Sunday, February 11, 2007
Verizon Baits and tries to Switch
Verizon belongs in the Customer Service Hall of Shame. Or maybe its execs belong in jail . . . assuming using monopolistic market power coercively is illegal (IANAL) . . . for what happened to me yesterday.
Regular readers of isen.blog know that I have Verizon FIOS on one line, and Verizon DSL on a completely separate account on a second line. This is to preserve physical redundancy, as I laid out in my incredibly important (and unjustifiably unknown) essay, "Buy as Many Nines as You Need," the essay so ignored that BCR forgot to list it in its table of contents.
I got a bill insert offering DSL at $19.99 a month in my last Verizon phone bill. That very same phone bill charged me 37.95 for DSL. So I figured it'd be a simple matter to calling and switch to the lower price.
But when I got through to an agent, she transferred me to another agent whose only job was to upsell me to FIOS. When I told that agent I did not want FIOS, but simply wanted the $19.99 DSL, that agent, without a wasted word, transferred me to a third queue that announced, "We're sorry, all lines are full. Please hang up try your call again later." Click.
All lines are full??? We're the phone company and all lines are full.
In other words, Verizon under-provisioned its queue to deliberately discourage people in FIOS territory from ordering DSL service.
In other words, buy FIOS right now today, but for DSL you gotta go to Helen Wait.
I called again. This time I asked to *cancel* my DSL service. I learned I could only cancel my DSL service between 8:00 AM and 6:00 PM Monday through Friday. I told the agent I worked during those hours and reminded him this was a residential service request. The agent asked, "Would you mind waiting on hold?" Of course not, why else would I call Verizon. The post-transfer announcement said, "We're sorry, all lines are full. Please hang up try your call again later." Click.
Third call. My first words, "May I please speak to your supervisor." Wait . . . wait . . . wait . . . Mister Rosselli. Who explained that the agent that answered this call could indeed "downgrade" my DSL to the $19.99 flavor. After verifying that Mr. Rosselli was not going to transfer me to the, "All lines are full," queue, I agreed and Ms. Simmons did, indeed "downgrade" my service.
Time spent, about 1.5 hours. Verizon did everything it could to keep me on the high-priced plan or get me to buy an even more expensive spread. If I were jill-soccer-mom or joe-six-pack, I almost certainly would not have had the sticktuitiveness to stick to it. Call M-F, 8AM-6PM. Imagine a store clerk or a mechanic taking a half hour break to downgrade their DSL. Can you spell L.O.C.K.I.N.?
The $19.99 DSL bill insert was clearly the "bait" in Verizon's bait and switch plan. The fact that I got what I wanted on the third call . . . "One minute while we look up your account records" . . . was a thin beard indeed.
Regular readers of isen.blog know that I have Verizon FIOS on one line, and Verizon DSL on a completely separate account on a second line. This is to preserve physical redundancy, as I laid out in my incredibly important (and unjustifiably unknown) essay, "Buy as Many Nines as You Need," the essay so ignored that BCR forgot to list it in its table of contents.
I got a bill insert offering DSL at $19.99 a month in my last Verizon phone bill. That very same phone bill charged me 37.95 for DSL. So I figured it'd be a simple matter to calling and switch to the lower price.
But when I got through to an agent, she transferred me to another agent whose only job was to upsell me to FIOS. When I told that agent I did not want FIOS, but simply wanted the $19.99 DSL, that agent, without a wasted word, transferred me to a third queue that announced, "We're sorry, all lines are full. Please hang up try your call again later." Click.
All lines are full??? We're the phone company and all lines are full.
In other words, Verizon under-provisioned its queue to deliberately discourage people in FIOS territory from ordering DSL service.
In other words, buy FIOS right now today, but for DSL you gotta go to Helen Wait.
