Around January 2005, I signed up for Verizon DSL. I had been using dialup as a temporary solution but it pained me. Not having interest in or resources to pay for cable television at the time, my high speed internet choices were Verizon or a higher cable internet rate without the price cut that comes with cable television. So I took Verizon DSL, and it worked well. I can’t pit the first eight months or so of service.
Then I moved to a new address. I knew this was going to happen within one year when I signed up for Verizon DSL and was given the choice of a 1-year service agreement or a noticeably higher cost each month for an unfettered agreement. I asked if I could transfer that service agreement to the new, as of yet unknown, location. Whether it was two doors away, the next town over, or three states away (so long as Verizon was in said state). They said “yes, absolutely not a problem.” So August 25 or so, I give them a call saying “I am moving to a new location, I need to transfer the service.” I go through the motions to get it transferred, am assured that it will be up and running by September 6th (it needing more time than the phone connection for some reason).
On a hunch, I give them a call on the third or fourth, to check that it’s going to activate like it should. Lo and behold, the woman I spoke to the week prior had misentered the information for the transfer, and put it under the old phone number, deactivated as of the end of August. Which meant that, entirely through Verizon’s fault, I would now need to wait until September 19 for service! Fine, whatever. I’m stuck on this year plan until next January or so, I’ll suffer through it. They generously give me complimentary dialup in the interim. Whoopteeshit.
On the 12th or 13th, again on a hunch, I give them a call to check the activation date. I’m told that a technician is scheduled to come out on the 15th to activate service. Good deal. If it had fucking worked, it would have been, anyway. The night of the 15th, I have a miserably long redundant conversation with their tech support about the service being activated on the 15th, but not REALLY activated until the 19th. Activated is motherfucking activated. The tech came out, I have little blinking lights telling me something is going through, I just need my new username and password because in the original transfer fuckup, the username got deleted when the service at the old phone number was cancelled. Bitch doesn’t budge.
Today, the 19th, I try again. After two hours on the phone with (an admittedly helpful) tech support, I have nothing. Well, not nothing. I have my computer trying to send out, I have the world trying to stream in, but I have a logjam somewhere around the DSL modem. He puts in a service request with the network folk to see if they can diagnose the problem in more detailed, technical ways than he has access to. I’m currently in limbo on those folk.
But now I’m wondering about my billing. I was told August 25th that the cost of DSL would be suspended until it was up and running again. Well, in one sense it was running September 15th once the tech came out to my apartment and did his work at the box. Not that I had any usable service, but they could claim it was activated then and I should be billed from then. According to the tech woman from the night of September 15th (who couldn’t answer the billing question on her own), the service doesn’t start until the quoted date of the 19th. It’s the 19th, and still not running, so I say I shouldn’t be charged yet. Two-hour-long tech guy transfers me over to the billing department this morning, and I find out that I am supposed to be billed starting today, the 19th, but since service is not working and I was on the phone with their tech for two excruciating hours, I should keep track of when the service really is up and running for real so they can adjust the bill accordingly, so that they know when the 1-year service agreement begins.
Come again? When the 1-year agreement begins? I thought I was already under a one year agreement from January/February/Whatever when I initially signed up and was told that that one year plan could get transferred from location to location with the greatest of ease. That one was stopped and a new one is beginning? Am I going to be charged for an early termination fee because of this? And, oh yeah, I’m trapped in another year of your mediocre speeds and the WORST FUCKING AUTOMATED PHONE SYSTEM AND mostly THOROUGHLY UNINFORMED FECES SLINGING HELPDESK MONKEYS?
I won’t be charged an early termination fee for the old agreement (we’ll see when the bill comes), and yes I am now agreeing to a whole other year of service without actually agreeing to any such thing because of how Verizon fucked up the service transfer to a new address. Or so the woman says. Having had just shy of a month of Verizon jerking me every which way but connected to the internet, I start railing. I’m pissed; I wanted to be out at the end of this year and to paraphrase Michael Corleone, Verizon pulls me back in. This woman, poor billing phone rep that really doesn’t deserve my wrath, informs me that with new service activation (which this now technically is. Never mind the eight months of service that I just had under a different phone number that doesn’t exist any more), there is a 30 day satisfaction guarantee. If I cancel by October 19th (or within one month of whenever service might actually begin in any meaningful way), there’s no penalty, no charges, no fault to me.
So thank you, Verizon DSL Billing lady, for telling me that I can tell your company to circle jerk themselves to blindness without my money without penalty. I think I just might take you up on that and now that I have cable TV, go with the cable internet instead.
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