Today is day ten of my "The customer is the least important part of the equation" experience with Verizon Telephone. On Tuesday, October 2nd, I waited five hours for the UPS man to deliver my Verizon DSL modem and was anxious to get it set up and running in my new empty apartment. It was going to be nearly two weeks until I had furniture so I figured, at least I will have my internet. So I thought...
As I have written over the past week, I have had nothing but empty broken promises from Verizon to fix my phone and DSL problems. Every day they promise it will be fixed by the next day, and the next day it isn't. Finally after more than twenty phone calls speaking to computers, customer assistants in Bangladesh, and finally a local person, I was able to, after nine days, get a human being to come to my home to help figure out the mess.
That was yesterday. My repairman, Lou, was the first nice intelligent person I came in contact with. I will admit that I had a person scheduled for Wednesday from 3-7, but couldn't gain access to the basement after 5pm, so I cancelled and rescheduled for yesterday. That said... Lou and I went down to the basement (where I discovered my entire apartment is on a single 20 amp curcuit, ouch!) and he went to town working on my phone connection. The wires date back to 1934, but that wasn't the problem. The problem was between my building and the mythical "Central Office" I keep being told of when I call (Just where is this "Central Office"? Is it even an office at all?). After about half an hour of futzing with the wires, he tells me that he will have my regular phone working correctly within an hour (did I mention that I have had intermittent dial-tone for the past ten days?) and he will put in a ticket to have my DSL fixed by late afternoon.
Finally... I feel that I may be getting somewhere. Sure enough, he called me on my home phone within the hour and told me that it had been rerouted and was working correctly now. He also told me he put a ticket in to have my DSL rewired and it should be working within a few hours.
Wishful thinking... At 4:45 Lou called to let me know that he checked on my DSL and the inept folks at "Central Office" had closed the ticket but did not make fix. (Why should I be surprised at this point?) He said he put another ticket in to do the same thing, and that it should be fixed by today. (Well Lou, You are a very nice person, but I have heard that same song and dance so many times over the past ten days, I am suspicious that it won't be fixed.) Being the nice person that Lou was (and the only person that seemed to actually care that I existed), he informed me that he would not be in today, but was going to leave notes of my problem for the person that was doing his job today. He also gave me his name (I will call him Steve) and direct phone number (a Manhattan #) to call and follow up on the problem.
So, I spent another evening at home with no TV or high speed internet watching You-Tube on my iPhone. A slow and arduous task, but short of reading, there really isn't much else to do on a rainy evening.
This morning at 8:15, I was jolted by the nasty ring on my $6.00 temporary telephone (My real one will be here this weekend), by an automated call from Verizon informing me that my High Speed DSL Service has been repaired and thank you for choosing Verizon. Looking over at my modem, I can tell you that... No, it has not been repaired. Again, I am not shocked by the inept folks at Verizon. When Lou gave me Steve's phone number, he asked that I wait until 10:00 to call to give him a chance to follow up with his notes. Well, after getting the automated call, I decided I was not going to wait, and called.
Steve wasn't completely aware of the problem (He had just gotten into the "Central Office") but said he would work on it and I should have it fixed by tomorrow. At this point I very nicely explained to him that I had been told that it would be fixed "tomorrow" more than ten times in the past ten days, and it appears that Verizon has a different definition of what "tomorrow" means. Apparently it isn't the same as it is for the rest of the planet. I then explained that while I have no ill will toward him, it will be fixed today. No questions, just fix it. He said he would see what he could do.
So, as I sit here at 'sNice, having my coffee and Irish cut oatmeal, I am developing a deeper understanding of why people can go postal. Fortunately for the incompetent folks at Verizon, I am not the kind of guy that would do such things. Their service is absolutely inexcusable, and once it is finally up and running, I will then have to call and battle for credit for the down time. Of course, they won't reimburse me for the minutes I had to use on my cell phone, or the $6.00 I spend on a coffee or latte and a snack, each time I have to haul my laptop to 'sNice. (The WiFi may be free, but sitting there without making a purchase is lame.) That amounts to well over $30.00 of which I will not recover, no thanks to Verizon's stupidity.
Hopefully, I will have good news to share soon, and I can finally move on to other topics (like the job interview I had this week).
EDIT: I am happy to report at 3PM Friday, I finally have DSL Service in my home. I only had to make two additional phone calls, and pull the "Let me speak to your supervisor" trick again (it didn't help last week), but finally it worked, and I am online. Now that it is here, it is pretty damn fast for DSL... See for yourself:
4 comments:
The 'central office' is basically the hub where all the copper gets plugged into the digital routing switches. It is indeed an 'office', but it is much more likely to be like a climate-controlled server room, because that is exactly what it is. Commonly located in very secure, windowless areas, very few people have the privilege of ever stepping into one, let alone knowing where it is. Since you have DSL, your Central Office *must* be located within 18,000 feet (of physical copper wire) of your home (this is a limitation of the DSL technology itself).
So, hopefully that clears up what a CO is. Don't ask why I know this ;-)
@ -- I: I believe it's 18,000 feet from the exchange...unless a CO can be in an underground vault. (I know of a guy who has DSL at the transmitter for one of his radio stations and there is no CO anywhere near where his station is as it's in the middle of nowhere) Usually, though, I believe they're in those big brick buildings with the phone company logo on it.
Verizon sucks... I have Verizon Wireless and had a horrible time getting my cell phone number released from my mother's name as I wanted to keep the number I've had for over 7 years. And then at that, it took me about 2 more months before they had everything into my name AND had my address correct (even though I had spelled out my street name for them). Unfortunately, the only 2 real options for cell service here are VZW and AT&T...Sprit/Nextel doesn't have good plans, US Cellular is a regional carrier with no national plans and as much as I want them, I can't get T-Mobile here.
-A
http://tripleplayripoff.wordpress.com/
OMG! I just feel completely screwed! I was with T-Mobile for years and after hours of seeking a simple upgrade and 4 trips into their store with no resolution to what they called a 'glitch' in their computer system, I walked accross the street to Verizon. If I had been hit by a bus when I was crossing the street that day I would have suffered less pain then I have experienced over the pass two days dealing with a representative THEN a supervisor Becky THEN a manager Nicole. I was not requesting anything more then I was offered but it was like talking to non-humans. They all spoke from the same script and there was no reasoning with any of them. The bottom line is that they believe they have all the power and do not honor what they say. They provide dishonorable services. They.are not an honorable company. I am sad. I am very sad. I will be leaving Verizon today. Is there any honorable companies out there who value one customer? My sense of loyalty is shattered.
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