FiOS TV Technical Assistance

[#1]

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prisaz wrote:
I have long considered a TIVO but don't want to pay for the truck roll, which I along with many thing is dumb. Has anyone tried to get the cards installed at the Verizon store, by bringing their TIVO to the store. Seems like to me it should be an option that will let Verizon verify the serial number and device they are installed into. I know Verizon is busy enough and should let this appen to save service calls.

Message Edited by prisaz on 02-26-2009 02:01 AM

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There is no charge for a cablecard install truck rool. When I had mine, I was told there is not even a way to bill it if they wanted to. 

[#2]

I am in NJ and was told by a tech who was at my home today (phone service) as well as fios phone tech support that M cards are available.  I was also told that they would not need to do a truck roll and that i just needed to ask the orders department for a swap.  I was transferred to that department and they insisted that they could not do this.  They didn't know what the m card was, of course.  But then they got tech support on the phone again and this person claimed that NJ has never ever had M cards and they did not know if they would ever get them.  I told them that S cards were no longer made and they said that they guessed they would eventually get them one day then.  He was adamant that if I ordered a card, it would wind up being the s card that arrives.  

[#3]

Verizon has now standardized on M-CARDs.  You won't find a Verizon installer with S-CARDs unless they just removed them from another customer's home.

[#4]

any suggestions as to how to get them to realize this and let me place an order to swap them??  they are not very easy to deal with in general but they were especially difficult on this issue despite the fact that an installer in my home told me they have them as did the tech support guy.  The last tech support guy said he needed to look into who these people are and would personally educate them about verizon.  he had quite the attitude.   

[#5]

What I did I called them up and told them I wanted to replace my cablecards. If they ask why tell them they now have the multi-cards, and you want to get rid of the s-card.

[#6]

that's exactly what I did after speaking with the other techs.  they even told me what to say.  But the customer service person got this tech guy on the phone who basically yelled at me and told me I was wrong.  I guess I will keep trying until I get someone that understands.   Once I mentioned multi- stream cards to the woman at the orders department, it all fell apart.  To her credit, she did try to figure it out but the tech support people got in the way.

[#7]

You can just tell them "Because I want them changed." remember you are the customer, and if anyone yells at you again, ask for their name, employee number, and to speak with they supervisor.

[#8]

I just got off of the phone with support - I had a great experience with them on several problems with my account (after a previous bad experience....).

When it came to the M vs S card talk, the support person didn't know so she asked around and I said it was for a TiVo (tivo hd) and she said that the standard is to send out two cards.  She didn't know about M or S but put a note on the account for the tech that I wanted an M card.

Bottom line, try that approach - to have a note put on for the tech doing the truck roll.  I need to finalize this tomorrow as other account changes need to be put into affect before the cable card order but I'll let you know how it ends up...

[#9]

I have to say that getting a cable card of any kind is still quite a process at Werizon. Let me tell you my experiences so far:

1. Just got a Moxi DVR from Digeo; after fussing with the in-the-clear QAM to verify things were working, I decided to get a cable card for the DVR. I've already got 2 other Verizon provided Motorola 6416 HD DVRs, as well as the 6200 and 2500 boxes in my home
2. Can't order the cable card online, so gave a call to the FiOS 888-553-1555 number, and after a bit, I talked to a rep who said a card could be sent out or I could pick one up at the local office. After confirming the location of the nearest office a few miles away, I got my order number, and drove out to the Verizon Plus store.
   
3. At the store: no cable cards; never had them, probably never will. I asked the store rep to call their internal FiOS contacts to arrange for a card to be sent. This took quite a while, so I left and asked them to call me later when they had everything taken care of. They gave me a confirmation number and the next day, called to confirm everything. This was this past Wednesday and thursday. Card should arrive on Tuesday, 5/26
4. Today, Sunday, I get an automated call from Verizon confirming an appt for 8am-5pm on Tuesday for Verizon to come out and install FiOS. I already have it, and I don't need the 4-6 hours they said to reserve for the installer to complete the work.
5. So...I called the tech line again to see what was going on. They saw minimal detail on their computer screen for the order, so the tech was not sure what was actually going on. I asked that he place some notes in the call record. He also said that billing could probably sort this out, but they were closed for the holiday weekend.
6. I work from home, so it will be interesting to see what happens on Tuesday. I'll be sure to post a follow-up.

Can anyone comment as to why it is so difficult to get a cable-card? And why the overall order system/tech support/online order tracking is so sparse with information?

Thanks for any replies or comments.

Mike

[#10]

It is difficult for them, because it is not something that many of them deal with on a daily or even monthly basis.... Because of it being different, assumtions, that it will be the same as the normal stuff, are made....

Think about it like this..... There is a closet with 100 little drawers... Somone else arranged everything in these drawers but none of them are marked.... In order to do your job, everyday, you use the same 5 drawers and those 5 always have the things you need and after a while you don't even have to look at the drawers, you just know which one has what you need for that particular job... then one day someone needs a cable card... you don't know what that is, so you ask and someone that has heard of one of those, says "its in one of the drawers".... or maybe someone says "it not in the drawer, its at the store".... or maybe they dont say and they just run in the closet real quick and come back with one..... either way, you still don't know what it is, and you don't hear about one again for months...

All of the Verizon employees have access to information about or have been notified about cable cards.... most of them just did not reatain the information for whatever reason or another... with it not even being on the fios website (other than a brief overview buried in the support section) It is obviouly not a piece of hardware that is being pushed for sales and such...

Best of luck withe CableCard.