Verizon Complaint

Verizon Complaint

March 30, 2006

****Complaint sent to Verizon Communications Inc. on March 30, 2006**** To Whom It May Concern: I am a small business owner who just transferred my Verizon business phone service from Virginia to Maryland. The setup of my Virginia service last year (2005) was a rocky experience, but I did not complain to Verizon and decided that your company had simply ‘had a bad day’ as everyone does. However, my most recent experience with Verizon (changing my service to our new address in Maryland) was a jaw-dropping study in workplace apathy run amok. My experience updating my business account with Verizon has been one of the worst customer service fiascos I have ever gone through. 1) I called on Thursday (2/16) to confirm my installation, and the representative that I talked to said "It's not scheduled for today (the 16th), it's scheduled for Friday (the 17th)." So I spent several hours at my empty offices on the 16th for nothing, come to find out that the tech came later in the day but I missed him/her any ways because I left after being told the appointment was cancelled. 2) All along this process I referenced the 301.277.7190 (and 7191 for fax) phone numbers that was given to me by Sharonda Finch: order #N9XR57464, service order # 0770675543). 3) I went to the office on the 17th 8am to wait for the install tech, and at 9:30am I thought, 'I better call to confirm that they are coming'. I spent the next THREE HOURS being bounced around by Verizon employees on the phone. YOU CAN VERIFY THIS ON MY VERIZON WIRELESS PHONE RECORDS (my number is 202.460.9455). I talked to at least 10 different Verizon people, total (this is not an exaggeration). The first 5 people I talked to were totally incompetent and could care less about my situation. On the 6th person I started to write names down: Angela (#6), Missy (#7), Mr. Jones (#8), Sharon (#9), Ms. Harris (#10), Ms. McCorkle (#11), and several more after that. These people were slightly more attentive than the first 5, but still no help. At least they didn't hang up on me or transfer me to a number that hung up on me, like the first 5. 4) The Sales department was telling me that the appointment on the 17th was still valid, but the Repair/Installation department was telling me it was canceled. 5) Finally, the Sales department got Repair/installation on a conference call, and they both told me that 301-277-7190 and 7191 were numbers that were never even available, and that they already belonged to another Verizon customer! 6) Therefore nobody came on the 17th to install my phone service either. 7) This hurts even more because I had 200 business cards printed up with those exact numbers, thinking I would be working from my office starting the 16th. Add to all of this that I sent out about 15 business cards to potential clients, and they all had the 301.277.7190 number on them, which was incorrect/not available according to 3 different Verizon people on the 17th. I guess I’ll have to swallow this one because as several Verizon people told me “the numbers aren’t guaranteed until the tech shows up.” 8) I came to find out (in the end) that someone HAD scheduled another installation for me on the 17th, but then they canceled it for no reason. How does this happen? All in all, I spent 2-3 hours on the 16th, and 5 hours on the 17th at my (empty) offices for no reason, just talking to Verizon on the phone. It was SOOO frustrating I cannot even begin to explain - people were hanging up on me, putting me on hold for long periods, and generally no one took the interest to truly resolve my situation, as I was transferred from one department, to another, to another, to another, for HOURS, with no one taking ownership or initiative to resolve my situation. Important note: I was very polite throughout these calls, it was not until one of the final calls that I lost my cool, and even then I was not rude or insulting, as hard as it was not to be. In the time since this mess occurred, my Verizon account has been set up successfully. I was told to wait to lodge my complaint until my first bill arrived, which it has. I'm asking that Verizon Wireless refund all of the minutes I spent on my cell phone (I have a Verizon wireless account) for the mornings of February 16th and 17th, and also to adjust my bill with some recourse for the many hours I wasted on the phone with Verizon while your employees passed me around the horn with an amazing display of apathy, for the enormous waste of time and energy that this all caused. Please let me know if there is any way that you feel we can remedy this situation. Sincerely, Will Hyattsville, MD

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