Verizon Garumpage
 

Get a bill the other day for $168.62, of which $28.50 is the monthly service charge, and the rest is for me being seven minutes late getting back to the house to meet a service tech who was there because my phones chit the bed again. When they made the appointment they gave me a seven hour window 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. that the tech would show up during. So $140.12 was for the tech to come because he couldn't get into my house to check the service box, which is located on the outside of the house, d'oh. I should have smelled a rat when I called to tell them I was now home and the female in the office who answered the phone said the tech checked outside the house and he knows the problem is inside. There was new snow on the outside of the house, a whole god damn foot, and I allready checked to see if the tech walked to the box and hadn't because there were no foot prints in the foot of snow, so she was lying to begin with. So because no one is there they get to charge, I can understand that to a certain degree, but not when part of the charge if not the entire charge was based on a lie.
So now the tech comes back and without coming inside he goes to the service box and finds there is no dial tone, which means the problem is at the pole or further away. Tech knocks and says he is going to the big green box by the YMCA and checked that. He comes back in a half an hour, part of which was getting a coffee. Knocks on the door again and says try your phone. I do, it works. Tech says one of his fat fingered co-workers (his words) knocked my pair off its appointed spot inside the box while he serviced the pair right next to mine. So its there fault I had to call them to begin with.
Now I am on the phone with the kid at the call center. He detects I am getting hot. He calls the woman at the dispatch and billing center. She explains the charge. With them both on the phone I said because I am seven minute late getting back to the house on a call that was generated due to one of your employees shoddy workmanship your charging me all this money. I then said when I hang up I am making an appointment with Comcast to come tomorrow and wire my house completely and I'll cancell both my phone lines. And that'll be the end of this.
Next thing the phone guy says we'll take that charge of the bill, is that O.k. Yes it is I said. Done.

Little did they realize
 

they were being watched by
a super sleuth guy... :rotf2:

man what a pain in the ass.

This is where you screwed up, there are only 6 hours between
9 am to 3 pm at least the last time I checked. :uhuh:

Did you check the issue at the box before you called?

Regardless, I can't ever imagine that charge actually standing. They'll always remove that stuff if you press hard.

-spence

Put if you don't respond or don't understand the system to call, you get the shaft.

The way of the american consumer, bend ovah it's comin again

The more you biatch the more they bend. I had a problem with Cox, I ordered a PPV UFC fight that didn't start on time. I called them and said that the fight wasn't on and that it keeps freezing. They told me that they were working on it. I get a bill the next month and tell them that it wasn't my fault that they couldn't get the program to work, they ended up taking the charge off the bill.

They asked if I had but did not request that I do so. I looked at those two aluminum clips and figured I would break one when I was checking it out before I even called. Now I know to flipped them up and plug in the phone.

I had a comcast guy out a couple of month's ago. When fisnished he said "we won't be charging you for this visit." My reply was "good, it's your product, your service, why would you charge me for a problem?" He then told me under his breath that they (his office and supervisor) wants the tech's in the field to figure out a way to charge the customer for service calls. Big business, they're all the same!

they keep promising fiber optics are coming to your area soon

and haven't delivered doodly squat...

now Google's getting into the act.

So if you have a problem with your faucet, the water department should fix it for free, cause they supply water to your house. It's their product right? Try telling a plumber to change your toilet for free sometime.

The problem is that the dems deregulated phone wire so you could put in your own phones if you wanted to save some coin. That means that you own all wiring in the house, and Verizon only has to make it good to the Network Interface. That is the box on the side of your house, unless you haven't had phone work at your house in a long time then it is in the basement. If you remove the inside wiring and the phone works when you plug it in to the NI your problem is in the house, and then it is up to you to decide if you want to pay Verizon, or try to fix it yourself. If the phone doesn't work when you remove the inside wiring then the problem is outside. It's that simple. As far as Comcast goes if you put in your own splitters over the year, did your own wiring, they would be able to tell, and odds are if it is causing the problem they will charge you to fix it.

God I hate when people act surprised that they are getting charge to fix something they screwed up on the first place.

i am a tech for verizon and am embarrassed that this has happened to you.. i have worked both cust svc job and now as a tech.. its just a lazy act on the tech who did not even get out of the truck and go to the side of your house.. they could have had you back up in service in no time.. make sure you get credit for the time out of service as well.. they owe you for the time you are out of service as well..

again.. i can't apologize more for the poor service.. did they leave you with one of those blue cards with a direct number for repair..?

let me know via pm if they did not.. i'll give you a good number..

Average cost per customer to install Fiber to the house is $1800.00, not cost effective in some areas, and considering they are spending millions each year to upgrade which requires building out whole towns one at a time it is going to take awhile. Verizons footprint is alot bigger than Massachusetts.

Or it could have been closed out by the center without dispatching anyone out which happens all the time.

Geez Bill, not a good comparison since people don't rent toilets from plumbers, and don't use the water dept. faucets, the water dept. covers the pipes in the street and they change out the meters, that is all, they get away with supplying us with brown water and we pay for it like lemmmings.

don't take it personal just because you work for them :)

there are screw ups in every industry, we're all human, just that some humans are a little more inept at what they do than others who take a lot of pride in what they do

Never came across a quality phone company - be it cell phone or landline. Also, never got good service from a landline phone company. If it was deregulation by the Dems that made it possible for people to wire their own house, good. Phone wire is inexpensive and quite easy to install - as opposed to paying a ridiculous amount for a technician to come in, snake some wires, and leave drywall and scraps throughout the house; which seems to happen any time a technician comes in the house.

Run wires? Ever hear of wireless? Run to Staples/Best Buy and buy those units with a base station and multiple wireless satellite units. No more running wires.

