Hurricane Sandy knocked out Time Warner's high-speed cable internet service in my NYC neighborhood for a few days. I would later learn that Verizon FIOS and DSL were both disputed in other neighborhoods, but in the immediate post-Sandy confusion, Verizon sales staff targeted non-Verizon customers in areas where Sandy had disrupted cable internet but not Verizon service. My contact with the outside world having been just restored, Verizon offered me the "deal I couldn't refuse": Just "try" Verizon high-speed DSL for 30 days. "No obligation. If you don't like it, simply cancel within 30 days, and you'll owe nothing," So I figured, Heck, why not, I'll take the "free" trial.
I quickly learned that Verizon DSL service is worth about as much as Verizon had said I'd have to pay. (Nothing.) In the third week of experimenting with Verizon's shockingly slow, unreliable service , I sent Verizon written notice of cancellation, via my online account page on Verizon's own site, well within the 30-day deadline, stating clearly that I wished to cancel within the 30-day trial period, and that I found the service almost worthless. Verizon ignored me, and in subsequent months sent me bills for increasing hundreds of dollars. I responded with increasingly strident ALL CAPS messages demanding Verizon honor its 30-day "no-risk" trial offer, within which time I'd canceled. Verizon continued to ignore me, sent increasingly threatening notices for ever larger amounts "threatening" to cut off the so-called "service" that I'd long since stopped using, finally did cut off service, and then sent me notices claiming I owed nearly $400.
I called and spoke with two Verizon representatives, the second of whom acknowledged a mistake on Verizon's part. She promised to have the matter resolved.
I then heard nothing for nearly a month, at which point Verizon or the entity to which it "sells" its "bad accounts" reported to all three credit bureaus that I'd defaulted on my account (the existence of which it was also reporting for the first time to the three credit bureaus). Amount claimed due: $150. My credit rating, which I'd be carefully protecting and improving upon as I'm of trying to refinance a mortgage, dropped to its lowest level ever. The banks that service my credit cards consequently slashed my credit lines, increasing my debt to equity ratio, and further decimating my credit rating.
At this point, even if Verizon corrects its false report that set off the falling dominoe effect in my credit reports, at best it would take months if not years to repair the damage Verizon caused my credit history through a fraudulent report. More likely, the damage is beyond repair. I cannot refinance my mortgage, and I am stuck with a 30-year interest rate on which I'll pay many tens of thousands of dollars extra over the next several decades thanks to Verizon's lies, deceptions and violations of my legal rights and fundamental normal of human decency.
As if all that isn't bad enough, Verizon's 3rd-party bill collector never ceases calling me, 8 a.m.. to 8 p.m.. I'm just one person, and I never wanted any business relationship with Verizon at all. Yet this corporate monstrosity and its vultures mercilessly, endlessly trample over my life. "Just pay the 150 bucks and be done with it," you say? Of course I'd pay {please keep your posts courteous} their unlawful ransom, but even if that finally made them go away, it wouldn't repair what they've done to me.
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