Complaint Review: Verizon

Verizon did an excellent job chasing away loyal customers of 16 years. We moved to Manassas that long ago and GTE was the only phone company at the time, so we were stuck with it. Still, they did a very good job providing us with reliable phone service for many years until a certain incident. By the way, the names of the Verizon employees are all made up.

After Verizon took over, they still were fine for the most part. Comcast was the cable provider all these years and when Comcast offered internet, we were on a waitlist for years for it. When we got it, it was fine. When Verizon began offering DSL a few years ago, they needed to do something to the wiring in our neighborhood to make it accessible. This seemed like a good idea, as many of our neighbors had no cable and wanted fast internet and we even were considering replaced the Comcast internet.

So this one day, a Verizon truck drives up and the tech starts working. I walk by to get my mail and say a casual hello to him and I could tell by his response he didn't care about his job. And a few hours later, after he left, while talking to my grandparents on the phone, we hear voices. It didn't take long to realize that we could hear our neighbor's phone conversations and they could hear ours.

All 3 of the families living on the street at the time were having this issue. I told members of both families over the phone (and we never called each other when I told them this) that I'd take care of it. I call Verizon and a seemingly nice woman named Julia answers. I tell her about the issue and she apologized for the trouble and promised to send a tech out to fix the issue.

So we wait about 2 weeks and no one shows up. My neighbors start getting pissed, so I call Verizon back. Julia answers again and I tell her. She has no record of our previous call and it's around that time I remember it was her who I talked to earlier. I tell her this and her tone almost instantly changes. She tells me that all Verizon customer service reps are required to keep a record of all calls and she basically called me a liar. I ended the argument because I didn't want to fight with her and she told me that she would send out a tech.

So, a tech does come out while I was at work according to one of my neighbors. According to my neighbor, the tech was rude and just left after about 20 minutes of what looked like playing around with the wires. So I get home and he tells me this, but the phones are working, so we're happy.

The next night, I call a friend of mine and I hear the neighbor's daughter gossiping with her friends. I immediatley call Verizon and I get a woman named Becky this time. Becky tells me that the problem was fixed, but that she'll send another tech to make sure it was done right.

By now, we were all calling Verizon. In the course of about 2 monthes, probably at least one call was made to Verizon daily by a member of one of the three households. The second tech Becky promised never showed up over the course of these 2 monthes. Once day, about 2 monthes after my conversation with Becky, I got Julia again. I tell her the problem and I could tell she was agitated. She told me that she's talked to someone from our street everyday for the past week.

I told her that maybe if a tech would get out here, then maybe we wouldn't be so upset. She told me that the techs have a busy schedule and can't waste time with whiny customers like me. I tell her that she shouldn't talk like that about her company's customers and that set her off. She starts yelling crap about how the customers don't understand what they go through and really starts screaming. I try to calm her down, but she gets angrier.

Finally, she says something I'll never forget "Shut the f*** up, you dumb***. You're a f***ing bull**** liar. You shut the f**** up and listen to me now!" At this point, I lost it. The woman was lucky I wasn't there personally. I yelled at the top of my lungs "Why don't you shut the f*** and listen to your customers. You ever yell at me like that again and I'll see to it you're fired!" I heard her hang up at that point.

I was angry and called back. Some girl who's name I don't remember answered. I told her Julia hung up on me and she put me through the Brenda, the customer service supervisor on duty. I told her everything Julia did and she didn't care. I could tell she was sitting back, relaxing and chewing gum. She told me tha she didn't take kindly to lying customers and I didn't feel like talking to her anymore. I wanted to speak to someone higher up and she gave me the number of Mr. Miller, the guy in charge of customer service for Verizon in the area.

So I call this guy up and I can tell things will get better. He sounded committed to fixing the problem. He told me that the behavior of both Julia and Brenda was unacceptable and that they'd face the consequences of their actions. And better yet, he also would see to it that a tech would come the next day. I hung up with him happy.

And the next day, I called him back angry. The tech never showed up and apparantly, Mr. Miller's an idiot. He sent the tech to the wrong place. Anyway, this got me angrier, but a tech did show up the next day and fixed the problem.

Fast foward to about a year ago. Comcast starts offering Digital Voice just as Verizon offers Fios. We think about ditching the Verizon phone for Digital Voice or ditching Comcast TV and Internet for Fios and DSL. We ultimatly go with Verizon since we had some issues with Comcast more recently.

So I call Verizon and Julia answers. I know it's her after a few minutes and am astounded she didn't get fired. I didn't tell her and she actually seemed nice until she found out my address. She starts making comments like "You know the people who used to live on that street would keep calling and calling" frequently.

Finally I couldn't take her attitude and told her that I remember that and that I needed to call Mr. Miller himself to get a simple problem fixed. She starts complaining about some "motherf***er" who almost got her fired around that time. I ask her if she uses that language when talking to all the customers and that's when she got mad.

While she didn't yell, she started making me repeat stuff and telling me crap like the computer deleted my information and I had to repeat things like my name five or six times. It didn't take me long to realize she was messing with me. She told me that she just needed to confirm my order and I asked her when they could install it.

She told me "Let me ask the questions, a**wipe." I lost it now and didn't care about Verizon's service anymore. I said to her "I know you don't like me, but if you ever talk like that to me again, I will come down to that office and beat the sh** out of you." She got angrier and said "Talk to me like that again, and I'll drop you from service..." I interupted "Do it.

I'm sick of this company's customer service. Remove my phone service, Julia. I'll get Comcast Digital Voice." "Good, we're better off without f***ers like you." I hang up and call back to make sure I was canceled. I'm told that my phone service will cut off in a week. It is, I get my final bill which included a cancellation fee that I pay, and I get Digital Voice installed.

About a month later, I get a bill from Verizon. It include phone service for the time period since I cancelled. I call Verizon, thinking with my luck I'll be talking to Julia. Luckilly, a woman named Brianna answers. I tell her everything and she's very sympathetic. Apparantly, Julia never actually cancelled my account, she just charged me the fee. Brianna cancels it and apologizes for the way I was treated. I tell her that she was the first person to give a crap about me and she tells me that she just started working there and is already thinking of retirement after seeing some of the things her coworker did.

Now, I still recieve deals and other things in the mail from Verizon offering special deals. I ignore them all. My message to Verizon, should yo ever read this, is that I've recieved great service from GTE/Verizon all the way up to the phone line crossings. I still recieve great service from Comcast. When I had you, I was offered special deals from competitors, but I stuck with you thanks to your service.

Now you're on the other side. Unless Comcast starts treating me the way you did, there's no way cancelling them will be an option. If that should happen, for your sake I hope your Julia like employees are replaced by Briannas, becasue otherwise, I'll give one of those competitors a chance. Excluding Brianna, everyone from Verizon, from the tech support people to the customer service people to the supervisors like Miller were either extremely rude or unqualified.

Kevin
Manassas, Virginia
U.S.A.

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