FiOS FARCE. Poor Verizon Customer Service.

[RSC838]

I am a new customer of Verizon. I moved over from the UK to NY and went for the FiOS double play TV (Extreme HD) and Internet (50/25) paying $155 p/m.  I was a UK customer of SKY.

Order confirmation was received 6/16/14.  Installation scheduled for 6/21/14 was missed by ourselves so no issues there.  rescheduled for 6/8/14.  Engineer arrived at 10:30am.  We were told installation would take about 4 hours!  I found this unbelievable as the apartment was already wired up for Internet and there was a CoAx connection already.  The engineer (Tom {edited for privacy}) then took c6 hours and at 430pm left our apartment with no Internet or cable connection.  He said there was an issue with the building cabling.  He was dawdling along all day, constantly spending time in and out of the apartment.  We had a whole day wasted.  Tom said that if everything was in order the job should have taken 1hour, so why on earth he said initially it would take 4hours was beyond me.

A new engineer came to our apartment on 6/30/14 and with a junior understudy, completed the full installation with both TV and Internet connected in 2 hours!  clearly it all depends on who you have completing the installation.

On 7/3/14 our FiOS TV was disconnected.  I contacted Verizon and an engineer arrived on 7/5/14...and guess who it was...the infamous Tom {edited for privacy}.  Again he could not find the fault, blamed the building and ongoing construction matters.  He promised that an engineer would be with us on 7/714 to look at the job (apparently to access to another apartment).  I was then called by Verizons automated dialler stating that my installation was completed and that my service was up and running, which it wasn't.  So I called verizon again to confirm my appointment for 7/7/14 to which I was told there no booking ever made!  Apparently the engineer closed off the job and marked it as completed.  So we were lied to by Verizon's engineer.  I have therefore called Verizon again (on hold every time for an average of 20mins) to arrange another engineer visit on 7/9/14.  

I asked the customer services rep on the call to ensure that the engineer notes are passed on to ensure that the engineers picks up from the last one left.  He said he would but that I should arrange access to parts of the building that may be required to complete the installation!  Shouldn't Verizon do this themselves in conjunction with the building?  I assume the building receives some kind of fee kick back for recommending Verizon to its tenants?  This is just poor customer service from the ground up.

The following points frustrate me massively: -

- Verizon customer services cannot call you back

- Verizon customer services cannot see the booking system of their OWN engineers.  A truly defunct system for a

teleCOMMUNICATIONS business.

- Verizon customer engineers cannot email you back to confirm booked appointments.

I raised a formal complaint with Verizon on 7/5/14 and I was promised a phone call at 18:30 on 7/7/14 to obtain a status update i.e. that my service was up and running, so it's pretty clear that I was scheduled to have an engineer appointment for 7/7/14.  

My overall Verizon experience has been extremely poor.  It compares terribly to UK customer service where the customer is always put first.  Apparently engineer visits are not scheduled for Sunday's unless its an emergency, well 3 weeks with no service is poor.  Maybe Verizon should down scale the size of their trucks and use the savings to employ more engineers to service their lifeblood....their customers!  Time Warner will most likely be contacted soon if my video is not up and running this week.  

A frustrated customer who most likely will not a customer in the not too distant future.

[Telcoguru]

We do not call them engineers we call them field technicians. It is not Verizon's issue to get access to the building it is the tenants issue to have the building management to provide the proper access. If nothing is wrong with the building wiring then you are either disconnected at the main hub or the building's aerial cabinet.