It happens in every business, sooner or later.
Your customer wanted one thing. And you dispatched something else by mistake.
Or she wanted it next week for her daughters birthday, but your despatcher forgot that you get new stock only 3 weeks from now.
What happens when you mess up?
Do you fess up and make it right?
or
Do you play ping pong with the customer ?
At what stage in your growth do you decide that meeting your customers every desire is not necessary?
Is there really a point where you think you dont need to worry about your customers any more as long as you keep investors happy?
Do you take that decision or is it taken for you by poorly chosen sub-ordinates?
Earlier in a similar blog at this site, I had mentioned my experience with Comcast in blog titled “How not to grow your business – Comcast Style.”
But Comcast batted a good one in the form of an employee who contacted me within a few hours of posting and offered to redress my issues.
Here is a synopsis of my friend James’ experience with Verizon.
Recently his current cable company raised prices of Cable and Internet Service package.
My friend shopped around and found that FiOS from Verizon had a slightly better rate for him. He could cancel anytime if he called within 30 days, they offered.
He went online and signed up for FIOS Service.
When he called his existing vendor to cancel, they offered him an even better deal and he decided to keep his Comcast service.
My friend immediately goes online to cancel the newly registered FIOS Service. But wait, he can’t find a link to the cancellation page.
==> I guess the idea might be to have a human handle the cancellation request and if possible to lead him into continuing service.
So he calls the 1-800 number and after a long wait, some one comes online and informs him that he will have to call the local office to cancel. Huh?
So he calls the local office of Verizon and requests that his order be cancelled.
The lady on the phone could not find his order, even when he gave her the order number. So this enterprising person creates a new order and then proceeds to cancel it. Huh ? huh ?
I beleive most of you reading this have caught my drift.
Here is a company that claims to be #1 among 10 telecom companies( Source: http://newscenter.verizon.com/press-releases/verizon/2008/verizoncom-my-account-and.html.) in online satisfaction. I dont know how a company that forces you to go offline to cancel a service can call itself good online.
The head office or wherever the 1-800 number is located cannot cancel an order ? Have they heard of Systems Integration?
The person at the local office could not find his order. So what is the process in such a situation? Any company worth its salt has processes for almost everything it does. “Process” – You say?
Dont think there is one at Verizon. Who in his right mind would create a new order to cancel an existing order?
But wait, there is more.
The day after he cancelled his order with the local office, he saw that a part of his lawn had been marked to show the presence of underground pipes. He got concerned and waited at home the next day for fear that someone might dig up his lawn for an order he already had cancelled.
And he was not disappointed. Shortly after noon, the crew showed up with digging tools and cables. He somehow managed to convince them that he had cancelled the order and they went away without any damage to the lawn.
Next day was Saturday, and when he got home at noon, half his lawn had already been dug up. He again managed to convince them that he had cancelled his order and send them packing for a second time.
Well ! By now, you could be forgiven if you totally lost your cool. What a shoddy treatment of a customer.
James got home Tuesday evening and finds that someone had dug up his lawn, laid some cable and also disconnected his Comcast connection. Now he has no TV, no phone and no Internet. The poor guy hates cell phones, so he had to go to the Pay phone at the gas station to make a call to Verizon.
Waiting time, 41 minutes, on a pay phone. NOT nice! He had to spend another day waiting at home for someone else to show up and re-connect his cable.
Apparently there exists a major disconnect between the company database and the records maintained by the contractors who are send out to do the cable laying work. Or the contractors are ignoring cancel orders so that they get paid for the work. In either case, the cost to the company must have been higher than the cost to the customer.
Not to mention that James will talk to everyone he comes in contact with about his experience.
—————————————————————————————–
So the question is: how do you ensure that your customers never face such an experience?
How do you make sure that your employees give as much attention or more to customer service as you might have given?
Do you have systems in place that can manage this automatically?
Do you have a complaint handling system that is manned by someone with authority to actually redress the issue?
How would you communicate to your employees what your vision is for customer experience?
UCantBeSerious said
Hello forum….
I ran across this forum while doing yet another search on “Verizon Scams” or just “Verizon customer service complaints” & once again, came across tens of thousands of links. Throughout this forum the word “verizon” will not be capitalized with the exception of above.
or better yet —> :devil ?? I seriously seriously doubt it!! And upon speaking with ex-verizon employee’s not to mention a few friends who either their fiance or significant other works there told me that I was basically right on the money with the whole “flagging” of the account.So when I would call in & they would pull up my account, they would base the whole conversation based on that very flagg & would do what I like to call “bait me”. Yes, they would bait me. They would patronize me & speak to me in a very accusitory tone and condescending tone & its my beleif this was done so that I would come completely unglued & lose my temper which would warrant yet another “flag” & would make it possible for them to render the call “abusive” & dismiss the phone-ending it! Now being “abusive” is a matter for debate. I seem to think being abusive is using profanity towards them where they seem to think that if U blame them for the problems, thats ATTACKING them which would constitute ending the call so I was 100% right when I say WHEN YOU ARE A vERIZON CUSTOMER U MUST WALK ON EGGSHELLS OR NOTHING WILL GET DONE!! But U know what, nothing gets done anyways! Im sorry, but since when does a customer have to be pleasant when none of their products work correctly, steadily being billed for it, missing days of work (by then it had totaled I beleive 3 days of work),ruined the holiday, being billed $99.99 & told AFTER the fact & being blamed for everything & Im supposed to be “pleasant”? I dont have to be pleasant! I as the customer should be able to be upset & visably noticed at that! I should be able to state my dislikes for what was happening & if I am unable to mask my contempt, then so be it! verzions motto is “the customer is always WRONG”! I mean so what if they can detect I have a certain “tone” of voice! So damn what! Too bad! Dont bestow these things upon me & U wont have that problem! What, Im supposed to like it? Getthefucckkkouttahere! I am a very assertive aggressive woman, & rightfully so! Thats just who I am! I dont walk on eggshells & kiss nobodys asss, ever! And I damn sure am not in the business of kissing a companys assss who I am doing business with & helping get that much more wealthy on top of it! I have a 2 businesses myself, one is a free standing place of business that U can walk into the other exsists online. Whenever there is a issue with a customer, I NEVER loud them, I never BLAME them, I NEVER cut them off in mid-sentence (& I do have a problem with cutting people off-Im working on it) but I