Skip to main content

Why I hate Verizon

I am not usually one to write gripes about a specific company. I gripe plenty, but I at least keep the names off the record. Forget that with Verizon. I have been SO annoyed by them that they deserve special mention.

I moved to DC. I need Internet. I can't get Comcast. So you know what I have as an option? Verizon. That's right. DSL, not FIOS. I order DSL. It takes a fucking week and a half for the "Service Ready Date". That's when they turn on my Internet access. Wow. Okay, so I wait. In the mean-time, I get the damn modem shipped to me. I get that delivered. They already charge me a bunch of shit as they said they would. Fine. You have to pay for these things. To be expected.

I finally get to my service ready day. February 15. Today is February 27. I start the installation. I do as the silly animation from the CD shows. Along the way, it gets stuck. So, I call DSL Support. They do a line test. They ask a bunch of basic troubleshooting questions. No luck. He transfers me to the repairs line because his line test shows the signal is not reaching my modem. Apparently, with a DSL only line, you will get an IVR (integrated voice response) if you plug in your phone into the wall. So, I waited. And waited. No one answers. The guy comes back and says he will try again. He tried and found someone. I explained the issue to the guy. No IVR on the line. He checked some records allegedly and said that it is a DSL only line, so talk to DSL Support. I said they transferred me over. He said it wasn't a line issue and to go to DSL Support. I hung up.

Called DSL Support up again. Got some female tech support person. She was nice enough, made me do the same things the previous DSL tech made me do. She then made me switch the cable ends (i.e. put the modem end into the wall and the wall end into the modem). Still no luck. Then she did line tests. More line tests. Nothing. She gave me a toll free number for the repairs line and told me to call them and ask for line repairs help.

Then I got busy and had things to do. A few days later, I call the repairs line. The repairs line asks for my number. The sweet enough sounding phone matron was looking up my info... she did and said I only have a DSL line so I need to call DSL support. The god-damned automated matron decided that I need to contact fucking DSL Support when they sent me to line repairs in the first place!

Frustrated, I called support and gave them the spiel again. This time (probably because I was sounding frustrated), the tech girl suggested I call the billing number and ask them to send a technician over. Finally, someone to come over and figure this out.

I called the billing people the next day (my phone went on the fritz too, another story). The surly girl there said that I should contact DSL support. I told her I did that already and they suggested calling the billing department. She said that they can send a technician over. I would have to pay $199 for it. The earliest date would be March 6. The time-frame would be from 9am to 5pm. I think at that point I wanted to break something.

It gets even better. I email them suggesting that what they suggested was unfair. That's what their "easy to fucking use" automated phone matron said. I get more emails back from their site based on keywords in my email. So, not only does it not read my email, it suggests crap to me. If it find the word installation, it sends me a link the the fucking installation site. Woo. Like I didn't know how to do that on google.

So, I have to pay $199 for someone to come over and fix an issue that I have no control over. And take a day off from work to be there when the technician shows up. In the meantime, I have no internet. Oh and i am paying for it already. Hooray. I hate Verizon. Hate them. I have no other choice I know of. I am sure any other fucking piece of shit broadband provider here will be just as evil. So there.

I used to think Shaw was evil. Shaw has nothing on these fuckers. Not only are the employees absolutely unsuited to help the average person with a complex issue(my best guess is that they hate their job and are not paid nearly enough to give a damn), but they are also rude and misinformed. Anyway. I had to write this from work. Because I have no DSL at home. Funny. Fucking Funny.

Comments

The guy came by, he fiddled around with the NIB and the multi-drop from the pole and viola, I have DSL! Its a little flaky (I lose VPN connectivity every so often), but it is amazing to have Internet connectivity at home.
Anonymous said…
I hate Verizon for their cell service...and business philosophy...and commercials...and everything else not mentioned. All I want is for my TomTom to be able to make a 30 second call every once in a while to check for traffic. Verizon disables this type of activity (tethered devices) so that you have to pay another $60 or more for broadband access. I don't care if it connects @ 9.6K, all I want is 30 fucking seconds every once in a while, not hours on hours of "blazing" internet access.

I found this page by typing "why i hate verizon" in google. Found a good 80 or more pages.

Popular posts from this blog

Strange is one way to put it

Life has been a bit strange of late. I've gone from being incredibly happy to depressingly sad. I don't quite have the answers to why that is and I am not really sure I care to find out. I almost feel like its easier to give up than try and work towards some worthwhile conclusion to the problem. I love going on vacation. I hate coming back from there. Generally, when I get back from vacation, I go through a period of adjustment that starts with the lack of sleep (because I am usually not in the same time zone as my vacation destination was), self-pity and loathing at the state I left my place in, in my hurry to get out of here. It progresses to outright hatred of having to go back to work and dealing with the routine in general. I resolve to find better things to do in life, learn more, improve myself, lose weight etc etc. And eventually, I end up no further than where I was, where I've been for over 2 years. I can find any number of reasons and excuses to make this someone...

Being Happy

I wonder why there is so much unhappiness in the world sometimes. I'm currently reading R. K. Narayan's Waiting for the Mahatma. The world the protagonist in the book lives in is a rather harsh one. And he seems to be quite unhappy. What makes one unhappy? Some days, I ask myself what the heck I am doing here. Maybe its because I have worked for the same person for 4 years and the same company for over 6. This was supposed to be a short-term job that would bring bigger and better things. I don't know what it has brought. I mean, I am doing better things. I am doing bigger things. But I don't know if it makes me happy any more. I don't wake up with the anticipation of hurrying to work to learn something new and make the world a better place. I don't know why. I suppose I have the ability to do that to a certain extent. Is it the lack of ambition?  Reading back to some of the earliest posts on this blog, I gave myself the task of being happy. Like it is somethi...

How to make a good thing go bad quickly in tech

I haven't written a work related post in what seems like ages. I am currently living through the aftermath of a third M&A in my career. The company I currently work for is in its third incarnation - from a small tech startup 15 or so years ago to something that was sold to a large software company - one of those lumbering giants that have their hands in all kinds of technology driven fields - where they invested sufficiently in it to grow it in its current location - to now finally being acquired by an even larger technology company - one that its hands in all kinds of technology fields.I came along post the second phase but I have seen 2 other US tech company acquisitions, one that made me quit fast and the other that took me around the world but made me leave anyway. The difference from the previous take-over of the current place and this one is stark. While there was a lot of churn up top in the previous acquisition and differences in what you paid for benefits etc, for...