I have been a loyal Verizon FIOS customer for over 8 years, signing up as soon as Fios was brought into my building, and have been satisfied with the service until now. While watching TV yesterday, I saw a popup notice that I was entitled to a $135+ credit for my Netflix subscription if I was an existing Netflix subscriber. The popup stated I should go to www.verizon.com/redeemnetflix. That link brought me to my Verizon home page but there was no form or other instructions on how to claim the credit. While on your website, I was prompted to do an online chat with Customer Support. The customer support person was very friendly and tried to help, but in the end, she stated that she couldn’t find the promotion and didn’t know why I got the original popup notice. I thanked her for trying and ended the chat.
While I was still on the My Version page however, I saw another offer stating I could lock in a lower monthly price for my existing FIOS coverage if I agreed to a 2-year contract. My current monthly bill averaged $259. Even though it was only a $5 monthly savings (the revised bill would be $254), I decided to accept the offer.
Later that same day, I discovered that HBO and Cinemax no longer worked, and saw a TV message that I was not subscribed. Since I have had HBO/Cinemax, Showtime, EPIX, Stars and several other premium channels from the beginning of my time with Fios, I assumed it was an error, and called Customer Service. Again, the Customer Service person was friendly but said when I accepted the 2-year contract HBO/Cinemax had been dropped, and since I had been on a Grandfathered plan, she could not add them back unless I agreed to pay an additional $25 a month. In other words, in order to get the exact same service, I’d had before I agreed to the 2-year contract (in order to save $5/month), my monthly cost would now be $279 ($20 more a month). I asked for an offset credit of $20 a month to reduce my cost to the $259 I had been paying all along. She spoke with a supervisor and tried to open a ticket, but in the end said there was nothing she could do. To mitigate my losses, I told her to just add HBO back, making my new monthly cost $269 ($10 more per month then I had been paying before the Verizon offer, and without Cinemax). So, by accepting Verizon’s offer to save money with a 2-year contract, I ended up losing Cinemax and paying an $10 more a month for a lesser package. At no time was I told that I would lose HBO/Cinemax if I agreed to the 2-year contract. I would never done it otherwise. And I’d taken Verizon up on 2-year contract offers at least twice before without any changes in service. As a long-time Verizon customer, I was hoping they could remedy this situation, either by restoring my original plan and bill, or by giving me an off-setting credit for the next two years.