dont do that to the customer, & I ALWAYS try to appease my customer, even if I feel they are in the wrong, they NEVER know that I think that they are wrong, ever! I just keep that to myself, period! verizon acts as if I was asking the world of them! When I would make mention of “what happened to the customer is always right” they would simply shrug that off! It isnt like I was requesting they give me 10 yrs of free service & cut me a check for 2.2 million because “Im a customer & the customer is always right” or anything along those lines, I was simply a customer with poor service in the home & piss poor customer service, didnt like it & made mention of just that & even that proved to be an issue for verizon. So one day (after many many calls without any resolve) I DARED to call in again with yet another complaint in hopes they would fix it & I get a young lady who called herself “Amy” who claimed she was out of Ohio. Her behavior & actions was probably one of the worst I had to deal with thus far & what really sent me over the edge was when she took a tone with me & then said “Look lady, I have did everything I can do for you,you’re still not happy & I went out of my way to assist you, doing YOU a FAVOR”!!!! <——–U cant be serious!! A “favor”? …”out of your way”? You’re at work!! You’re supposed to go out of your way to assist me especially if nothing is else has been done up to this point but when doing so, you’re not supposed to “brag” about it & then phrase it as a “favor”! When you clock in at work, you’re “working”….its called a “job”…not doing “favors”! Because U see, favors are something that U have a choice to do & dont get paid for! If U get paid for a “favor” then it isnt a favor anymore, its a JOB & she seemed to not understand that if it wasnt for ME, THE CUSTOMER she wouldnt have a place to work at, she wouldnt get a paycheck because well, verizon wouldnt exsist to begin with!! Without the customers, there is no entity! No, I didnt mean “me” by myself, I wasnt single handed keeping verizon in business, but I am “the customer” & without the customer, she doesnt have a job! I am responsible for her even getting a paycheck & I dont pay her to talk to me or treat me in that manner! So, I asked to speak with her supervisor, she said GLADLY & a youngman who claimed his name was “Dan” go on the phone & the two double teamed me! I couldnt beleive my ears! Actually, I think he may have given “Amy” a run for her money in the rudeness and unprofessional department because he was just as nasty as she was & totally sided with her, never one time walking a mile in my moccassins! Not once! So, with the level of service being so bad, I hang up the call because I dont have time for this, I had already missed by now I beleive 3 days of work & I was going straight home on my lunchbreaks to call them using my breaks strickly for that & in some cases, returning to work late. Keep in mind, part of the reason I was so upset was because for over a week now, after all the calls & days missed from work, they were a NO SHOW & also I was promised a supervisor from the correct dept would call me back within 24 hours & here is “Amy” tellling me the same thing, that supervisor would call me back within 24 hours & upon me telling her that I had already been told this & its been a week, she chaged her story several times. First she says “Well Im not showing where U called in at all Maam” then after getting fudged up & backed into a corner with my FACTS, she then turns around & says “look, Im showing that a supervisor has called U & U never answered”!!! She says this like I am supposed to be there to answer ANY phone calls that might come thru! What I told her that struck me as funny was, if they called me, it didnt show up on the caller ID that they called for #1. and for #2. U mean to tell me they wouldnt leave me a voicemail message of their call? Her response to me was “Well Maam, U already stated that U are having major problems with your phone line, caller ID and even voicemail,so how do U know if a supervisor called at all”? Well, she had somewhat of a point but that then brought me to say the following….”Well “Amy” U people at verizon cant have it both ways, ok? “U cannot pick and choose when there is a problem and when there isnt! U and I have been on this phone now for about 45 mins & the majority of it U have claimed that you ARE NOT showing that there is any problems with my phone line, internet and TV along with many other reps but now, since it is “conveinant” this would be the PERFECT time to bring into play the possibilty that there is some issues with the line & that is why it isnt showing up on the caller ID or, no voicemail message was left”…!!! Which is it going to be Amy? She then was vry quick to DEFEND verizions glory stating that “She doesnt deny that there are issues with my phone & other things but these issues arent related to verizons service but rather my products that I use instead”!! Thats laughable! So U mean to tell me that the voicemail isnt working because my phone sucks? The caller ID isnt working because of allllll the phones I use suck? All of them? I can almost understand the caller ID issue being related to the aparatus, but not a total of 6 different phones, all of which worked FINE before them and worked FINE at other locations!! And the 6th phone being brand new!! But the voicemail has NOTHING to do with the actual phone! Nothing! I went forensic on her and Dan & they just kept saying “Well if there isnt anything we can do to help you, we must end this call to assist CUSTOMERS ” with the emphasis being placed on “customer” almost as if “Im” not regarded as one anymore! This of course all took place before I hung up the call on them. Well, apprx 15-20 mins passed & lord behold, the phone rings & I look at the caller ID and guess who it is folks? Its VERIZON!!!!!!! Hooray, right? NOT!! I answered the call & after I said “hello” it was brief silence & a “meow” broke this silence. “Meow”…..”Meow”…….that was it, “Meow”! Im like….wtf! ***********lmao*********** So I said, “are u not aware that this call came thru as that being from verizon”? They meow’ed one time! So, I admit I held a brief conversation with them asking them to meow one time for YES and meow two times for NO! I said “Either you are so fuccking stupid that U work for a phone company but dont know anything about *67 & blocking the calls or, U WANT me to know its verizon but I cannot pin point EXACTLY which rep it is”? I said meow once if U wanted me to know its verizon and they meowed once! So they wanted me to know it was them and deliberatly DIDNT mark the call private in my opinion just to antagonize me & I guess show me who was in control, who was “boss” and that they can do anything they feel & I cannot do anything about it? I mean afterall, if I was to complain, who would I complain about? Wheres the proof it was such and such? Well, I hang up & it doesnt happen again until later on that evening. Nothing but a series of calls followed with a “meow” & it goes on and on. I say all types of nasty things to this person at this point. I use so much profanity Im sure Andrew Dice Clay would be shocked. I talked about them, their mama, their daddy, etc etc etc U name it, I probably said it to them & I make absolutly NO apologies for it & would handle it the exact same way in which, I did. Trust me, I wasnt very nice AT ALL. The kinds of nasty deplorable disgusting things I said to “Mr. Meow” (because I would have to say I really felt it was a man) but the things I said to this person would be upsetting to ANYONE yet I still take zero responsibility for it & again, make no apologies. If U call my home & interupt a seemingly pleasant evening with your bulllsshhhiitt, you’re subject to hear anything come out of my mouth. Its MY HOME, MY PHONE AND MY SERVICE (as sucky as it was, it was still mine). If anyone disagree’s with how I handled