UNBELIEVABLE (This is a complaint)

[TMod1]

Bottom Line Up Front – Verizon made a mistake.  They don’t have the ethics/integrity to own up to it.  Now I am left to pay for their error.  A dishonest company and my worst experience with an Internet provider ever. 

It’s rare that I comment on my experience with a company, and when I do, it’s usually to relay some positive interaction I’ve had with them.  Unfortunately, after 16 years of service with Verizon, today I had a much different experience.  We had ordered a FIOS service upgrade scheduled to be completed today (29 JULY 2019).  We had originally scheduled it for last Friday, but when the technician came out, he said he did not want to drill through siding because it might break, which made sense.    He rescheduled us for today (29 JULY 2019) from 2 pm to 4 pm (see attached texts from Verizon.)  We paid to have the siding removed this morning and my wife stayed home from work to be available in case the technician showed up early.   My daughter who volunteers at the hospital where I work, agreed to stay 3 hours late and to catch a ride home with me.  This was because her mother/ my wife could not leave the house to pick her up as she was waiting for the Verizon technician.

The Verizon technician never showed today and never notified us they weren't coming.  When my wife called to find out why, we were told 4 different things.  First, the technician cancelled our service upgrade request because we didn’t have a hub box – that apparently was not true.  Second, we were told that our service upgrade request was cancelled because it was not upgradeable, again not the case.  Third, we were told the technician cancelled our service upgrade request because we weren’t home – this was untrue as my wife didn’t leave the house all day and two cars were always in the driveway.  Fourth, and just as insulting is that we were told that I had cancelled the service upgrade request on the 19th of July because I didn’t want a hole in my siding – another untruth, as I had left for a military drill that day and there are no calls showing to or from Verizon from my phone (Our phones are through Verizon wireless, so I speculate that someone there could verify that if they chose to.)  These were lies, I have the actual texts and emails from Verizon that prove their statements are false.

While on the phone with customer service trying to rectify this situation, we were told the soonest we could reschedule it would be 9 AUG 2019 and we would have to cancel our original order and order a “new package.” The “new package” was quoted at a higher price than the one that Verizon said we had had cancelled.  The ironic thing is my wife received texts (again - see attached) up through this week making sure that we would be here today.  This kind of negates 3 out of 4 of the previously mentioned excuses/ lies for not showing up today. 

My wife spoke to Verizon staff for roughly 3 and ½ hours (though she was on hold most of the time).  I spoke to them only for roughly 40 minutes because I was trying to tape a tarp to the side of my house where the siding was removed to allow for the installation.  This is because they are calling for rain and we had to cancel the company that was coming out to put it back up because we have to pay for them to take it off and to put it on. 

The first girl in customer service I spoke to, Jill, (here was the highlight) was very friendly and tried to help us.  She stated we could be scheduled for tomorrow, 30 JULY, however, in the end she could do no better than the AUG 9th date, even though it was not our fault this mistake occurred.  My wife eventually got on with a supervisor who said he would get on with sales to help us get set back up and to get us scheduled for tomorrow, but as soon as we were placed with someone to replace our order that supervisor was gone without so much as a goodbye.  We asked that young lady to speak with a supervisor again, she said something to the effect that a supervisor can’t do anything more than she is doing, and at that point I did raise my voice that we wanted to speak to a supervisor and not to her.  She placed us on hold and there we stayed until the business hours were over.

If one was to go back through the records to when we originally ordered the upgrade, we had been planning on going with a cheaper service.  A good salesman at Verizon convinced us not only to stay BUT to spend more money on the upgrade!   He convinced us that Verizon had the superior product and it would make sense to stay with Verizon.  My take home point after today’s experience is that a superior product means little without integrity and quality customer service to back it up.

While I know Verizon is a huge company and losing the business of one small family will not mean much, I still felt the need to write of our experience and to share it on the offshoot chance that someone else will read it, and find an ethical/honest company to use. 

Being a military member, who respects the opinion of other military members, I searched to see what other military experiences/ratings for Verizon were.  Funny enough the only high rating I found about Verizon and the military, was put out by Verizon!  LOL!  At least they think highly of themselves!  I really needed a laugh at this point, and this fit the bill!  I don’t know, perhaps they do provide some benefit to the military as an organization, but they provide horrible customer service to individual soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines.

Sorry this statement is so long.  I wanted to warn anyone else about the “service” they would be getting before they signed up with Verizon and writing down my terrible experience with Verizon also provided some catharsis as well.  In my experience Verizon could care less about the individual customer.  Why not?  They have millions of customers, why would they worry about one?

• Update – this morning (30 JULY 2019) we received an email from Verizon (see attached), cancelling the service last night at 6:16 pm. (The service that we had supposedly already cancelled).  

[LawrenceC]

Hi TMod,

Your issue has been escalated to a Verizon agent. Please check your Private Message Inbox for a message from Verizon_Support. You can find your Inbox by clicking on your username at the top right corner of this page. Please direct all correspondence concerning your issue to the agents who will be assisting you privately.