I suppose I should just take a minute to clarify the situation that has been going on here for the past few months. Most of the representatives at Verizon with whom I have spoken were very cordial and seemed very willing to help. Unfortunately, none of them were able to help because their billing system is fundamentally flawed.
It is based on the mistaken premise that anyone who has FiOS service will also have phone service from Verizon. This basic design flaw will cause endless frustration for those of you wanting to get FiOS service but do not have phone service from Verizon; more specifically, land line service, probably even to the FiOS service address. Any time you call, you will be asked for your phone number. They will insist on it, even if you tell them it will not help. It won't! You will be stuck on the phone with them as they ask for your address, name, anything but account number (if you are lucky enough to have received a printed bill). And, under no circumstances, separate your TV and InterNet bills for business purposes. This will cause you to be transferred at least 4-5 times back and forth to the same departments anytime you call.
My recommendation is that if you do not have a land line provided by Verizon, do not bother with FiOS. You will be putting in countless hours any time you need to call for tech support, billing, or any other form of customer service. Maybe you will even be as lucky as I was and have your service on your account, which is paid in full because it is billed to your credit card, disconnected without any notice or explanation.
Monday, September 29, 2008
Billed me without sending a bill...
9/29 9:00am- 800-688-2880 - voicemail hell as usual. virtually impossible to get to a human in under 10 min. Usual problems finding account information with my phone number. She has to transfer me to payment department. Lxxxa - will transfer me to billing department. Mxxt - still NOT billing. Says he cannot help me and I should be talking to billing. Lost temper and said I wanted to cancel everything. Cancellation department is transerring me to financial services. Jxx - financial services. Needed ssn to look up all billing. He has to transfer me to FiOS separate billing department. Now have two more phone numbers. Faxed the collections bill to 877-875-8858
9/29 - 10:52am - No response to fax, so calling again 888-338-9333. usual VM hell. On hold for 25 minutes. I will try calling back. 11:15 am - called 888-338-9333. Usual useless voice navigation so I chose the "wait for associate" option. Nxxxx? Cannot really understand due to her heavy accent. Problems locating account, as usual. Put me on hold twice to try and locate it. She is struggling to look through "all of the accounts" in my name to find any that have an outstanding balance. On hold again. Says there is some account that I supposedly owe money on. She will transfer me to billing (ugh). Another account number (internal) that is a listed as an "internet account although it is a tv account". Pretty #()@&% confusing! Transferred to billing and gave Kxxxa the "internal account number". She is struggling to figure out what is going on. She is now checking "one other system". Apparently, this goes back to March when my service was disconnected for no reason. This amount is supposedly the final bill for the canceled account, which I never received. When they arbitrarily canceled my account in March, they set up new accounts instead of figuring out what/why the account was disconnected. She says she will refund me the money, but she cannot adjust the old account. She will credit my live account. I have to pay the collections agency. For credit report, she suggests contacting a credit reporting agency to get a dispute form. She says this credit will be on my November bill. InterNet account number accesses both accounts with all of the notes about this conversation.
This is pretty messed up. Still, nobody can explain how my account, which was in good standing and never late, was canceled back in March to cause all of this headache.
Comcast - 1-877-870-4310 - http://www.comcast.com. Looks like I will be going back...they NEVER caused me this much greif. Plus, for 59.95, I can get business class internet that does not have monthly bw limits or restrictions on running a web server.
9/29 - 10:52am - No response to fax, so calling again 888-338-9333. usual VM hell. On hold for 25 minutes. I will try calling back. 11:15 am - called 888-338-9333. Usual useless voice navigation so I chose the "wait for associate" option. Nxxxx? Cannot really understand due to her heavy accent. Problems locating account, as usual. Put me on hold twice to try and locate it. She is struggling to look through "all of the accounts" in my name to find any that have an outstanding balance. On hold again. Says there is some account that I supposedly owe money on. She will transfer me to billing (ugh). Another account number (internal) that is a listed as an "internet account although it is a tv account". Pretty #()@&% confusing! Transferred to billing and gave Kxxxa the "internal account number". She is struggling to figure out what is going on. She is now checking "one other system". Apparently, this goes back to March when my service was disconnected for no reason. This amount is supposedly the final bill for the canceled account, which I never received. When they arbitrarily canceled my account in March, they set up new accounts instead of figuring out what/why the account was disconnected. She says she will refund me the money, but she cannot adjust the old account. She will credit my live account. I have to pay the collections agency. For credit report, she suggests contacting a credit reporting agency to get a dispute form. She says this credit will be on my November bill. InterNet account number accesses both accounts with all of the notes about this conversation.
This is pretty messed up. Still, nobody can explain how my account, which was in good standing and never late, was canceled back in March to cause all of this headache.
Comcast - 1-877-870-4310 - http://www.comcast.com. Looks like I will be going back...they NEVER caused me this much greif. Plus, for 59.95, I can get business class internet that does not have monthly bw limits or restrictions on running a web server.
Sunday, September 28, 2008
I thought this was over months ago...
I really wish they would get their #)(&#% together! I have just received a notice from a collection agency. Apparently I was turned into collections. However, my most recent bills (InterNet and TV are billed separately) indicate that my accounts are current. The account number referenced on the collections notice is a number I have never seen before, but it has my name/address. This is really pissing me off. It is official: Verizon is the new Comcast! I can take all of the, what now seem relatively minor, issues I had with Comcast and emphatically say that they never jerked me around as badly as Verizon.
Now I will have to invest more time to find out where this phantom charge stems from, and worst of all, probably have to invest days worth of time correcting erroneous items on my credit report.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)