it, too bad! Then dont play on my phone pranking me then & you or anyone else wouldnt have to worry about it now would they! I am simply the RE-ACTION to the ACTION but of course at the end of the day, verizon only wanted to focus on my RE-ACTION to the pranks, not the actual action which was, the pranks. Well, the pranks continue only now, they are disgusing their voice to sound more like a “demon” or something, & they are saying things such as “biitch your’e gonna die”…”Im going to kill you”…”I going to sodomize you & cut your legs off” etc etc etc, U people get the point & these calls of course were all blocked private. One of the calls though I knew came from a home phone because during the call, someone picked up a phone in another room, sounded to me like maybe a child but I knew it was a home phone line because U cannot pick up another phone when your one a cell or, payphone. Oh, and I forgot to make mention of the series of pranks that would come in from payphones, stores and private numbers some of which I think MIGHT have came in from a cell phone simply because a cell phone just has that certain sound to it and u pretty much can tell when someone is calling you from a cell phone, I can say with about 95% certainty some were a cell phone but not 100% certainty but I can say with 100% certainty about the home phone line though. Ok, so now here it is one day recently after these calls Im driving down the street & my car isnt driving quite right. It feels like either the air is being depleted out of the tire or, my steering column is messing up but either way, I have to pull over to check it out. I get out, I look & I dont see anything with the tires so I get back in, & continue to drive. Well, now its getting worse. I pull over to a service/mechanic station, explain to them the issue, wait my turn in their lobby while the examine my vehicle & come to get me in the lobby, pull me into the actual repair area & the first thing the man asked me was “Maam, do U have any enemies, something that would want to do you bodily harm”? Of course my first response is “hell no” so he says “Well I beg to differ maam, no offense..come and take a look at this”. So, he walks me over to my car for a closer look, points to my tire & I still dont see anything until he touches it, it was a nail. It was a nail, a good sized nail driven down into the tire near the rim & U have to get pretty close to it to see it. Well, he tells me that it is impossible that I simply ran over it UNLESS I was driving on the side on my car & tires!! Well people, I dont drive on the SIDE of my tires. They told me that someone did this to my vehicle, hands down, no doubt about it and that somebody had deliberatly put the nail inside the tire in that fashion & the part that really upset to the point of tears was he said “Maam, in my opinion, your car was supposed to FLIP & you’re so blessed that it didnt, I suggest you make a police report about it & name anyone U can think of who would want to do bodily harm to you”. Him & his co-workers really broke down the science of it all to me in regards to that because trust me, I had alot of questions. I asked why wouldnt it just go flat, why would it be driveable & he broke that down to me fully explaining that & said that they knew EXACTLY what they were doing when they did it. Not only could this have caused serious bodily injury to me & my family or anyone inside the car, but it could have caused other drives on the road to get seriously hurt or worse, this could have been a fatality even just traveling at speed limits, something as little as 15 mph could very well have caused the tire to blow out causing my car to FLIP.As U can imagine, this was very very upsetting to me. So, I make the police report & as they are asking me a series of questions I made mention of the threats I was receiving via the phone from the verizon rep, whoever it was & I still had voicemail messages because sometimes my voicemail would work, sometimes it wouldnt but by now they had got it to work most of the time & they would leave me nasty voicemail messages, death threats, rape/sodomy threats etc on my voicemail & what make it so bad was my child heard this message. I taught her how to access the voicemail if need be BEFORE this was happening, BEFORE I even got service with verizon, BEFORE these pranks & BEFORE they started leaving messages. In fact, the very first voicemail message they ever left me my child accessed it & was very very shook about it. Naturally, I changed the password afterwards but by then, it was too late, my child already heard it. She is old enough to access voicemail & old enough to answer the phone but to young to hear something like that. So, as I said above I made a police report & included the verizon calls & they charactorized this as “stalking” the first time. (Sorry folks, I told U would I jump around this forum, sorry if it gets confusing, there is just so much to this). So, I want to go back to the night where the call from Red Lobster came in. When I got the manager on the phone, a very very nice & helpfull man by the name of John (his last name wont be revealed) I assumed that I probably nailed the guy who was responsible for the pranking because I asked was this a payphone to the first guy at Red Lobster before I got the manager & he told me no, it was the house phone. So naturally, I assumed that the person doing all this worked for both verizon & Red Lobster & thats how he was able to make the call from the “house” phone to my residence…it really didnt dawn on me that it would be a customer. One of the first things I said to John was I asked him would he like to reveal the identity of the man who works for him as well as verizon or, would he prefer to do it with the police but either way, he would more than likely have to speak with the police. He told me that he didnt have anyone who worked for him & verizon, or not to his knowledge anyways & when I fully explained to him what was going on he asked me if the prefix of my number started with a 387. I told him YES it did & asked how would he know that? He told me that there was some customers there, a group of vERIZON employee’s there for what he basically classified as a “Christmas Party” eating & exchanging gifts & that one of the men came to him & asked could he use their phone since either his cell couldnt get a signal or was low on battery, (I forget which one I would have to refer to my documents) & that the man had his cell phone in his hand & looked in it and rattled off MY number to him for him to dial. John told me that there is a access code that has to be dialed to reach an outside line & that HE and ONLY HE knows that code & that HE has to dial it out and then, dial my number I beleive thats policy. So, he dialed my number, handed the phone to the customer & walked away not knowing the nature of the call, he didnt stand there and listen but he didnt dream that it would be “that kind of call”. He then tells me to hold on because he thought that there might be a chance that they were still there & he would take a pic of the man with his own cell phone but when he came back to the phone, he told me that yes, they were all gone for the evening. He described how the man looked & even went as far as to give me the name of the young lady who paid for “his” (their) meal with her credit card. Well, verizon claims that SHE dont work for them & to this date, we dont have an actual name of the man who has been doing this to me, or should I say to “us” because this effects my entire family. Now of course verizon was claiming that NOBODY who works for them would ever make prank calls, especially from work for that matter & if someone was in fact doing this, it wasnt verizon. If someone and thats a big “if” someone from verizon was doing this, they was doing it on their own time, off the clock & verizon has nothing to do with it but didnt have any