I'm very, very frustrated due to long-standing problems with my Verizon service, and am hoping to get advice on finding some way to resolve this. Obviously, I need to find someone who can help, as opposed to well-meaning service people and technicians who sympathize but tell me the system is too inefficient to correct my problems.
Here's a copy of the e-mail I just sent to Verizon support:
I've been having problems with my Verizon service for over three years now, and I’m very frustrated My phone line develops a lot of noise, such as humming and crackling, when it rains. A couple of years ago, Verizon technicians came out on a couple of occasions. One technician told me that there was a lot of old and rusted equipment on the poles in my area, and that this is what causes the problems when it rains. The other technician managed to find a problems spot, and, after he worked on it, my service was a little better. Not perfect, but I was able to live with it and at least use the phone when it rained. So, I put up with it rather than waste any more time.
Over the past few months, however, things have been getting worse again (still when it rains), and are ever worse than they were when I first reported the problem. A couple of weeks ago, I went online and did a network check when it was raining, and the software said that a problem was found with the network. I scheduled a repair visit, only it wasn’t raining when the tech got here, so there was no problem for him to trace. He told me that this was a common problem, and the only thing I could do is try to keep an eye on the extended forecast and try to schedule visits on days it’s supposed to rain. Also, I called Verizon support and talked to a woman who found this a very familiar situation, and told me the same thing, that I would have to try to schedule repairs on a day when it’s supposed to rain.
On top of this, I started to develop problems with my DSL a few days ago. Today it is raining, and both my phone service and my DSL are performing terribly. There’s a ton of noise on my line, and my DSL speeds are fluctuating from normal speeds to a crawl. I’m a rather technical person, and have done things from computer programming to software and hardware support, so I am quite sure there is nothing wrong on my end in regard to either software or hardware problems. (I even did a fresh operating system install a few days ago, so there is definitely no problem there.) I went online a little while ago, and a network check found a problem once again, which isn’t surprising since, as I said, it’s raining and it detects problems when it’s wet out (and doesn’t find problems when it’s dry). I was prompted to schedule another repair visit, which I did.
I scheduled the repair visit for next Tuesday, because rain is forecast for that day, but who knows if it will actually rain and give the technician some hope of finding the problem. All in all, this is really very absurd, and very frustrating. Even the technician that came out a couple of weeks ago was saying that he really couldn’t understand why there was absolute no provision in the system for handling problems that manifest themselves in rainy weather, particularly, he said, since it was such a common problem. Which is essentially what the woman in support said when I talked with her. They both laughed about how finding a problem like this, when there’s no method of addressing it, could take forever (if technicians never arrive on a rainy day). But I’ve pretty much stopped laughing.
Unfortunately, I’m disabled now, and rely quite a lot on my phone and internet. Not to mention that I’ve been paying for sub-par service for a very long time now. At this point, my phone isn’t even usable when it’s wet out (which has been the case for at least the past couple of months), and my internet experience is very frustrating. The last thing I really want to do is go through weeks or months of scheduling repairs and then having repair technicians arrive on sunny days. There must be some way of addressing this problem. It’s absurd to think that your procedures don’t provide for such a common problem, considering how much time it’s wasting for both me any your company. I’m a very patient person, but I’ve put up with this for so long my frustration has gotten the better of me.
What can I do to resolve this, other than talk with support people and technicians that tell me that the system is inadequate and there is nothing they or I can do? The last technician that showed up didn’t even have a bucket truck, and he said that he couldn’t have tracked down a problem even if it was wet and he was able to detect the problems I was having. This occurred after I spoke with the support person online and she supposedly made notes about the specific problems I was having. Isn’t there any procedure in place that can deal with problems less randomly and get this fixed?
Could this e-mail please be passed on to someone in a supervisory position, so I can get better answers than people simply telling me that nothing can really be done.