I called again. This time I asked to *cancel* my DSL service. I learned I could only cancel my DSL service between 8:00 AM and 6:00 PM Monday through Friday. I told the agent I worked during those hours and reminded him this was a residential service request. The agent asked, "Would you mind waiting on hold?" Of course not, why else would I call Verizon. The post-transfer announcement said, "We're sorry, all lines are full. Please hang up try your call again later." Click.
Third call. My first words, "May I please speak to your supervisor." Wait . . . wait . . . wait . . . Mister Rosselli. Who explained that the agent that answered this call could indeed "downgrade" my DSL to the $19.99 flavor. After verifying that Mr. Rosselli was not going to transfer me to the, "All lines are full," queue, I agreed and Ms. Simmons did, indeed "downgrade" my service.
Time spent, about 1.5 hours. Verizon did everything it could to keep me on the high-priced plan or get me to buy an even more expensive spread. If I were jill-soccer-mom or joe-six-pack, I almost certainly would not have had the sticktuitiveness to stick to it. Call M-F, 8AM-6PM. Imagine a store clerk or a mechanic taking a half hour break to downgrade their DSL. Can you spell L.O.C.K.I.N.?
The $19.99 DSL bill insert was clearly the "bait" in Verizon's bait and switch plan. The fact that I got what I wanted on the third call . . . "One minute while we look up your account records" . . . was a thin beard indeed.
Technorati Tags: Customer, DSL, FIOS, Verizon
Comments:
I was just searching to learn about blogs and decided to type in Verizon DSL and low and behold I found your blog. People need to know how Verizon works, according to "VERIZON PEOPLE". It seems nobody at Verizon wants to admit that they are part of Verizon DSL or even knows anything about this part of the company. There is no telephone number to call to get connected to someone in the USA who speaks English and knows how various name brand computers relate to Verizon DSL. You get an 800 number that connects you mostly to foreign countries. You can hang up and recall over & over and you probably won't ever get someone from the USA. One time I did get an English speaking person but from Canada and he didn't seem to know the config setup. We have DSL wireless on 3 computers & had numerous problems. I woke up Friday AM to find I couldn't connect to the internet from my laptop but the desktops were connecting. I didn't get a chance to call Verizon until about 3:30PM EST (when Ellen was on) and I didn't get the problem resolved until 8:00PM EST.(I SWEAR NO LIE I was on the phone for every minute. I actually lost it and broke down crying at one point to someone from Verizon Long Distance. I was told along the way that they were the same company as DSL but he said no they were not.) I was on the phone with Verizon until about 6:30PM & then another company who sends you to foreign countries is DELL, from 6:30 until 8:00. Guess what the problem was, Dell ended up going into Verizons site and changing the channel number it was set to. It should of originally taken only about 30 mins. if that. So whose fault was it ???????????? Nobody is owning up. I'm sooooo fed up with Verizon, Dell, HP and all these other companies that don't offer Americans a number to speak to experienced techs in the USA.
# posted by 
: 4/14/2007 4:30 PM
: 4/14/2007 4:30 PM
Hall of Shame is a good phrase to describe Verizon. I live in a small town in the WNC mountains. We have no phone provider choices other than Verizon...which was/is bad enough. Getting their DSL was a disaster...again no choice...for a lot of reasons.
I have never seen a company disrespect its customers so handily. I have read numerous blog comments today and they all describe corrupt greedy management practices.
Waiting for reps from India and I have gone through 5...it took 5 days earlier this month to get back on DSL...I demanded the US office which I hear is located in Texas....why can't we citizens and customers join together and hold this corporation accountable?
Post a Comment
I have never seen a company disrespect its customers so handily. I have read numerous blog comments today and they all describe corrupt greedy management practices.
Waiting for reps from India and I have gone through 5...it took 5 days earlier this month to get back on DSL...I demanded the US office which I hear is located in Texas....why can't we citizens and customers join together and hold this corporation accountable?
# posted by : 7/30/2007 4:42 PM
: 7/30/2007 4:42 PM