problem with blaming me for it all. verizon would suggest that “if” someone from verizon or ANYONE for that matter was to hear the kinds of things that I admitted I said to them on the phone, that it would certainly piss anyone off & basically suggested that I had my own self to thank for it because if someone is pranking me, why couldnt I simply hang up? “Maam, why would you “provoke” them & call them names & make threats to them Maam”? “U admitted that U threatened them first Maam”!! <—-Thats verizons response to me! Yes, when the calls would come in and I would answer, YES I cussed them out and YES I went as far as to tell them that if they came ANYWHERE near me and my family I would kill them, that I had a .44 desert eagle & that even with 1 shot on their pinky toe not only would they lose their pinky toe, but the whole foot would be blown off messing with a .44 or, that they would bleed to death! I stated to them that I had a .22 five shot revolver as well or that I would run them over with my _________ _______________ ___________ (year,make and model of car withheld in this forum) but yes yes yes yes yes I made numerous threats to this caller, yes yes yes 100% absolutly! And I wouldnt change a bit of it & make no apologies for that either! None! One of the things verizon tried to point out that it must of been someone that I knew & not verizon was because how would anyone from verizon know what kind of car I drove, its simple! I made a threat to them about my car using my car so if I drove a Lincoln Navigator I said “Biitch, u come near me or my family I will run your ass over with my Lincoln Navigator” not to mention, on the front plate of that car it has my NAME….so that isnt exactly rocket science here yet verizon still said I brought it on myself, provoking “whoever” it was but it certainly wasnt one of their employee’s that someone who worked for verizon just wouldnt do something like that & that they SCREEN people & they just simply wouldnt hire someone like that!! Yea & thats what they thought of John Wayne Gacy, Ted Bundy & Albert Fish too! People like that dont wear signs advertising how perverse they are. People like that are typically very charming & cunning, very manipulative……typically. But how anyone from verizon can basically make it sound as if its impossible that someone who worked for them wouldnt do that is simply ridiculous and actually, makes them sound even more guilty. If U let verizon tell it, had I simply walked on eggshells & didnt complain from the very beginning, I wouldnt be in this situation because by them stating that basically I brought all of this on myself one must look back to where it all began & it began with “Amy” & “Dan” out of Ohio. It began with my complaint to verizon. It began when I DARE made threats to my stalker/harrasser. verizon seems to be under the impression that when the pranks first started had I merely hung up & didnt “back talk” the harrasser they would have eventually stopped & none of this would have come into play but they still are firm on IT WASNT ANYONE FROM vERIZON! Oh great, so its my fault! Everything is my fault! Hey verizon, do u play a part in anything? Are U at fault for anything here? I mean seeing how everything from your service in the house that sucked was MY fault & the customer service is superb UNTIL a big bad customer like myself calls in with complaints & MAKES and PROVOKES your employee’s to “react” a certain way is also my fault, is there any part in this that U claim? Well the answer here is, NO! Even some reps for verizon (supervisors) have went as far as to patronize me and say “Maam, maybe U were just having a bad day that day, we all have bad days & maybe U just took it to far & this is what caused the reps to end the call with U & things just got out of hand, but nothing U can say can convince me that anyone from verizon would do these things U are accusing us of doing & if U were talking to them how U are talking to me, I can understand why they would feel that way & would end the call” (talking about Amy and Dan)…I was floored!! verizon just wont be happy until you, the customer assumes full responsibility for it all, everything! So U mean to tell me I didnt have any of these problems before hand, before I got with verizon, no pranks, no death threats, no harrassing menacing calls, no problems with service & as soon as I get service with verizon I have all these connectivity issues, customer service issues & then the AFTER the harrassing violent threatening calls, that happens to my car but that was bound to happen regardless of my relationship with verizon? Its just a coincidence, right? That I secretly had an “enemy” who was just dying to do these things to me & found the perfect time to pounce? Lmao……But let them tell it, that is perfectly logical! Unfuckkingbeleivable! Ok so, do U think the calls stopped people? If U guessed NO then you are right!Hell no they didnt, they got worse! They became more frequent, all hours of the day and night & I knew that by requesting to have my number changed, that wouldnt do my any good because since it was a verizon rep, they could access that new number so when it started to affect my children, & after the car incident I considered moving.We went & stayed at a friend house for over a week & one of the messages left on my voicemail said “Why havent U been sleeping in your bed at night etc etc etc etc” things that suggested they knew of some of my daily activities I knew definetly it was time to move! Keep in mind, I only had service now with verizon less than a month, more like 20 days maybe! Oh, and I almost forgot this part too I beleive this was the night of Decemeber 21st everything stopped working. TV, internet and phone…no nothing! “I call verizon after hour repairs & they tell me that “I” “Moi” had called to shut off service which I had not done that……………..yet! Not yet! At that time I had not made mention of shutting off service! I had only had service for a few days by then & I beleive that at that time either there wasnt any pranks yet or, they was just starting. Again, I would have to refer to my “verizon arsenel documents” but im almost 100% sure that at least the “meow” calls had started by then. Anyways, I NEVER said to shut off my services & that was a knock down drag out arguement because they said that nobody could shut off my services accept for ME! I asked them to pull the call from the day services were requested to be turned off & they said they would love to, so cocky and arrogant and exetremly confident & when the one rep told me that the call was being reviewed & I asked to “hear” it my damn self, that call was conveinantly disconnected and upon calling back nobody knew what I was talking about & when I finally got someone to talk to me about it, who was half ass polite I was told that not ALL the calls are recorded and unfortunantly THAT CALL was one of them & it couldnt be pulled!!! Hmmmm….thats quite a long way from “reviewing it” to “it doesnt exist” now isnt it! Flat out if they did pull the call & was able to hear it, it just wasnt answer they were looking for, they probably did hear it and realized it just wasnt me who requested for service to be terminated so its easier to play it off and say either “what are u talking about maam” or “the call was never recorded, sorry” instead of egg on their face…………the same egg from the shells that they want me to tread lightly on!! Man this company suxx!! But its gets even better people! So, I end up moving & even though I am gone out the house, verizon is conducting an investigation on my line to catch this guy. The hopes were that when he calls & leaves messages that maybe just maybe he would reveal his true voice accidently, forget to mark it private, anything! I requested that the internet and TV portion be disconnected & by now, when I call verizon I started recording ALL my calls with them so they couldnt make