Slip, I will tell you again. The water is brown because of tannins in the ground,it is unavoidable in certain circumstances. I am sure you have the option to not buy their water and install your own well. Which will likely produce brown water.

I know, I was just taking the opportunity to whine about it some more and be negative :D

In fact in our case, the town knows the wells upstream from me need complete rehab of all their treatment stuff. They just won't spend the money to fix it. When I moved here and bought a house 21 years ago the water was great and we drank it(maybe that explains a lot :( )

I never had a problem with the tech who came to the house. He couldn't have been more polite and effective. And like I said if it wasn't their fault to begin with I may have had to pay the service charge for my not being home seven minutes earlier when the tech arrived. To tell the truth, the lie or bs story the call taker told, about the tech allready saying the problem was inside when the tech never even checked the outside box to begin with, probably saved me. I can't stomach those who lie, whether I work with them or somebody else does.

Crash, you owe me or no one else an appology about this, but I appreciate your concern. Underachievers are everywhere. I think a decent hardworking persons greatest accomplishment can be working with those who strive to do as little as possbile, while you do a fair days work for a fair days pay, and not slap the lazy SOB's upside the head.

Exactly my point Bruce, Verizon supplies you dial tone to the side of the house, and just like you can put in your own faucet with that supplied water, same with the phone. Some people you go into the house and spend 45 minutes to an hour and they balk at being charged to have us do it. By the way no one rents phones any more, you buy your own.

The sad part Frank is that to bug corporations all you are is a number, the techs are the ones that usually go out of their way to please you.

sorry, i thought we were talking TV

i have the insurance for the phone lines, so even if it were my fault like a phone off the hook, I wouldn't be charged.

I have no idea what some of your customers complain about.
I believe in Franks case, the issue was outside his house and not his fault to begin with.

glad it works again Frank.

wave is coming - it will - change everything

With all the construction in our area there have been quite a few issues with our phones in the past year. Generally speaking I've found Verizon service to be pretty good, tech's show up on time, deal with my dumb jokes pretty well and generally get the problem fixed with no issues.

We even had them replace the pole to our house which is owned by Verizon...no problems, they just came and did it.

-spence

Xfinity! I'm a total Comcast, oops Xfinity guy: phone, internet, TV. Over the last couple of months service has really increased, especially HD offerings. Today saw a report of internet speeds soon to be 100MBS (min?). Their service has been good, too.

Comcast appears to not be waiting around for FiOS to install their fiber to every house. Interesting: search ViOS on Google and first thing on the list: Xfinity!

Here's my problem with any of these upgrades: since being in the house 25yrs, I've run many cable lines which have one or more splits. Power boosters have already been installed. I've run a direct, uninterrupted line to the single HD TV but what happens when I replace other older TVs with HD sets? The higher capacity demands of HD means I have to upgrade lines within the house, too. So no matter if FiOS installs fiber optic to the house, inside the house must also have high quality feeds. Of course assuming a TV lead in every room. I also had to replace my router with a newer version.

Usually the existing cable can be used, you can remove unnecessary splitters, and replace cable runs as needed but that is rarely needed. This is a big problem time wise though, you could spend hours chasing down splitters in someones house, most people forget where they put them, and some people bury them in walls. It will be a long while before Brockton gets FIOS, you have RI to thank for it. In most of the towns with similar demographic there is a high rate of people who do not pay their bill. They then switch back to the cable co. The cable co is so happy to have them back that they forgive their past bills, only to have the customer do it to them again. Next they go to satellite and pull the same job, then back to FIOS. It's a vicious cycle

Bruce Comcast will fix most any thing if it is with their wiring or splitters, or equipment no charge, the problem is most customers install their own wiring and splitters and most have no idea what they are doing. Believe it or not there is a method to the madness with cable wiring. Half of the troubles are caused by the customers themselves by doing this. I have seen so many things in my 22 years of doing this I could write a book. We have seen people take coax wire and tap off of street lights in front of the house to steal power, they are lucky no one got killed.

I guess I get pissed off when people act like they are doing us a favor so we shouldn't charge them. In some cases yes they shouldn't be charged, but plenty of time they should.

I am grumpy that is all. :grins:

We just had FiOS installed last week. The house is 120 years old, but fortunately, all the cable lines to the rooms terminate in the basement. The Verizon tech disconnected the Cluster Eff with 4 splitters that Comcast had created and replaced it with a single 1IN-6OUT splitter. According to the tech, there is 10db of headroom coming into the house from Verizon and the splitter drops 5db so there shouldn't be any drop in quality (who knows though). They also provided a free WiFi router that has been working as well as my Linksys. Oh and no charge for the 5 hour installation.

One of the things I really like about Fios is the direct pipeline to the house. We have the basic 15Mbs/5Mbs internet and that is what it will always be, regardless of how many of my neighbors switch to Verizon.

On the other hand, before I moved to where I am now we had Comcast and they "Upgraded our speeds to 30Mbs (or something like that) for free" according to them. I noticed a measurable decrease in internet speeds during the evening hours. Using websites like Speedtest.net - The Global Broadband Speed Test, we never came close to Comcast's advertised speeds but Verizon has been dead on.

I never liked Comcast. The service was spotty, we always had errors on our bill, a faulty router, 2 separate failed DVRs that deleted hours and hours of saved programs, charging us for the Set Top boxes and then charging for the remotes to operate the boxes. It was always one headache after another and rarely came with any kind of apology or compensation. Hopefully, that's just my experience and others haven't had to deal with that.

I agree. I use to know many of the tech guys in my area. Hung around with and played golf with them quite often. Things have changed drastically in your field in the last twenty years.