Verizon screwed me, again [telecom]

[Telecom Digest Moderator]

This is getting obscene. Verizon did it to me again.

As I wrote before, MegaPath abandoned service to my town while I was
on vacation. I got home to find that my DSL service had been
disconnected.

There is another part of the story: I have been using Google Voice for
my phone calls for a long time, because my son was running up
hundred-dollar-plus phone bills calling everyone he knows every
day. He assumed that I would pay the bill and do nothing - proof that
youth _is_ wasted on the young - but I placed "no toll" restrictions
on the line and relied on Google to make LD phone calls.

Of course, no Internet means no Google Voice, and my wife asked me to
resolve the situation so that she could use the phone. I called the
Verizon "Service" representative - I'll call her Anne - and asked to
have the restrictions removed. She told me it would happen within the
hour.

After that, Anne told me that there was a pending order to remove
Speakeasy DSL, and she sold me the second tier of Verizon's DSL
service, with a scheduled start date of 2/23.

Two hours later, at 4:30 PM on a Friday before a long weekend, the
toll restrictions were still there. I called Verizon's number
again. The man I spoke to said, again and again and again, that he
wouldn't "yes me to death" at the same time he was trying to "maybe"
me to death. He said the order to remove the toll restictions had been
created _after_ the DSl order, and that meant it had been due-dated
2/21, but that he would talk to the order bureau to try to get it
changed back to the date I had been guaranteed. The order bureau, he
told me, closes at Six PM: I suspect that was also the time when his
shift ended. The toll restrictions are still in place.

I know what happened: Anne was eager to lock in her commission for a
DSL sale before she left for whatever cave she calls home, so she
broke her promise, lied to me, and left the first thing I had asked
for as "last" on her to-do list. This is what passes for "service" from
Verizon now, and I urge all my readers to switch to other companies.

Feel free to mention my name.

[Steven]

Post by Telecom Digest Moderator
This is getting obscene. Verizon did it to me again.
As I wrote before, MegaPath abandoned service to my town while I was
on vacation. I got home to find that my DSL service had been
disconnected.
There is another part of the story: I have been using Google Voice for
my phone calls for a long time, because my son was running up
hundred-dollar-plus phone bills calling everyone he knows every
day. He assumed that I would pay the bill and do nothing - proof that
youth _is_ wasted on the young - but I placed "no toll" restrictions
on the line and relied on Google to make LD phone calls.
Of course, no Internet means no Google Voice, and my wife asked me to
resolve the situation so that she could use the phone. I called the
Verizon "Service" representative - I'll call her Anne - and asked to
have the restrictions removed. She told me it would happen within the
hour.
After that, Anne told me that there was a pending order to remove
Speakeasy DSL, and she sold me the second tier of Verizon's DSL
service, with a scheduled start date of 2/23.
Two hours later, at 4:30 PM on a Friday before a long weekend, the
toll restrictions were still there. I called Verizon's number
again. The man I spoke to said, again and again and again, that he
wouldn't "yes me to death" at the same time he was trying to "maybe"
me to death. He said the order to remove the toll restictions had been
created _after_ the DSl order, and that meant it had been due-dated
2/21, but that he would talk to the order bureau to try to get it
changed back to the date I had been guaranteed. The order bureau, he
told me, closes at Six PM: I suspect that was also the time when his
shift ended. The toll restrictions are still in place.
I know what happened: Anne was eager to lock in her commission for a
DSL sale before she left for whatever cave she calls home, so she
broke her promise, lied to me, and left the first thing I had asked
for as "last" on her to-do list. This is what passes for "service" from
Verizon now, and I urge all my readers to switch to other companies.
Feel free to mention my name.

Sounds like you are dealing with HellAtlantic. Some years ago I was
working a trouble ticket and had to call back east, I called a minute
too early for their normal call time and was hung up on. This was a
military circuit, so I passed it on to AT&T and that got it resolved,
but all those years it has left a sour test in my mouth.

Now that it is Verizon and I was GTE, at least most of the time old
GTE areas on the west coast you can get help, I'm not saying that
there are not problems, but I have never been treated badly.