me promise then turn around and backpeddle later on……yanno they LOVE to do that! I would call them on speaker phone, taking the mic from my computer, placing it against the speaker of the phone & record it via my soundcard thru my computer and then save it as a WAV file into my “verizon arsenel folder” as I did with ALL the voicemail messages to! verizon PROMISED me that I would NOT be billed for the time the service was staying on at the house during their investigation yet every month, a bill was fowarded. They would tell me that it was just a FINAL bill & when another one would come out, that too was a FINAL bill!! So it was like 4 FINAL bills! It was FINAL BILL OF THE FINAL BILL TO THE FINAL BILL OF THE FINAL BILL! FINAL BILL TO THE 4TH POWER! Claiming that it was just for service in December & that for all my troubles, they would zero out that bill and I owed nothing! Bullshit!Not only was I billed for the time I had service, as sucky as it was, but I they continued to bill me for the time the phone was on for their investigation & guess what, they NEVER shut off the TV portion or internet either!! They just told me they did! When I got the next bill I seen the service dates and I was being billed for the TRIPLE PLAY went into MONTHS AFTER I moved out!! It got to the point where I was leaving work on my lunchbreaks everyday to call verizon and not returning to work at all just to sit on the phone and iron all of this out with them because it isnt like U can get this ironed out with verizon in a 20-30 minute phone call! Oh no! This takes hours & here it is JUNE 28th 2008 & it still ISNT ironed out! I cannot handle private calls like that AT WORK! It got to the point where I exhausted my sick days & even dabbed into my vacation days just to sit on the phone with verizon starting at 8:30 a.m. not ending until sometimes 6:pm at night. I would have to keep 3 phones plugged in and charged just to talk with them and the phones would die so I would have to pick up another phone. Transfer after transfer after hang up after hang up after supervisor after supervisor! It got so bad that now, I walk on eggshells at work! i used to be loved & well respected at work & now, I always have someone watching over my shoulder because I was caught talking on the phone with verizon at work! I would make up lies about why I needed a day or half day off from work to the point where when someone similiar did happen, I was shit out of luck. The fact that my children had to lose their stability and security because I had to move & they had to switch schools, leave their friends behind on a whole different part of town was maddening on them. Kids dont deserve that shit. We were all FINE right where we were living! No child wants to have to go through the whole “being new kid” at a new school especially if they were fine where they were! Their friends lived next door and around the block from them………now, they were miles and miles from each other. That ripped their stability and security from them. Kids need that. Oh & the nightmares! The nightmares my child would have all the time after that voicemail message were endless & they still happen to this day! Then, the bedwetting. My child hasnt wet the bed since she was real young. All of this CRAP has really turned everyones lives upside down & all verizon can do is thank me with turning me over and selling my account to AFNI with AFNI reporting my account to TransUnion and Equifax with a negative blemish on my credit report. When I moved that cost alot of money to move, everyone knows that especially when it wasnt in your plans! A lease had to be broken & it was either pay up or, face off in court. It was a U-haul truck and all the man power it cost me to pay them to move my shit out and move it in. It was transferring utilities and deposits for that shit, ALLLLLLLLLLLL the expenses one can imagine that is associated with moving. Then, a new mattress & mattress cover, intensive psychotherapy for my child & associated medicines for that blah blah blah blah etc etc etc only to have my baby wake up in the middle of the night screaming at the top of her lungs about this “guy” & so to console her, I of course place her in my bed (half asleep myself) and hold her only to wake up in urine myself. She wet my bed now. I of course would never be upset with her, it isnt her fault. When tramatic things happen to a child it can affect them in this way or maybe not affect them at all but in her case, it has had a negative affect on her. So, here is yet another added expense because now, I have to get myself a new mattress. Urine isnt something that can be cleaned up without the proteins having an everlasting stench later on down the line & with me being a very santiary clean person, personal hygeine and household it was only one choice left, get a new mattress for me as well fitted with a cover in case in the middle of the night that happens again and she wants to be in bed with me to feel safe, the cover is already there.There are soooo many levels and facets to this situation, I know I am leaving stuff out but I think I have covered the majority. I do want to make mention of one very very very sweet, caring, sensitive, rational man who is also very very fair and unbiased against me, a man who has never blamed me in this & that man is Mr. Bill Crowley, head of verizon security dept. This man has never cut me off in mid-sentence, he has listened to me rant & rave for hoursssss upon hours of me just complaining & yelling & screaming not “at” him but just in general & always ended with “I totally understand exactly where you’re coming from” & that he would basically feel the same way if it was him going through all this. He really needs to be commended for how sweet and professional he truly is. He has extended his courtesy to me numerous times ,in fact, each time we speak. He has NEVER ever made me feel like it was my fault or that I contributed to any of this chaos. I just wish the rest were more like him. I wish he could totally run the show. Unfortunanly, Mr. Crowleys hands were tied when it came to certain things & unfortunantly the rest are not like him & unfortunantly almost every person at the verizon corporate office would refer me back to him KNOWING that he couldnt do certain things. They always put it all off on poor Mr. Crowley! Everything! All the way down to just 3 weeks ago! Mr. Crowley is HEAD of security, NOT billing! They would refer me back to him about billing, about stalking and harrassment, about verizons computer calling my friends house, about my credit, I mean everything! Mr. Crowley can handle the part about menacing harrassing calls, thats it! He handles investigations! the investigation has been over with for several months now, more like 3 months or so yet here is corporate saying “theres nothing we can do about your bill maam, Mr. Crowley handles these investigations”! BUT THERE ISNT AN INVESTIGATION ANYMORE!! I BEEN MOVED!! THAT PHONE IS SHUT OFF! IM CALLING ABOUT PAST DUE BALANCES WHEN THERE SHOULDNT BE ANY!! IM CALLING ABOUT YOU SELLING MY ACCOUNT TO AFNI AND AFNI PLACING A NEGATIVE MARK ON MY CREDIT REPORT!! Im sorry maam, but I have to end this call now, all questions must be handled through Mr. Crowley! I have so many recordings of myself and verizon with verizon admitting certain things and making me promises of certain things then when they see these promises through, they get mad with me because I dare call & then back peddle and deny making me these promises so U know what I do? I call back, disguise my voice (because they ALL know my voice at corporate) and ask for a supervisors voicemail & when it starts to record the message, I que the recordings right at specific areas of the recording to PROVE the things that I was promised such as this biitch named ROZ at corporate!! Oh what a biitch!! At first & I mean AT FIRST like literrally the very FIRST call with her, she