Verizon Fios Internet Support Makes Commitments and Drops the Ball, Twice...
RaceFaceXC
Newbie

I would like to preclude this thread with my Verizon experience up until now.  My wife and I have had Verizon wireless service contracts since 2008 and Verizon FiOS TV/Internet service since 12/2011 with no complaints as far as service or support.  In fact, until very recently service was very good and the little support we have required over the years has been excellent.

6/2/2014 - We had a Verizon fiber line relocated because of some other utility work being done on our property required digging in the area of the existing fiber line.  They reloacted it excatly where it was not supposed to be.

6/7/2014 - After a couple days of an ongoing and increasingly more inhibitive, sluggish internet connection I went to the Verizon online support and was directed to this page after answering some automated troubleshooting questions.  The optimization tool ran its course, stated that my connection was optimized, but no improvement was apparent.  Next, I reset my router.  After following the guide to reset the router, no improvement.  Went to the verizon.speedtest.net page to see what my actual connection speed was and found it to be about 13Mbps down and 8Mbps up.  I am paying for a 50down/25up plan. (I had previously tested my connection speeds to be 45-52mbps down and 25-31Mbps up on more than one occasion, when experiencing fast internet) 

I called FiOS support and after more troubleshooting over the phone and several remote attempts to diagnose/fix the problem by the service representitive, she concluded that the router was likely the issue and made arrangements to send a replacement router.  This was reasonable.  A couple days with slow internet, no big deal.  It just means our netflix and hulu are not in clear, smooth HD, and that the wife's field research and school would be on hold/slow for a couple days.

6/10/2014 - The package from verizon arrives, Hooray!  Our internet connection has gotten to the point of being unusable.  Our connection speeds have trickled down to 4Mbps down / <2Mbps up on speedtest.net, so I was looking forward to swapping out the router, but my excitement was short lived because the package from Verizon contained a AC power adapter and nothing else.  The power adapter was for a router that I do not even posses, at that!    I call Verizon FiOS Support again, wait on hold for a good 45+ minutes even though the automated system recognized that I had made a service call recently and when asked if this call was about the same issue, I confirmed that it was.  This time I talked to what seemed to be an eagar to help representitive, who realized quickly that I had been shipped an AC power adapter instead of a router.  She even finished my sentence when I was telling her what happened.  She put me on hold for a couple minutes and then came back and said she had found a replacement router that could be shipped overnight.  I was very surprised by this because it was almost 9pm eastern time. I figured that the router was coming from the west coast somewhere.  She put me on hold again breifly, to verify that the router could be shipped that night and arrive the next day.  She then came back to verify our shipping address and when I asked if someone would need to be present to sign for it, she put me on hold again to ask who I assumed to be the shipper or UPS and came back to confirm that no signiture would be required.  (Side Note: I also placed a service request for my FiOS fiber line to be relocated in my yard , AGAIN.  The initial install back in 2011 was part of an accelerated roll out of infastructure so the fiber line was installed "temporarily" above ground in some spots, as it was explained to me.  I was told that in the coming months the line would be relocated and thuroughly buried.  Fine by me.  Two years later it was never buried.  I called to have it relocated -see 6/2/2014 above- because another utility service would be digging on my property and needed the fiber line moved to the fenceline or close to the house. I made this very clear to the original service rep but the technitian relocated and buried the fiber cable directly down the center of my back yard... exactly the worst place it could be. So a second request for this fiber line to be reloacted was necessary.  I will be taking time off of work, away from my own business, to supervise this reloaction because I obviously need to be there to get it done correctly.)

OK, so they dropped the ball once on the router replacement and once on the fiber line and it was starting to hit home with personal business and the wife's research and school work. But, they were going to pull some strings and get a router here ASAP.  Fair enough.

6/11/2014 - I arrive home from work, my wife is using her mobile hotspot to upload schoolwork and I ask her if anything from UPS/Verizon came?  Nothing.  No delivery attempt tag on the door.  No package at the front door.  I call Verizon FiOS support again, I am asked if this call is about the same issue as the previous calls, I answer "yes" and I am placed on hold again for 30+ minutes.  After a service rep takes my call she says that she can not find any indication of a router being shipped the day before and that it was probably because the previous rep did not close the service "ticket" for the router before making one for the fiber line relocation and that bumped the router request, or something like that.  She then goes on to say that they do not overnight routers because they drop ship them and it takes a minimum 2 days.  So either someone blatenetly lied to me and went out of their way to make it seem real and legitimate or someone lied about what they would/could do. Or they are just too lazy or don't care.  She also says that they can send a router out with the tech that will be relocating our fiber cable for the second time, but that will be 4 days away.  When I ask if they can send a router out with whatever tech will be in my area on other customers service calls the next day, she says no.  She can not tell me why this is the case except that "it is not how they do router replacements".  How sending it with a tech that will already be in the area in 1 day or 4 days is any different, I have no idea and no one could tell me.  After asking to speak with a supervisor to try and get more info about what/why on all of these issues, I wait on hold for another 20 minutes, and Emanuelle, the floor supervisor, gives me the same explination without any reasoning to support it.  He does tell me that if I can be available between 9am and 9pm the next day, that he could make a request for a tech in my area to drop off a router, but the time at which he would drop it off would be completely up to the tech and that the tech may or may not give me a call/text before so I could meet him at my house.  Awesome.  Thanks for making an effort to help out the customer you have been screwing for the last few days.  So I ask if they could drop it off at my business, only 2 miles away from my residence.  The supervisor tells me, "No.  They only deliver to the service address."  Apparantly no exceptions are made in the case of a multi year customer who currently pays $200+/month and used to pay $360+/month.  So I agree to be avalible between 9am/9pm if they can give me a 15 minute call/text ahead and he says he will make a note for them to do so but could not guarantee anything.  Those arragements are made and Emanuelle says an email will be sent shortly pertaining to this service request.  20 minutes later I get a phone call back from Emanuelle, saying that he can not do both the service request for a router to be droppped off tomorrow by a tech in my area and keep my existing service request for the fiber line relocation 4 days from now.   Huh? Smiley Frustrated  Since I can not postpone my sewer/utility work that is already waiting on the fiber line to be moved I am forced to cancel the router drop off for tomorrow.  It sure smells like more than one person at Verizon is feeding me **bleep** but what can I do?  So now the wife and I are again using our mobile data for another day at least, at what will surely be a increased fee due to exceeding our contract data limit by the end of our billing cycle.  The local FiOS store closed in April, and the next closest is 1.5 hrs away in ideal traffic with limited hours.   

Looks like I am sending my employees home and closing up early tomorrow, taking time out of my business hours and driving 1.5 hrs on my time/gas to get a replacement router for a service that I already pay a premium for.  

/rant

Brad A

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Re: Verizon Fios Internet Support Makes Commitments and Drops the Ball, Twice...
jp8899
Enthusiast - Level 3

tell them if they want to get paid they need to send a tech out to pick up the check.

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