***** Moderator's Note *****

I don't know where the call-taker was located, but I know she's a liar
and a discredit to her peers. I'm a "New England Telephone" customer,
since I live just South of Boston, Massachusetts.

BTW, does anyone know if the "Customer Service Representatives"
are/were unionized? Orders to use such shoddy and arrogant tactics
wouldn't be tolerated by any union employee I ever knew, so I suspect
the "Let them eat cake" attitude which I experienced is from a
non-union organization where the managers don't have any personal
pride or conscience, and where they can squeeze their subordinates into
deceiving customers, falsifying records, and giving lip-service to the
customer care standards that I grew up with.

Bill Horne
Moderator

[f***@and-this-too.mishmash.com]

Post by Steven
I don't know where the call-taker was located, but I know she's a liar
and a discredit to her peers. I'm a "New England Telephone" customer,
since I live just South of Boston, Massachusetts.
BTW, does anyone know if the "Customer Service Representatives"
are/were unionized? Orders to use such shoddy and arrogant tactics
wouldn't be tolerated by any union employee I ever knew, so I suspect
the "Let them eat cake" attitude which I experienced is from a
non-union organization where the managers don't have any personal
pride or conscience, and where they can squeeze their subordinates into
deceiving customers, falsifying records, and giving lip-service to the
customer care standards that I grew up with.
Bill Horne
Moderator

Bill,

It was my understanding that almost all Verizon people are unionized.



Fred

[Lisa or Jeff]

      It was my understanding that almost all Verizon people are unionized.

Actually, due to the many changes since Divesture, it's my
understanding that most Verizon (or any other telephone company)
employees are NOT unionized these days.

Likewise, due to changes most services are not regulated.

As someone mentioned, many of them are contractors, so they're not
even real employees.

I suspect people you may reach at any 'telephone company' these days
are on commission and under pressure to sell you additional
services.

I was surprised to learn that bank front end people--tellers, service
desk--are on commission and under pressure to sell banking products.
That shattered my impression of 'staid bankers'. They're hustling
like everyone else.

Regarding Bill's original problem, I've heard of stuff like that
happening with cable companies and other telephone companies.

Competition has not improved service, rather, it has lowered it.

[Jack Myers]

Lisa or Jeff <***@bbs.cpcn.com> wrote:

*Premise:*

Actually, due to the many changes since Divesture, ...
Likewise, ... most services are not regulated.

*Conclusion:*

Competition has not improved service, rather, it has lowered it.

Lisa or Jeff: This line of "reasoning" has emotional appeal,
but I don't buy it.

Bill: Speaking of competition, how many vendors did you identify who
could provide you with a static IP address at your residence address
and a MIR (=minimum information rate) at or above 128 kbps?
--
Jack Myers / Westminster, California, USA
This posting conforms in every respect to the official written
policies of my employer.



***** Moderator's Note *****

Jack,

I have only Comcast and Verizon as "Physical Layer" options(1): I
could have retained another company to sublet their wires for me, but
those are the actual carriers.

Static IP would be nice if I were still running a server, but it's not
essential, and I want a "MIR" of 1.5Mbps, so my choices boiled down to
Verizon twisted-pair or Comcast Co-ax, since Sharon, Massachusetts
hasn't been blessed by their majesty's award of FiOS yet.

Bill Horne
Moderator

1.) I rejected satellite out-of-hand because of the high latency. It
makes editing the Digest very difficult, since I use an "old
world" character interface via SSH to do it, and every character I
type has to make a round trip to and from the T-D server at
M.I.T. before I see it on my screen.

[Jack Myers]

Post by Steven
***** Moderator's Note *****
... I want a "MIR" of 1.5Mbps, so my choices boiled down to
Verizon twisted-pair or Comcast Co-ax

Most residential IP services are simply "best efforts" so there is no
defined MIR (nor guaranteed latency, for that matter.)

The point I was trying to make is that in most parts of the country
there is no competition at all, so it's disingenuous to attempt to
blame problems on competition. Ineffective state regulation and lack
of a level playing field for new entrants seem more to the point.