was nice. She was pleasant. I might even go as far as to say “professional” but all that changed when I had to continue calling trying to hold not only verizon to their promise, but HER to the promises she made to me as well oh her tone changed up very very quickly. I hope the biittchh reads this along with her supervisors & anyone else too because I have over plentyyyyyyyyyy of conversations between she and I that would make ANYONE render her a biittcch! She is just that, a BIITCCH!!! Sure, U can label me a “unprofessional” woman right now but keep in mind that I DONT have to be professional at the present moment because U see, Im NOT at WORK right now!! Im at home blogging! She on the other hand has ALWAYS been at work when she “performed” & what a performance it has always been! I dont know how she ever made it to be in the corporate office to begin with to be honest, perhaps she never removed her MASK that she wears that screamssss “Im a very charismatic, professional fair worker” because alll that isnt nothing but a mask, she has reveled her true indentity on numerous occasions to me and I have the recordings to prove it too. This woman has did everything to me short of name calling! *Kudos* to ROZ for NOT calling me names…….The very first recording between she and I she makes me a promise which was “U dont have to worry about the bill or any other bills for that matter, if the computer generates a bill dont worry about it, it will be totaled out to zero and this last bill will be the LAST bill for its the FINAL bill & that U and your familys safety is what is important here and if U have any other question, concerns or problems regarding your bill, feel free to call me back anytime, my name is ROZ & while I cannot assist you with the harrassing calls since that is for Mr. Crowley, I can assist U with you billing questions” 1800 483-7988 option3 & that in the comments box in my account, it has been refered to THAT number!! I have to call back because I have taken a WHOLE DAY this time to sort this out & there aint no way I can now miss tommorrow or even a half a day fukking with this shiit. I shouldnt have to! I dont deserve it! ROZ certainly let it be known that I was merely a thorn in her side!! Cant U beleive it? Im a nuisance to them? Not the other way around! While its true she never used the term “You’re a thorn in my side” she didnt have to………everything else & her actions and verbiage indicated just that. She spent more time when she would be on the phone with me making me feel like I was such a burdan to her instead of trying to help me out. If she had spent just a fraction of time trying to truly assist me as she spent rendering me a “problem” perhaps I would have gotten somewhere. Flatout this woman is rude rude rude & she is all up and down my complaint and, lawsuit. She definetly intended to inflict more pain and suffering & if U think for one second that this hasnt caused pain and suffering, you’re sorely mistaken. U see, she isnt the one waking up to her child shreeking from nightmares which are strickly related to the verizon harrassment from that guy.If she is exhausted the next day it isnt because of that. Sure, everyone has problems, everyone does. Is my problem and issue anymore worse than anyone elses, umm no…it isnt. But mine is related to verizon & if I am turning to verizon to try to help me out of it or at the very least, try to make some portions of it better thats the least they, she, can do. Not make it worse. Did it have to be compounded by more and more bills coming out? NO! Did it have to be compounded by verizon selling my account to AFNI? NO! She treated me as if I brought all this on myself & that I continue to make it worse on my own! She & everyone else with the exception of Mr. Crowley seems to think that its my problem with AFNI & that its between AFNI & myself & that verizon is exempt from blame & that I have to work this out with AFNI & why am I calling them about AFNI? What choice do I have? verizon are the unorganized, unprofessional scumbags who sold my account to AFNI to begin with when it was never supposed to go that far in the first place & how did I come to this conclusion? Because ROZ & the rest of verizon staff led me to beleive that! When I moved out of the house I strickly asked this question “Am I going to be billed for YOU holding this investigation & the phone line remaining active”? The first time I was told “Well, I dont think so…U shouldnt be” & ROZ wasnt the person who told me this. So when I called on Jan18th to have the phone portion disconnected (because I had already terminated the TV and internet, was under the impression it was off since this is what I was told, but it really wasnt off) I called on Jan18th 2008 to have the phone part shut off and I was told “We CANNOT shut the phone portion off maam, its a full investigation going on” where as up until that very moment, I was led to beleive that it was strickly “my choice” & depending who I talked to, I was told either “No, you’re not going to be billed for an investigation” to “You shouldnt be billed for that” but then here on the 18th Im being told I DONT have a choice in the matter? So even when I wanted the phone to be disconnected Im being told I cannot shut the phone off so thats basically FORCING me to pay for a phone line that I CANNOT use or enjoy (as crappy as it was). At that time this is when I was told definetly I WONT be billed for the phone staying on! But they are very sneaky and manipulative because had I never asked specifically to have the phone shut off, they were perfectly fine with giving me the impression at first that even if I wasnt living there and there is active service, someone has to pay for that but it SHOULDNT be you but I dont know for sure, I will check” Well, that was all I needed to hear and upon requesting for it to be shut off, Im told NO WAY can this line be terminated but dont worry, U wont be billed or held accountable for this…well, I cant tell! The last billing cycle ended May 28th 2008!! I moved out the beginning of January!! They left the phone on to catch this guy because he continued to call & leave messages fully aware I didnt live there anymore & that phone was disconnected around the end of Feb 2008 or should I say I was told it was or, will be. Yet when I called that number AFTER the investigation was over with and AFTER I was told the line was disconnected, I would call the number & it was still on!!!!! Why was it still on? To bill me, thats why! Thats the only logical explanation! If I no longer live there, cannot use it & the investigation is over with, AND I demanded it be shut off on numerous times, what could be any other logical explanation that it would remain on other than to bill me? It stayed on througout most of March I beleive & here it is not only the “last” billing cycle ended on May 28th 2008, but I am receiving demands for PAYMENT from AFNI in the meanwhile? “Well maam, that May 18th bill was your FINAL bill”………..I was told this in Feb, March and Arpil that this one here was my FINAL bill then another one comes out and another…….so like I said, its the final bill to the finall bill to the final bill! FINAL doesnt really mean FINAL in verizons jargan. And besides all that, even if they could explain away all this bulllshit, If I left out of that house the beginning of January 2008, how is it a FINAL bill is generated May 28 of 2008? Like 4 months later? What in the hell? And they ALL acted like I was loony tunes for NOT understanding that! Sure, I know what a final bill is but I dont understand how a final bill can extend all the way to the very very end of May almost going into June when I moved out the VERY beginning of January, like Jan 8th and the investigation ended the beginning of Feb? They claim I wasnt being billed etc etc etc so why is it that AFNI is trying to collect $481.17 from me? If I got service turned on December 