I sent my 5 page letter to Verizon the other day while we were all taking a small break before going to dinner. This is the response they sent me. My letter is in the extended entry.
Nice response eh?
Thank you for your recent e-mail message. We appreciate you taking the time to provide us with your feedback. We are sorry to hear that you have had a less than pleasant experience with our company. We hope that you will give us an opportunity in the future to make it up to you in some way.
Verizon Online is committed to delivering high-quality Internet service.
Sincerely,
William Withers
Customer Service Representative
Verizon Online Broadband Sales and Services Centers
To whom it may concern;
On December 17th, my DSL service was temporarily disconnected around 1:30 or so pm. I called and spoke to tech service which told me that first, then after about 30 minutes, they said it was a billing issue and to call my regular Verizon phone service number, 18004833000. I called and spoke to them and they said my service had been shut off, not temporarily disconnected like tech service had said, I demanded to get someone from DSL billing on the line.
After about 20 minutes, they brought Mrs. Stokes from DSL billing on the line and she confirmed that I had been temporarily disconnected because Verizon was no longer going to accept or make the DSL payments on my behalf and therefore I needed to place my DSL on a credit card. This conversation went on for about an hour before I finally agreed to put it on a credit card. I had to place it on a friends credit card and then paypal that friend the money because I don’t own any credit cards at all. The friend luckily agreed that this arrangement would be ok. Mrs. Stokes entered the information and gave me a confirmation number 67514199. She said the card would be billed on January 6th.
I woke up this morning, January 7th, to no DSL service.
I called tech support around 5:30 am and they said I had been temporarily disconnected again and to call billing.
I had to leave for a few hours this morning but when I came home I called billing and spoke to Ms. Cole who told me that I hadn’t been temporarily disconnected but that my service had been shut off. I gave her the story plus my confirmation number and she verified that I had indeed paid it with a credit card but for some reason I was shut off anyway. She said we had to order all new service.
This is unacceptable.
She transferred me to David in sales who said that he would try to expedite my DSL reconnection but that it would be 2-3 days before I was reconnected. This is unacceptable.
You wanted it on a credit card; I put it on a credit card. I paid the way you wanted and you still shut off my service. David said he would get me a whole month of service for free as an apology of sorts but you are wasting my time.
I paid the bill the way you wanted it paid and you shut me off because someone at Verizon dropped the ball on my account and therefore I have to wait for you to do a whole new service order and wait for you.
This is unacceptable.
To say I’m angry is an understatement.
I have been through an enormous amount of problems and now I have to wait 2-3 days for you to fix a mistake that you did on my account?! Unfair!
I am sorely angry. I have had my time wasted, my small businesses time wasted, and my families time wasted.
This is a huge problem, not mine, but yours.
Around 1:30 pm on January 7th, my phone line went dead. All I could hear was the static whooshing noise of the DSL filters. I waited and waited thinking you had reconnected the DSL line or were working on it.
At 5:15, I still had no phone so I walked 8 blocks to my sisters house which isn’t a long walk as Robbie in repair service informed me but as someone who is disabled, 8 blocks is like running a marathon.
I called tech support at verizon DSL and spoke to Ms. Young. She said the DSL had nothing to do with my phone being messed up and that we needed to call repair service for the landline phone. She transferred the call to repair where we spoke to Robbie who said it was completely coincidental that my phone was out now that they were expediting my DSL order that shouldn’t have been an order to begin with.
My home phone line is being crossed to 941-922-7230, a woman named Karen who had been receiving my calls all day. Robbie told me that both my DSL and phone were perfectly fine, to go home and check. I told him I couldn’t walk back again and if it was still broken to walk back to my sisters’ house and call them back. I told him I couldn’t because I am disabled. He said “ma’am, 8 blocks isn’t that far, surely you could walk it.” I told Robbie that I couldn’t. He said “surely you can ride a bike ma’am, it’s not that far.” I informed him again that I am disabled and said that we would just use my sisters’ cell phone to call my house and see if it works. We called, got the above woman and number again and informed Robbie of this. He said that a repair tech would be out to my house sometime between 8am and 6pm on January 8th. An all day open repair call.
I called back to Verizon DSL sometime around 8pm. Something wasn’t feeling right about this whole thing. I don’t know which department I reached because by this time, I was cursing into your automated voice prompt system and for some strange reason it completely understood “fucking bullshit!” and transferred me to a wonderful employee named Shivonda.
Shivonda listened very patiently to the whole sordid story beginning on December 17th. She listened and took notes and then looked at my account and was very thorough in her questions to me and to what she was finding in my account. She found that my account had never been cancelled like Ms. Cole had said it was but at that time, 12:30 on January 7th, my account was cancelled and a new one opened. Ms. Cole was the person who closed my account. It was never closed to begin with. She closed it.