[Scott Dorsey]

Post by f***@and-this-too.mishmash.com
It was my understanding that almost all Verizon people are unionized.

Yes. But correspondingly, most Verizon customer service is not handled by
Verizon people.

It's interesting, if you call for FiOS support, you get one out of (I think)
three US tech support facilities. The Hampton one seems to be the best of
the set. These people are generally clueful in all of the centers, and it
is a relatively easy matter to escalate a difficult problem. These people are
all union.

If you call for Verizon ADSL support, you get to talk to someone in India who
has no idea what they are talking about and is very unwilling to escalate the
call to a clueful person. None of these people are union.

I don't know about the POTS support but I would imagine that again
Verizon goes out of their way to shave costs on the service. And that almost
certainly means contracting it out to clueless bozos.
--scott

[David Lesher]

Post by Scott Dorsey
It's interesting, if you call for FiOS support, you get one out of (I think)
three US tech support facilities.

...

Post by Scott Dorsey
If you call for Verizon ADSL support, you get to talk to someone in India who

...

Post by Scott Dorsey
I don't know about the POTS support but I would imagine that again
Verizon goes out of their way to shave costs on the service. And that almost
certainly means contracting it out to clueless bozos.

Hint: Watson, or his sidekick. It's easier to reach the governor
of Wisconsin than a human at Verizontal Repair.

[Steven]

Sounds like you are dealing with HellAtlantic. Some years ago I was
working a trouble ticket and had to call back east, I called a minute
too early for their normal call time and was hung up on. This was a
military circuit, so I passed it on to AT&T and that got it resolved,
but all those years it has left a sour test in my mouth.
Now that it is Verizon and I was GTE, at least most of the time old
GTE areas on the west coast you can get help, I'm not saying that
there are not problems, but I have never been treated badly.
***** Moderator's Note *****
I don't know where the call-taker was located, but I know she's a liar
and a discredit to her peers. I'm a "New England Telephone" customer,
since I live just South of Boston, Massachusetts.
BTW, does anyone know if the "Customer Service Representatives"
are/were unionized? Orders to use such shoddy and arrogant tactics
wouldn't be tolerated by any union employee I ever knew, so I suspect
the "Let them eat cake" attitude which I experienced is from a
non-union organization where the managers don't have any personal
pride or conscience, and where they can squeeze their subordinates into
deceiving customers, falsifying records, and giving lip-service to the
customer care standards that I grew up with.
Bill Horne
Moderator

The Service reps if the are company employees are unionized, but Verizon
has a lot of contractors working for them, and that includes me, but I'm
a Lifetime CWA member and retired. No matter which company I worked for
I'm treated as employee.

As I had said, the way I was treated with that trouble ticket and at
that time I'm sure they were union.

[Doug McIntyre]

Post by Steven
I don't know where the call-taker was located, but I know she's a liar
and a discredit to her peers. I'm a "New England Telephone" customer,
since I live just South of Boston, Massachusetts.

All the telco's frontline CSRs are now lowest common denominator type
positions, with less and less training daily. Much like frontline CSRs
for any industry. Ie. typical ISP frontline support is reboot your
computer and call back. Repeat 4-5 times and you might be able to get
past square 1.

Post by Steven
BTW, does anyone know if the "Customer Service Representatives"
are/were unionized? Orders to use such shoddy and arrogant tactics
wouldn't be tolerated by any union employee I ever knew, so I suspect
the "Let them eat cake" attitude which I experienced is from a
non-union organization where the managers don't have any personal
pride or conscience, and where they can squeeze their subordinates into
deceiving customers, falsifying records, and giving lip-service to the
customer care standards that I grew up with.

Most frontline ones are not. The only unionized CSRs I've dealt with
are usually the high-level back-end support types. Problem managers,
sales support, order writers. etc. Frontline sales/support are all not.

