calls made to it.

[ScranBarre]

Originally Posted by oneasterisk

I've heard complaints about Comcast outages, but never experienced one myself. Go figure...

Comcast outages are commonplace here in Scranton/Wilkes-Barre, which is why I was hoping to NOT be forced to continue business with them when I relocate to NoVA!

[dalexan242]

We had Comcast in Columbia and they had both horrible customer service and the Internet flickered on and off a bit during prime time hours on a regular basis. We switched to FiOS and the product was much, much better than Comcast's (more HD channels, clearer, faster internet, etc.) but Verizon's customer service was almost as bad as Comcast's.

We moved to 22310 this summer and have been on Cox. Cox has been much better than Comcast in both product and customer service, but we are having FiOS installed today because the quality of the product really is great enough to subject ourselves to the horrible customer service. Hopefully they don't tear up our yard, we've been working hard to get our yard in shape since we moved in.

[jmking]

3 years ago Verizon laid its cable through our yard and underneath my driveway. They cracked the driveway and elevated the cracked area about 6". What shocked me was two days later Verizon not only fixed the crack but replaced the whole driveway and it's a wide driveway, using steam rollers etc. They did a very good job. I dumped Cox once and for all, switched to FIOs and never been happier.

[ChristineVA]

Originally Posted by jmking

3 years ago Verizon laid its cable through our yard and underneath my driveway. They cracked the driveway and elevated the cracked area about 6". What shocked me was two days later Verizon not only fixed the crack but replaced the whole driveway and it's a wide driveway, using steam rollers etc. They did a very good job. I dumped Cox once and for all, switched to FIOs and never been happier.

They refused to do that for us. We felt that we needed a driveway replacement but they wouldn't. So they fixed the strip that was ruined and it took us several months to get them to do it.