From what Shivonda could see, my account was closed and opened several times between December 17th and January 7th and that she couldn’t figure out why. I had paid, it was plainly obvious to anyone who looked at my account that it had been paid but for some reason, it was closed out anyway and then an attempt to re-open it had happened and then again, and again, totaling four (4) attempts to open and close my account.
I asked her if the phone had anything at all to do with the mess with the DSL and she said it’s not coincidental as Robbie in repair service had said. There is no way that two huge mistakes were made on the same day to the same person. The lines being crossed indicated to her that they had been working on the DSL line like they had said they would do to expedite my service and something went wrong. She also went over the three emails that I received from David in sales. (I was able to check my emails from my sisters’ home) In these three emails, it said that David had ordered all new service for me and thank you and Congratulations you’re on your way to fast internet! Your service ready date is January 14th.
Did you read that?
January 14th for a service ready date on my DSL new order when I didn’t need a new order, I just needed you to fix the DSL line I already had because of a billing error on your part.
You have no idea what a huge problem you have created for me and my family.
We rely on the internet and the phone for many things. Our families live on opposite coasts from us, I am disabled without a car and my room mate who works at a store, calls me every night from work to see if I need anything and to check on me because I can’t get out all the time. Her job calls her, my doctors call me, my kids schools call me. I need the phone for emergencies. The woman whose number you crossed with mine was inconvenienced all day and probably most of Saturday the 8th as well because the lines were crossed. She was getting our calls and we get a lot of calls. My room mates friends call non-stop. I have a friend in serious need that I told to call me day or night and I would answer. I can’t answer because you people screwed up my accounts and no one at your company seems to know why at all!
You closed a paid account. You broke my phone line. You can’t give me a service ready date with a definitive answer. You can’t give me a date that my home phone will work again and to make things all the worse, your reps can’t call me like they keep saying they will to tell me the status of my account! “We’ll call you Ms. Cooper as soon as we sort it out.” Oh really, how? You broke my damn phone.
David in sales said he would give me a free month of DSL service because of this huge mess and I intend to ask you to keep that promise. I believe that you should also credit my phone bill for however many days you have seriously inconvienenced me and left me unable to call for help if I should need it. I have a family friend driving through the states to visit me and she can’t call me if she gets lost. That is a huge inconvenience.
I want you to know that Shivonda is the only rep I have spoken to who didn’t transfer me (pass the buck) to someone else. She is the only one who listened to the problem. She is the only one who looked at my accounts and attempted to make heads or tails out of it. She’s the only one who tried to answer my questions truthfully and she said she planned on working on my case again today, January 8th when she clocked in because it’s a mess and she wanted to make sure that this case was done properly because as everyone has admitted, the problems were not because I didn’t pay but because someone at Verizon dropped the ball and then kicked it 12 blocks away from the building.
I will be staying in touch with you for the duration of this nightmare with my account and hoping that you can rectify it as quickly as possible.
Please settle this and credit my accounts as quickly as possible.
Update;
I spoke to Sparkle in DSL tech support on January 8th around 1pm or so. She said that my DSL service was ready, on my line but pending because I had no dial tone but as soon as I had dial tone, to call them and they would turn my DSL on.
A repair technician fixed my phone line and I called DSL tech support back sometime between 7-9pm on January 8th and spoke to Sikasha who said that no, my line was not ready but that I would have my DSL back on on Monday January 10th. This totally contradicts what the phone repair mans note that he left in my door giving me the start date of January 12th.
On Sunday January 9th at 10pm, I called DSL tech support one more time to see if anyone knew what the hell was going on with my account. I spoke with Monique who told me that my DSL would not be ready until the 14th again.
What the hell people?
Monique was able to give me my new username and new password for my new DSL account which shouldn’t have been new at all because I paid you on December 17th and set up for automatic billing every single month!
I called on Monday the 10th and spoke to Veronica because the 10th is the day that David from sales originally promised me that my service would be restored and it wasn’t. She said the 14th. I asked to speak to a supervisor because this is ridiculous now. She transferred me to Gitanna, who said that there was absolutely nothing they could do and that I would have to wait until the 14th. She then transferred me to Danielle in billing who apologized for all the mistakes on my account and gave me two free months of DSL with a confirmation number of 69844591 for 60 future credits.
Free is all well and good but I have a small business online and because of mistakes made at Verizon, I have now been out of business for 9 days. You lost me 9 days of business.
I am beyond angry. I am beyond furious. I am calling the PUC about this in the morning and considering forwarding this entire debacle to my local news stations consumer program and see if they can sort this mess out because none of you can sort it out or even give me a straight answer about any of it.
What are you going to do about my very bad experience with your company? I paid you the way you wanted, set up automatic billing the way you wanted and did everything the way you wanted and you completely screwed me over and left me without my DSL service far longer than you promised. Two free months of DSL is really great but it does nothing to restore my confidence in your company at all.
Please settle this and credit my accounts as quickly as possible. Sincerely,
Kathleen J. Cooper
address and tel # removed for posting