[Lisa or Jeff]

On Feb 20, 11:11 am, Telecom Digest Moderator

Post by Telecom Digest Moderator
Two hours later, at 4:30 PM on a Friday before a long weekend, the
toll restrictions were still there. I called Verizon's number
again. The man I spoke to said, again and again and again, that he
wouldn't "yes me to death" at the same time he was trying to "maybe"
me to death. He said the order to remove the toll restictions had been
created _after_ the DSl order, and that meant it had been due-dated
2/21, but that he would talk to the order bureau to try to get it
changed back to the date I had been guaranteed. The order bureau, he
told me, closes at Six PM: I suspect that was also the time when his
shift ended. The toll restrictions are still in place.

Follow up...

. Was your request ever processed?

. Did you speak to any managers or supervisors about the foul up, and
if so, what did they tell you? Sometimes they'll give you a big
discount for future service as an apology.

***** Moderator's Note *****

Nothing has changed. The restrictions were never removed. I just
hanged up the phone after talking to yet another minion, who told me
that his supervisors were all "in meetings" and that it would be
finished by midnight tonight.

I'm going to write a snail-mail letter to the Massachusetts Office of
Consumer Affairs & Business Regulation's Department of
Telecommunications and Cable: what used to be called the PUC when
utilities made a pretense of actually serving the public. I've done it
before, and it produces quick results: it's sad how Verizon only pays
attention to people with real, demonstrable power.

Bill Horne
Moderator

[Gary]

***** Moderator's Note *****

Post by Lisa or Jeff
Nothing has changed. The restrictions were never removed. I just
hanged up the phone after talking to yet another minion, who told me
that his supervisors were all "in meetings" and that it would be
finished by midnight tonight.
I'm going to write a snail-mail letter to the Massachusetts Office of
Consumer Affairs & Business Regulation's Department of

Over in DSL reports, there is information about the Verizon "Chronic
Trouble" (a.k.a. "Presidential Appeals") phone number: [phone].

http://www.dslreports.com/faq/7551

Information about it was also posted on alt.online-service.verizon (see the
thread "Verizon presidential dispute?" started on 1/11/11.) I've no 1st
hand experience with this number. I've seen reports that it gets fast
results. It is described as being for the old Bell Atlantic territory, but
it still might be worth a try for you.

Good luck,

-Gary

***** Moderator's Note *****

I dealt with the "Presidential Appeals" staff fairly often when I was
a technician at N.E.T.; if I do say so myself, I was fairly good at
solving unusual troubles.

The only thing I remember was that I always felt like I was dealing
with another world: a place where all they wanted was to solve a
problem and keep a customer happy. It always seemed like someplace I
could seen in a vacation brochure, but never visit, and it saddened
me.

In this case, though, I'll stick with the Commonwealth's process: I
want someone to keep a record.

Bill Horne
Moderator

[Sam Spade]

Post by Lisa or Jeff
I'm going to write a snail-mail letter to the Massachusetts Office of
Consumer Affairs & Business Regulation's Department of
Telecommunications and Cable: what used to be called the PUC when
utilities made a pretense of actually serving the public. I've done it
before, and it produces quick results: it's sad how Verizon only pays
attention to people with real, demonstrable power.
Bill Horne
Moderator

I proceeding through a formal complaint against Cox Communications and
AT&T over the failure to honor my Caller ID privacy flag. California
makes it relatively easy for reasonably educated consumer to file a
formal complaint without having to have an attorney. And, it's free, to
boot.

The law in California is quite clear:

2893. (a) The commission shall, by rule or order, require that
every telephone call identification service offered in this state by
a telephone corporation, or by any other person or corporation that
makes use of the facilities of a telephone corporation, shall allow a
caller to withhold display of the caller's telephone number, on an
individual basis, from the telephone instrument of the individual
receiving the telephone call placed by the caller. However a caller
shall not be allowed to withhold the display of the caller's business
telephone number when that number is being used for telemarketing
purposes.

This is the state legislature speaking, not just the PUC.

