spokesNspin

On Wednesday I came home to find my Internet had been disconnected due to non-payment.  Interesting  given that I thought I was making the payments. I have paid every bill I received from Verizon. This would be laughable if it wasn’t so frustrating.

Yes I have the network.

See all those people who are supposedly supporting me?  I spoke with probably half of them before I got my problem resolved. 

Do you remember the fable about the blind men trying to describe an elephant?  That is what trying to get a problem resolved with Verizon is like.   Each customer service rep can only see a small part of the problem.  It was so aggravating.

I just about got to the point where I was going to say to hell with them and just get a new provider. I was thinking it would be faster.

This is what took place over the 3 days.

Day1:

I was routed to seven different people and given five different phone numbers to call.   I was routed to India twice and to two of the same people twice.

One of the people in India kept referring to me as ma’am.  And we had an atrocious time understanding each other.  I had to spell my last name four or five times before he got right.

The last person I spoke with on Wednesday said my account was indeed delinquent.  She couldn’t pull it up and explain the problem because I couldn’t give her the correct account number.  Pretty hard to do given that I have never actually received a hard copy Internet bill.

She said she would send me a bill and I could then call back.  Yes, I know very helpful.  I wait until I get a bill snail mail and then try to resolve it.

Day 2:

I went to the library and logged on to myverizon and got what I thought was my account #.  It was hard to tell if my Internet was actually on that bill.

I came home and started calling.  After almost an hour and 4 more people I ended up with Jessica.  Of course they don’t use their real names.  Jessica told me I was owing $229 and of that $169 was past due.  She told me I could pay up and have my account reactivated within four hours.  The problem is she couldn’t do that over the phone with a charge card.  Nope! I need to do it on line or via the telephone automated system.  Pretty hard to do since the account # seems to be in question.

She gave me the account number.   She then decided against having me pay online.  She said there seemed to be a land line associated with my account and she didn’t want me paying a bill and  it actually not going to the  correct place. She said she would activate my account as a “courtesy”.  She then gave me another phone number and told me I would need to call them the next day to resolve the problem.  She said to call first thing in the morning because she wasn’t sure how long my account would stay activated.

At least she was able to do something.

Day 3:

On day 3 I called and spent about 30 minutes with three different people and being disconnected once.  The second person was Ron and of course was in India.  He pulled up my account and gave me the number.  He said it showed active, no land line and the payments had been received right along.  He seemed to have the correct information as to when I started, when the payments were received, my account login etc.  He said they had received payments from my phone company yet I wasn’t on the one bill option.  He then gave me a number to call for one bill.

I called one bill and I think I am now set up.  But can you understand how I can be skeptical that anyone there really knows what is going on?

In the past I have been very happy with Verizon but now I don’t know.  But they are all the same.

Three days, 2 1/2 hours and 14 different people.  It is really astounding!