19th 2007 and left January 8th 2008, thats not even a full month of service, how did I rack up $481.17 in that short time frame? Well, I didnt! I was being billed all those months but I did get 1 verizon rep who told me that I should be happy about this because it could be worse!! That there were credits placed on my bill & $481.17 is a very small amount IF I was in fact being billed for 4 months afterwards!! I would care if it was 481 cents, I dont owe it to verizon! They told me it would be zero’d out for the actual time I did have service for my “troubles” & not to worry about it….well once again, I cant tell! Now remember when my service was disconnected and they claimed I disconncted it when I was still living there? Well, when service was restablished they tried to run it passed me that I would be billed a reconnection fee which I was against & was told it would get waved. As I review the bill, I was being charged for every single *69 and 3-way I made when it was supposed to be in a monthly package deal!! Also, they were charging me for inside wire maintence which I did actually order and agreed to but also, they were charging me for basically in a nut shell “telephone insurance” which basically if my actual telephone goes bad, its insured!! I never even got a phone from them!!!! And depending on who U talk to there, one person seems to think they will insure ANY phone, not just theirs and another states it has go to be a phone with THEM!!! Either way, I didnt order it!! Who would pay like $5.00 per month, every month for that? I would only do that if the phone was encrusted in diamonds & was worth $20,000 other than that, no way! Getthefuccouttahere @ paying $5.00 a month for a phone that was worth like $50.00!! Plain and simple, they CHOSE what THEY wanted me to have! When I had to re-establish service I said I wanted to to STAY THE SAME!!!! Well, they added things unbeknownst to me & the removed things too all the while leading me to beleive nothing had changed from my first order. These people are the absolute worst! Well, it doesnt stop there! Now my best friend is receiving those same pranks & we beleive that he thinks she is me since we sound so much alike! There are a couple of ways he could have got her number. One way is since I was using her address as a forwarding address, the post office put a sticker on the mailbox outside my old house and he could have easily copped it that way or, Mike Nevel. Mike Nevel is the supervisor who I dont really get along with & Im not saying he did it on purpose, Im saying negligently because when my service was terminated I spoke with him about it and about getting service re-established, this was of course the calls turned to violence. He needed a number to call me back at & I told him that I would give him the number I was at under 2 conditions. #1. That he would NEVER use that number as a can be reached number for me after that day and #2. That he would NOT place her number and attach it to my account! He promise he would not but yet, the pranks came rolling in. They didnt happen nearly as frequently as at my house but still, they happened. Now whats going on is verizons computer is calling HER house and the recording says “Hello, this is verizon calling about an installment appointment for FiOS on such n such date at _____ ___ ____________________ St. and it goes on to say MY OLD ADDRESSS! Why is verizons computer calling HER house an someone elses appnt who is apparently trying to get service there who must have moved in? Well, upon some detective work, it seems that the house is vacant!! Hmmm….bizarre huh? Not really. Yet here is verizon ticked off at me because I just wont leave them alone!! Now Im calling in about “this” matter..bothering them! Poor verizon! Now AFNI is calling her house about ME like 2-7 times a day. Her caller ID shows that this past Thursday they called her house about me 7 times starting at the asss crack of dawn and calling all the way up into late at night regardless of her telling them I dont live there. They demand she gives THEM my personal private information fully clad with my new address and telephone numbers, where I work, etc. Then, we she tires of being as nice as she can and DARES get mouthy with them, they say things like “Well tell her to pay her fucking bills & she wouldnt have to worry about this” or refers to me as a “bum” etc etc etc. I have filed with the Attorney General 7 also, I am sueing verizon for a number of different things. Intentional emotional distress is one and also, the fair credit act. It is INTENTIONAL emotional distress when you do this to someone. It INTENTIONAL when a customer has to repeadly call in over and over again because U continue to hang up in their ear over 10 times in a row! Its fair to assume and reasonable that a person can acheive what needs to be acheived with these calls & when they keep hanging up in my ear, refusing to assist me, that FORCES me to call back and its reasonable to assume that “I” could have gotten OTHER things accomplished in my life but that was snatched away from since I was forced to have to keep calling back over n over. Obviously I cannot be at work & make these calls however, I could be at work or been at work much sooner had I not had to constantly keep calling back while ROZ kept playing on the phone. She kept me from doing what I needed to do to have a better quality of life. I cannot work, grocery shop, cook, clean etc etc etc and handle basic everyday tasks when I am forced to keep calling back over n over again whether she is deliberatly hanging up in my ear or, the simple refusal to work this out themselves so I am not bothered with it. The bills, AFNI all of this COULD have been prevented and that is what is called Intential infliction of emotional distress. The question is, did I have a choice whether to call them or not? Yes or no? NO! I did not have a choice! I absolutly had no choice! I had to try to get this straightened out! This is my credit were talking about here, my credit is my lifeline! There are things that I cannot do now because of that negative on my credit report left by AFNI which verizon sold to them. Plans that I made cannot be fullfilled now because of my credit blemishes. I had NO other negatives on there accept this one from verizon. verizon is telling me that my bill has been totaled out to zero, but they been telling me this for months and then, another bill comes out. verizon has told me they will contact AFNI to iron this mess out but as U people know, even when verizon does that, it can be years before its actually removed. verizon is telling me that they have sent me a statement showing that I owe a ZERO balance but the ONLY thing I have received from them was yesterday and it was a “Thank You” letter for my RECENT online purchase!!!!! I didnt make a online purchase!! And I couldnt call yet because it was Saturday and the only thing open there is repairs. verizon is the single most disgusting deplorable company out there, period! I dont care who reads this and who works for them and who is offended! If you’re offended my response to you is you’re probably complexing because U know its true and U know deep down that verizon is more than capable of this otrocious behavior. Me and my friends have printed out over 1,500 flyers and folded them under peoples windsheild wipers at malls and other places breifing them about this….warning them! And ROZ, I hope you’re reading this to you dirty filthy scumbad wench, your name is alllllllllllll up and down it not to mention my complaint with the attorney general and my lawsuit and the recordings of your lies and decent will come into play. All your hang-ups and all the proof that U enjoyed every minute of behaving that way towards me. U will receive a subpoena & I can only hope that verizon doesnt cover the tab for you to travel…..U dirty biiitch. Now hang up on that………………….biitch.