[f***@and-this-too.mishmash.com]

Post by Sam Spade

Post by Lisa or Jeff
I'm going to write a snail-mail letter to the Massachusetts Office of
Consumer Affairs & Business Regulation's Department of
Telecommunications and Cable: what used to be called the PUC when
utilities made a pretense of actually serving the public. I've done it
before, and it produces quick results: it's sad how Verizon only pays
attention to people with real, demonstrable power.
Bill Horne
Moderator

I proceeding through a formal complaint against Cox Communications and
AT&T over the failure to honor my Caller ID privacy flag. California
makes it relatively easy for reasonably educated consumer to file a
formal complaint without having to have an attorney. And, it's free, to
boot.
2893. (a) The commission shall, by rule or order, require that
every telephone call identification service offered in this state by
a telephone corporation, or by any other person or corporation that
makes use of the facilities of a telephone corporation, shall allow a
caller to withhold display of the caller's telephone number, on an
individual basis, from the telephone instrument of the individual
receiving the telephone call placed by the caller. However a caller
shall not be allowed to withhold the display of the caller's business
telephone number when that number is being used for telemarketing
purposes.
This is the state legislature speaking, not just the PUC.

In this state (New Mexico), I was told that to file a complaint with the
PUC required getting an attorney involved. Of course, that's when we had
the lame Governor Richardson in office. Now that we have Susanna Martinez
(Republican and a trim the fat approach to state government), I wonder if
that might have changed.

I've dealt with PSCs in different states. I've involved the MD, NC, SC,
and GA PSCs in disputes I've had with the telephone companies in their
states [for my own personal telephone service]. And I've involved HI, OK,
and a few others in my dealings with telephone companies on behalf of one
of my employers from years back. In all of these proceedings, I always
got satisfactory or better results. Never did I have to involve an
attorney.

I think it is sad that I've had to resort to this so many times. It says
a lot about the state of management of our telephone companies, doesn't
it?

I've heard some people say that divestiture made our phone system worse.
I don't agree. I was seeing the same kind of things before divestiture.
I don't think that there is really all that much difference.

It shocks me that economists are the high ranking people in the telephone
companies. The engineers should be near the top as well. After all, the
phone company wouldn't run without them.

***** Moderator's Note *****

I think there are _very_ few cases where a citizen _must_ hire a
lawyer to deal with his government: of course, most such claims really
mean "We're lazy and incompetent, so hire a lawyer to do all our work
for us." If anyone who works for the government told me I _had_ _to_
hire a lawyer to deal with them, I'd get really busy proving them
wrong.

It may be sad that "Ma Bell" only respects naked political power, but
it's also understandable and inevitable. Ma Bell is still a monopoly
for practical purposes, and with that status goes a legacy of
arrogance and callousness that expresses itself in racism, cruelty,
viciousness, and let-them-eat-cake hauteur.

I was part of it; I ought to know.

Bill Horne
Moderator

[f***@and-this-too.mishmash.com]

Post by Steven
***** Moderator's Note *****
I think there are _very_ few cases where a citizen _must_ hire a
lawyer to deal with his government: of course, most such claims really
mean "We're lazy and incompetent, so hire a lawyer to do all our work
for us." If anyone who works for the government told me I _had_ _to_
hire a lawyer to deal with them, I'd get really busy proving them
wrong.
It may be sad that "Ma Bell" only respects naked political power, but
it's also understandable and inevitable. Ma Bell is still a monopoly
for practical purposes, and with that status goes a legacy of
arrogance and callousness that expresses itself in racism, cruelty,
viciousness, and let-them-eat-cake hauteur.
I was part of it; I ought to know.
Bill Horne
Moderator

Bill,

I was briefly part of it. I worked a temporary job for Ma Bell.
When MCI made me an offer, I was gone. And I worked for them for
seven years, six of which I did work at MCI Central Offices.

I dealt with a number of Ma Bell companies. Some of the folks were
great to work with. Others had an attitude about working with MCI.
I heard about some who actually told a few MCI people that they would
not work with anyone from MCI and handed their call over to someone
else.

I worked for SkyTel for eight years. I really believed they hired me
because of my experience in battling with the telcos. I used to
solve problems no one else could (I even resolved some problems by
telling some telco technicians how to troubleshoot them when they
kept insisting that there was nothing wrong with the circuit(s)
involved).

I taught my colleagues about escalation and when to resort to calling
a state PSC for a resolution. I don't remember that we ever went
above a second level escalation to get a problem resolved on a
trouble ticket. That excluded the times that the telcos would not
allow us to escalate (yes, you heard right. They wouldn't let us
speak to first or second level).

