About two weeks ago I called Verizon to inform them that, at the end of July, I would be moving to my new place. They said that they would shut off my phone and Internet at 1201 AM the night before I would need to move and that the transition would be seamless. And thus that is the reference point for the nightmare that follows.
More beneath the fold.
On Tuesday night my Internet stops working. I call Verizon's technical support and they test the modem. Eventually after talking to some technical support representative I found out that Verizon had shut off the DSL and that it had been already transferred to my new location. So I was to call at 8 AM yesterday morning to have their "Central Office" fix the issue.
I call at 8 AM and then I stay on hold for two hours. After two hours they tell me that the line still works that the DSL was there. The representative told me that there was a system-wide outage; and that, when I returned from work that night, it would be working. This person flat out lied to me. I go to work, thinking that the problem would be fixed when I returned home; I found out that I was wrong.
So I call Verizon and then they tell me that I have to deal with the Central Office and that they "closed at 6 PM". After demanding to speak to a supervisor they connected me to a representative who said that he would be handling the issue personally. I get a number and pin to dial.
I then get up at 8 AM and call a representative. This person says that they crosswired my line. I then find out that they have to send a technician to the warehouse to uncross the lines. By 10 AM they tell me that they "escalated the ticket". I then decide to call Comcast, who will be installing cable at my new place, telling them that I wanted to sign up for their service. I'm now screaming at the representative because I've lost a whole workday. He says for me to call back later that afternoon. I call around 0130 PM and still no resolution. The woman on the phone tells me to call before 6 PM, around 5 PM to see the status.
So I call back then and the problem has not been fixed. The representative then tells me that, even though I called at 0530 PM, they couldn't reach the person in the Central Office; and that I would have to call tomorrow. The representative told me that the earliest that I could get service back would be Monday. I start cussing and screaming at the supervisor. I tell them that I'm tired of the lying and the dishonesty. I tell them that I bet that that office did nothing with the ticket. I told him that I need the Internet to send email and that I shouldn't have to go to Kinko's and Internet cafe's to pay for service that I'm not getting at home. I said that I had already wasted 1 1/2 workdays dealing with them and that they were incompetent. I was tired of the stories that kept changing.
After another hour they set up a temporary dialup account for me. The billing representative then dropped a bombshell on me. Apparently there was no way for them to bring back the DSL to my line because I was moving and that it would be up again on the date of my arrival into my new home. On top of that all they could give me was dialup. I told the guy that, if that was the case, I wanted to cancel my service the day after my move. I told him that I had had enough and that I was going to Comcast.
The billing representative then transferred me to the IT department and I was put on hold again. My phone battery died at that point--been on the phone for an hour--so I had to wait 30 minutes. The representative called me back and then arranged the dialup. He said for me to call tomorrow to find out whether they would get the DSL back to my line. Until then I'm stuck using dialup.
Why the fuck can't Verizon get their acts together? Why is it that my landline stayed fine but my Internet got messed up? Whatever the case, when I call tomorrow, I will be telling the billing department to cancel my DSL after I move. If I have to live with dialup for two weeks that is what I will have to deal with. Hopefully Comcast won't be that bad.
Has anyone endured a nightmare like this with Verizon?