This is a rant about verizon customer service.
So on a black friday sale in November 2011, I got a cable card tuner for my computer. After I received it, I went to my local Verizon FiOS store and got a cable. I went home installed the tuner and cable card, paired the cable card online at verizon.com, and life was great. Sometime between February and April 2012 the cable card lost it's pairing, but it was still getting the channel map and I don't subscribe to any encrypted pay channels, so I could still view all my channels no problem.
Then at the end of June 2012 I get a letter from Verizon stating they are going to start encypting some channels, so my cable card has to be paired properly. They even set up channel 31 as an encrypted channel so that I could verify whether my card was correctyl paired or not. Of course my card wasn't, and that is where all the goodness of Verizon went out the window, as I was now going to be dealing with customer service.
So on July 5th with plenty of free time, I decided to tackle the problem. I couldn't re-pair my card online, because it had already been paired once. So this is where I made my first mistake, I knew that in order to re-pair the card, strings of numbers would have to be entered. So I tried Verizon FiOS's online chat support, so I could copy and paste the numbers, So after being on hold for 40 minutes, yes on hold for 40 minutes for an online chat, because they suckered me in. When I first connected to the chat, I was 9th in line with a five minute wait. But all the representatives must have been going out to lunch, because everytime I moved up a position in the queue, the wait time increased. Yes they suckered me in, and I waited 40 minutes just to find out they couldn't do anything and told me to telephone (why online support can't do what telephone support can do, is beyond my comprehension). So I then call Verizon FiOS customer support, press serveral buttons on my phone and then wait on hold for another 20 minutes While every so often a recorded voice interupts the musac to say: You can get faster service online. I wonder if Verizon realizes the irony in that. Anyway, I finally get a person and find out Verizon doesn't re-pair cable cards. Verizon customer service just tells you the card is defective (which it isn't) and sends you a new card. So 2 days later on saturday I get the cable card, but not wanting to miss tv shows, I wait until tuesday to replace the cable card and pair the cable card online (the online pairing works great, 2 thumbs up). Then the next day I go to one of the designated UPS stores and ship the old cable card back (verizon supplies a return shipping label to put on the original box). So I figure, eh not too bad, a little over an hour lost on hold, wasted time with customer service, but I now have a paired cable card and can get encrypted channels when Verizon starts encrypting them.
Then comes my next bill in August, and I am being billed an additional $5.47 (3.99 + partial month + tax) for a defective cable card (according to Verizon). So I phone the Verizon customer service number on my bill (I now know better than to use the online support). After pressing several numbers and being put on hold 3 times, I finally get someone who can help me. He looks something up, and says yes you did return the cable card, we will correct it and credit your account. Another half hour of my life gone.
So now comes my September bill, Verizon only credited my account for 53 cents. By now I am really not happy. So I call Verizon Customer Service again. This time went a little better, I was only on hold for about 15 minutes, and when I told my story (and he is looking at my account), he said we will credit your account for $4.94 . Hopefully this is the end of it, or maybe it will end up like 'Better Off Dead', with me saying: I want my two dollars 🙂