Once, I had to call the vice president of the RBOC. We were turning
up our paging service on our second paging channel. That RBOC gave
us a single POC for all orders in their service areas. We gave them
a list of what we needed six months in advance of when we had to have
them and they assured us that they'd all be installed by then.

Our regional manager called them a month before their deadline and
asked for status. Two had been installed. All of the others did not
even had service orders written. At that point, they handed
responsibility for this over to me.

Little progress was made. I was requiring them to give me daily
status updates. After a few days with unsatisfactory progress, I
tried to call them. No matter which one in their office (the
supervisor or any of her worker bees) I called, I got their voice
mail. So I pressed zero and got the operator's voice mail.

I called the RBOCs corporate headquarters and was handed over to the
executive assistant to their vice president. When I told her what
the problem was, she assured me she would take care of it
immediately. And she kept her promise, too.

Within an hour, I received a call from that supervisor who was
freaking out because of the call from her vice president's office.
She asked me not to do that. I told her that I wouldn't have called
if I was seeing acceptable progress, which I so far was not seeing.

Things started happening. Circuits went from service orders to being
fully installed within a week. When the deadline came (the deadline
that had been placed upon us by our BOD), not one circuit was late.

I got a very nice call from the regional manager that I had handled
this for. He thanked me (you had to know him, he didn't say thank
you very often. In fact, that's the only time I remember him
thanking anyone) for getting it resolved. He really thought we were
going to miss the deadline. I'm glad I was able to prove him wrong.

Yes, I've smashed heads with telcos many times. But if you know the
escalation procedures and the ins and outs of how telcos do things,
you can generally work it through to a resolution in a short time.

Regards,




Fred Atkinson

***** Moderator's Note *****

Yes, I know _that_ drill, only too well, although I was usually on the
receiving end (no pun intended).

The question, though, is "Why"?

I once working with a phone company tech who took a second job as a
phone tech at a large insurance company. This was forbidden by Ma
Bell, but he had some problems at home that required quick cash and he
had no choice.

I talked to him after he'd gotten the money he needed and quit the
job, and asked him how he had felt, dealing with us from the
outside. He just shook his head, and said "We're so arrogant ...", and
left it at that.

Bill Horne
Moderator

[David Kaye]

Post by Telecom Digest Moderator
This is getting obscene. Verizon did it to me again.

Just a reminder that this is Verizon (the former GTE et al) and not Verizon
Wireless, a different (and more competent) company.

***** Moderator's Note *****

Verizon is the former NYNEX/Bell Titanic merger, and it picked up GTE
etc. after that.

I can't speak about Verizon Wireless' competence, since I haven't been
their customer for many years, but at the time I changed to another
cellular company, their rates were exorbitant. Sorry, but I don't feel
like I should give them a pass on competence when they handed the
market over to Cingular by gouging their customers.

Bill Horne
Moderator

[Mark Smith]

-- Sent from my Palm Pre

Post by David Kaye

Post by Telecom Digest Moderator
This is getting obscene. Verizon did it to me again.

Just a reminder that this is Verizon (the former GTE et al) and not Verizon
Wireless, a different (and more competent) company.
***** Moderator's Note *****
Verizon is the former NYNEX/Bell Titanic merger, and it picked up GTE
etc. after that.
I can't speak about Verizon Wireless' competence, since I haven't been
their customer for many years, but at the time I changed to another
cellular company, their rates were exorbitant. Sorry, but I don't feel
like I should give them a pass on competence when they handed the
market over to Cingular by gouging their customers.

My recent experience with Verizon in Maryland is little better. I used
my girlfriend's land line to get to service. I had transferred my land
line to Consumer Cellular after a year of bad service. Verizon told me
three times that the service had been terminated. I got an email the
next day from CC that Verizon had finally transferred the number. If I
hadn't called I wonder if it would have been even longer. And when did
they start making you dial through mail hell on an operator call. At
least Fire Police are top menu. The problem with the cell phone was
that I could call but incoming calls got busy (the problem with my
land line.)

Mark