So frustrated!! Account cancelled.But not by me??

[K-Man1]

Here's a good one and would frustrate any customer with Verizon. All my services were cancelled last night and when I called in to see what was going on Verizon said I had called and scheduled all services to be shut off!!! I was furious and repeated to each person (transfered over and over) that I did not cancel it and I was concerned how it happened. They just kept stating over and over again that I had called and cancelled and that is showed they had talked to me. I even told them why would I call back and jump through their automated hoops to reactivate if I had just cancelled. 

Even better, there is no real security check when you call other than your last name and phone number. When I called in to see what the problem was, not once was I asked for my account number, social or anything specific and unique as most reputable companies do. Anyone could have called and cancelled my account with Verizon's lack of security measures. I have a feeling that one of the great support crew members cancelled the wrong account by accident.

Our house alarm utilizes our land line to relay any problems or intrusions to the alarm company and now it is down until service is restored...when I told Verizon about that, they told me to contact my local authorities to have a police car do an extra drive by the area..ARE YOU KIDDING ME!!  

Now I have no cable, internet or phone service for two days as they have to reactivate my account. I am so frustrated with  Verizon and the way they are handling this situation. Now I wonder if I will be charged for any start up and additional fees for the new account? If anyone knows who I can contact and voice my frustration higher than the crew I have been dealing with at Verizon please let me know!!!! I think I am owed a prorated bill based on the two days of no service.

I think what would make one mad and made me mad....was the fact they kept stating over and over "it shows here you called and cancelled your services." That was all they had to explain what happened nothing else..So so ridiculous!!!! 

[K-Man1]

So last night I waited for the 9:00pm turn on per  the agent at Verizon (12am eastern all services are activated apparently)..and of course as I expected no service again. I had called in Wednesday morning and was told an order was pending....well dumb bell didn't check the order correctly...it was an order to have all my HD boxes returned...I got an email (via my iphone thank gosh I have it) stating the packing and call tags were on the way for me to return. GREAT!!! Now this has turned for the worse.

I called again this morning.......45 minutes of being transferred, lines dropped, agents stating I called NJ and needed the CA area agents and then transferred me and again disconnected. I explained my story to 5 different agents and when I was done they said "Oh you need the billing department" which ended up with usual transfer slash disconnection.

Finally I got the billing department!!! I explained my story for the 6th time...and the agent Crystal said let's take care of this for you. I spent 45 minutes with her as she rewrote the contract, cancelled the order to have the boxes returned, inputted all the serial numbers of the boxes to restart services on the 21st (then was going to make some calls to have the 21st date changed to todays), she matched my old account and services, applied new startup discounts, got HBO and Cinemax for free for 6 months, DVR free for 1 year, upgraded the internet connection, she walked me through the voicemail setup. I was shocked with the professionalism, knowledge and speed she had in taking care of this....talk about going above and beyond to get this fixed!!! She also made sure a passcode was installed to eliminate someone trying to shut the account down again. She also explained how it was shut down, the time it was requested to be turned off, what Verzion used to confirm the account and to make sure I have the pass code for future use.

Crystal also asked for my cell number in case we got disconnected (which no asked me before) and would someone be home to see if everything works? I explained we wouldn't be home until after 5:30pm, she then asked what was the earliest she could call me in the morning to verify everything worked!!!!!!!!!! I was shocked...call me? Check to see if it all is up and running??!!! WOW!!!!!  She also gave me a direct line if i needed to contact her....that number I am keeping for good and for future issues. We all **bleep** and complain at times...but we should also comment and give Kudos when someone steps up to the plate and takes charge....she was even more helpful than the supervisor I spoke to the first night!!!!! I told her my experiences with Verizon and thanked her over and over again!!! Can't wait to get home and watch TV finally!! Thanks Crystal.

[lasagna]

Yeah for Crystal!  and glad to hear you got your problem squared away.

You did mention something that's worth perhaps emphasizing since I had a situation one time with part of my provisioning for FiOS TV not be right.   The "billing" department seems to be where you want to end up if you have a provisioning type issue (i.e. I ordered this, but I'm not "subscribed" to it according to the STB, my service was cancelled, I'm getting HBO but can't get the HBO on-demand, etc.).  They seem to be the only ones who can change around the service settings related to your account.

I went round and round with the "unable to get VoD for a premium channel to which I was subscribed" issue with tech support and no one seemed to know how to fix it -- they wanted to send me a new box, reset the existing box, etc.   I finally got someone in tech support who had evidently crossed the problem previously and he knew to get me over to billing.  I was skeptical, but 10 minutes on the phone with a lady there and suddently my VoD was working properly -- someone had failed to provision VoD for the premium channel for me.-- oh, and for my trouble, 3 free months of HBO/Cinemax. 

YMMV, but if you get stuck in the tech support loop, sometimes trying billing instead may get you to the right person.