My story starts Dec 19th 2007 & here we are today June 22nd 2008 & Im still going through “it” with verizon. I called the beginning of December for service & was told they would come out to connect service on the 19th of December 2007 which, they did. I was told on the phone that they would probably be at my home for anywhere from 4-10 hours which, they was….but hey, at least they did make me aware of it so I was properly prepared. The guy they sent out (a very nice one I might add) started doing the work & then upon chit chat with him, he realized that this was a triple play & he only had an order for internet and tv, no phone. Well, this definetly constituted a problem for me since I have voicemail messages from them reminding me and verifying the triple play order not to mention, emails. Also, I had a letterhead from them stating my order so this error was clearly on their end, not mine. Well, the tech tells me that he can see what he can do about installing the phone but couldnt promise me anything & what was upsetting to me was my phone service via another carrier was scheduled to me terminated the next day while the whole time the tech telling me that if he was unable to install a phone, it could very well be up to 2 weeks before they could. Well, this was unacceptable & I told him that I understood it was NOT his fault, but that I could not be penalized & live without a telephone just because of their mistake. Now here comes the blame game. Verizon totally denys having knowledge of a “triple play” despite the voicemail messages from them stating verbally the words “triple play”, the emails and the letter. They also make a big deal about whethere not I happen to have a cell phone & that if I DID have a cell phone, that phone should be used while waiting for them to install my phone or, if I DID NOT have a cell phone, then its ON ME because in this day and age, everyone has a cell phone & basically, its my fault and lack of responsibility for not having one and being “prepared” for things like this. Well, I DO have a cell phone but that shouldnt have anything to do with it. What if I didnt? How dare U shift the blame onto me, a brand new CUSTOMER and deflect any responsibility off you verizon. Thats just an attempt tp deflect the truth and their incompetence, thats all. A CELL PHONE shouldnt even have been a factor or the topic in the first place. My LACK of “responsibility” shouldnt have been a weighing factor or graded based on whether or not I had a cell in the first place…..it simply had nothing to do with what was going on. But ok, I have a cell phone. So what! Obviously there was a reason as to WHY I wanted both a cell and home phone.The home phone is basically for use AT HOME to save minutes in my plan & assure that I dont go over those minutes so I am not billed for the time I went OVER and certainly a person can go over their minutes if their anytime minutes dont start until 7pm. What is verizons response to that? “Just simply call your cell phone company and request a different plan Maam”. Smh….unreal! This shouldnt be a topic dammnit! They spent more time deflecting attention off of them, talking about whether or not I have a cell & how and when it should be used that discussing a time as to when I can get phone service with them. Keep in mind, while they have me on hold working their so called “majic” to get me a decent time frame, they totally act as if they are doing me a FAVOR & are being so inconveinanced by this. UNREAL! So finally, the tech says that he can go ahead and install phone service right then, but could not assure me the quality of it and stated that more than likely, there would be outages meaning, lines being crossed, static, no dial tone, no ring, cut outs & random disconnects….how lovely! He stated that would basically have to tide me over until they could do it “right”. Well, I didnt have a choice here! I have already missed a full day of work with this mess and now, I must miss more for when they come back out. Then the tech tells me that its a “mess” in the basement & outside where the wires are (not my basement itself-just the wiring) & this could be a problem with installing it and would definetly seal the phone errors he spoke on earlier. He himself was very very nice about it, never blaming me for this, he merely was stating the facts. Well, I told him that he had verizon to thank for that “mess” because verizon was the last and only company to ever do wiring inside or outside that home. The phone service I had before used those very same wires which verizon owned and installed yet when I get on the phone with verizon, they were quick to blame ME or the phone company I had before regardless of me telling them that the service I had before NEVER EVER came inside the home & NEVER did any wiring which pissed them off. They (verizon) do not take blame very well. Well, let me skip around here a lil bit folks. Yes, the phone line had major major problems but not just the phone, the internet and TV & this was over Christmas. I had family come in for Christmas with neices & nephews & all the TV screens just rolled and rolled however, U could hear the audio & could see what movie it was showing at the phone when U used the remote. It also fashioned the station as well but the screen itself just rolled meaning, it was very scrambled. As far as the internet well, lets just say when I could access the internet, it was a rare occasion which totally affected my work since I would bring some work home. What does verizon have to say about this? “ITS YOUR TV’S MAAM”…..”ITS YOUR COMPUTER MAAM” <——-yea right! U mean to tell me I had NO PROBLEMS when I was with the other carrier but all the sudden I do now? U mean to tell me that is more beleivable? And its more beleivable that it was something wrong with ALLLLL the televisions inside my home & something wrong with not “1″..not “2″…but “3″ different computers too? Yes, thats right folks, I ended up hooking up 2 more different computers to the same connection and still had the same issue which was, rare connectivity! One of the TV’s was brand new too! When they came back out to install the phone lines & make them right, I was told AFTER they did, that there would be a $99.99 fee accessed to my bill but the good news was, I didnt have to PAY IT right then and there!! Unfuccckkkkingbeleivable!! They want to charge ME for re-wiring their own mess! Then the woman I was speaking with who blamed all my appliances stated “Well Maam, there must have been something wrong with one of your TV’s because U already confessed to getting a brand new ones”!!
I am making a website dedicated to blowing the whistle on verizon. Hopefully enough people will read this and hopefully it will be young men and women coming of age, moving out for the first time and wanting phone service I just hope they read this and visit my webpage before hand. I do know that I have single handled prevented verizon from obtaining 7 accounts from people…..I mean hey, thats “7″. And all the people who read the flyers, who knows how many of them really read it and decided to not take a chance on verizon verse the ones who just threw it away. But I am not stopping here, this will continue. Its going to go on and on and on. Oh, and just for shiiits and giggles guess what one of the last things corporate told me? HA! They told me that they were pressing charges on ME for harrassment because I wont stop calling. lmaooooooooooooooooooooo….I told them I will welcome that with open arms. Oh, and I have the recording of that as well.
If anyone would like to contact me with concerns on how to right back against this deplorable company, feel free to email me at aware_of_vacuity/yahoo and give me a while to respond…but I will respond. Take care folks and stay away from verizon, you’ll only regret it in the long run.