As if I hadn’t already wasted enough time with Verizon, now I’m writing a blog post. I’m going to try to make it as short as possible, because my ten wasted hours on the phone with their “Customer Support” has already been nearly suicide-inducing. I moved my dry-loop Verizon Business Class DSL service from Fairfax, VA to Winchester, VA. They can’t move service. No, they have to delete it and start over from scratch. Seriously? This day and age, I have come to expect a little bit more from a company this big – a company who should have their methods of doing business and providing service completely nailed down.

So they set me up again with new service. This is around November 9th. I was hung up on like 15 times by their stupid automated answering service before I finally just started mashing buttons on the phone in anger and frustration. A real person finally ends up picking up. I tell her what I need and how I got to her, and she said she’s sorry for the inconvenience, but she hears that story all the time, so wasn’t at all surprised. She got me to someone who deleted my Fairfax account (and provided me with a confirmation number for the deletion) and set me up again, telling me I’d be up and going by Monday the 13th, but I can probably call on Friday the 10th and get it expedited to that day, because I already had my equipment and didn’t need a Tech to come out.

I called Friday to have it expedited, only to find out my account had been marked for deletion. I told her I had an account pending deletion, so maybe she’s looking at the wrong confirmation number. Nope. I was being deleted. She couldn’t tell me why. When I asked her why she couldn’t tell me why, she said this just happens. It gets sent from dept. to dept. until someone decides there’s an issue, then instead of trying to resolve the issue, or gather more information, they JUST DELETE THE ACCOUNT. I asked her if there were any notes along with it. She said no, because the departments within Verizon don’t communicate with each other in any way. They don’t work together. In other words, Verizon is like a machine that isn’t broken – no, it’s intentionally designed with parts that aren’t meant to work together in unison to perform one main function. It’s made with individual moving parts that don’t connect to the other moving parts. When it comes to customer service, the result of this type of infrastructure is epic failure.

Anyway, this latest representative started the setup process all over again, then told me I’d be active on November 30th. November 30th?! That’s right. I’d have to wait 20 more calendar days for my business service to be set up. I am a web developer. I kind of need my office to have the internet so I can work. Verizon cost me hours on the phone (money I cannot bill out to any clients), plus I was paying rent for an office that I couldn’t use (literally, I had to work from home until they got me set up). I have had internet at this exact same office a few years prior, so I knew that no one would have to mess with anything to set it up. I knew all they had to do was turn it on, so to be told I’d have to wait two-thirds of a month longer, just because they screwed up was unacceptable. I called Comcast.

As a note, Comcast’s customer service sucks a lot, too, but the technician was cool. Anyway, Verizon ended up getting me hooked up a little sooner than they said they would (the 20th instead of the 30th), but I was told that my 3.0 Mb down/1.5Mb up plan had gone up in price, and since I was a new customer (because they couldn’t move me – they had to delete and recreate me), I’d have to pay the higher rate ($53.99 instead of the $49.99 I’d been paying the previous four years), oh, and I would have to pay the new setup fee! Again, unacceptable – it’s robbery. I was not a new Verizon customer! They told me I had 30 days to cancel, so again, I called Comcast, had them hook me up, then I canceled Verizon.

When canceling Verizon, the guy I talked to, of course, tried really hard to get me to stay. He offered me money back, free months of service, et cetera. I told him the irony in this situation was that I bent over backwards to keep Verizon as my internet service provider, thinking it would be easiest, and they made my life a living hell, and I still tried and tried, and Verizon wouldn’t even meet me halfway. Now that I’m canceling, all of a sudden I’m an important customer? These tactics aren’t going to win them any favor among their current and potential customer base. I hope I reach a bunch of people who decide to fight back, or not to go with Verizon in the first place. Comcast costs me $8 more a month than Verizon, and it’s 500% faster!

Now, here’s the reason I’m even writing this blog post – because all this stuff that happened, I was pretty much willing to cut my losses and move on… but after all this, I looked at my bank statement, and Verizon is still debiting my bank account for Business DSL Service in Fairfax, VA! I canceled it on November 8th, and my latest bill is for the November 16 – December 16 billing period! They’re literally stealing my money!!! I thought I could save some time and try their online chat for help, instead of going through their wretched automated phone system.

When you begin the chat, it asks what you want to talk about – you have three options: Sales, Verizon Service, and Questions about Navigation/Web site. I chose Verizon service. Below is the transcript of my chat. It is not edited in any way, and nothing is out of context. It’s the entire thing:

Thank you for choosing Verizon Small Business.
A representative will be with you shortly. For quality control and training purposes, your session may be monitored or reviewed.

You are now chatting with Erika.

Erika: Hello! Welcome to Verizon’s Small Business Chat Service. How can I help you today?

Kevin: I was wondering – if I cancel my service mid-billing period, is the cost for that service prorated at all?

Erika: This chat is for site navigation. You would need to contact the billing department. Our business office is best equipped to assist you with your question today. Please contact them at 1-800- VERIZON.

Erika: I would assume it would be prorated but I do not definitively.

Kevin: oh.. sorry, i selected “verizon service” for my chat topic, not “site navigation,” which was also an option

Kevin: so i thought i’d be able to discuss service with you

Erika: I apologize about the inconvenience.

Kevin: why do they bother letting people choose the chat topic? that’s a site navigation question for you

Erika: I’m not sure.

Erika: Thank you for using Verizon’s chat service. The department to which I have referred you will be able to assist you. If you have any additional questions that we can assist you with, please do not hesitate to contact us again.

Kevin: Thanks.

Thank you for chatting with us. Please click the “Close” button on the top right of the chat window to tell us how we did today.

So there you have it. As a side note, I haven’t been getting mail for the last month or so, after forwarding my mail from Fairfax to Winchester. I called the U.S. Postal Service – you know, the one run by the horribly inefficient and massive United States government? Yeah. No hold time. Zero. A guy picked up immediately, I told him what I wanted, he transferred me to someone else who picked up immediately – it didn’t even ring her extension. And she was super nice and super helpful. I never, ever thought I would say something like, “Verizon should take a lesson from the US Postal Service,” but if Verizon’s “customer service” could emulate that of the USPS, holy cow, they’d be unstoppable.