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Spotty Coverage/Calls Breaking Up

For months coverage in northern Virginia/Reston area and beyond has been bad. It’s always been bad in a nearby shopping center but more recently poor connections are in many local areas. We know that in north Reston a cell tower was removed, but we’re miles away. Neighbors with T-Mobile report no problems. After 19 years with Verizon (and tons of conflicting prices concerning trading in a current phone) we’re considering leaving. The current infrastructure doesn’t seem to support the massive number of new customers Verizon is focused on and rewarding.

Comments

Verizon_Support

We're always working to expand, improve, and grow the network for all customers, new and long-time family members like you. Naturally, we'd been saddened to see you go. If you like, I can take a look at the area for coverage and if there are any known issues. All I would need is a zip code. If you need any clarification on a current trade-in promotion, we can also clear that up.

-John

bejeans

Thanks. 20191, 20190 and others further away, but we didn’t pay attention to zip code.

As for trade-in, part of the problem is it’s so confusing, your reps often don’t know so provide wrong info. Example: $500 offered with no new line needed? Wrong. It’s needed.

I think I finally have correct info after researching it ad nauseam but it’s skimpy, because Verizon just offers very good deals to new customers or decent offers to those willing to get a new line.

bejeans

I responded to your post but don’t see it now. So again, thanks. Two zips are 20191 and 20190, but we weren’t focused on zip codes for other northern Virginia locations where calls were broken up. It’s much worse now than it was even last year, though a nearby shopping center and certain streets have always had dead spots.

As far as a trade-in, part of the problem is lack of sufficient training for customer service reps for an overly complicated system.

In two calls, one rep gave me a dollar amount that supposedly did not require a new line or plan upgrade, but in actuality it did. And another gave me a number and tried to make it work for quite a while, putting me on hold, and finally escalated it. (I did not hear back after that.) So the amount he told me also required an upgraded plan even thoug the rep told me our plan was already at a high enough level.

I don’t fault the reps. As an ex corporate trainer, it’s easy to recognize when a company has too much complication for a normal person to ever understand it completely. But the bottom line is I believe I’ve figured out the amount, which is skimpy, because Verizon is hungry for new customers, and hopes the complications of switching will keep customers like me in the fold.

Verizon_Support

Thank you for that information, bejeans. At this time, I am not seeing any known issues or outages in those zip codes. Can you tell me more about how calls, text, and data are affected? Are you experiencing a service issue no mater where you go throughout these two zip codes? With regard to the trade-in, we do want to ensure that you have the correct details and amount. What phone are you interested in purchasing?

-Lauren

bejeans

Lauren, you may not have read my posts, because I said calls break up in some locations, so that would not be “wherever we go.” And I didn’t refer to outages, text or data.

I’m sure you know what calls breaking up means, but It’s when speaking with someone, voices are cutting in and out. Parts of sentences or words are heard. It’s been the case for years at a nearby shopping center (no high rise buildings) and a few other dead spots, but it’s gotten worse. But I already posted this.

It may be because of cell tower congestion. It’s well documented that if a tower is serving a very high call volume, quality of the signal can diminish. The population is growing. A tower was removed several miles from us though we are likely not in its range. Companies ambitiously sign up more people. That all contributes to congestion.

Verizon regularly denies there are problems. But there are. And with all due respect, fixing this type of problem cannot be done by customer service reps; it would take a shift in how Verizon does business.

And again, as I already posted, I figured out the trade-in It’s skimpy because we’re not new — we’ve only paid Verizon for service for 19 years.

Verizon_Support

bejeans, let's make sure we're able to figure out what's going on in your area. We're going to send you a Private Note so we can gather more details.

~Jesse

bejeans

I tried to respond but the first message sent to me was closed (too many days open, fault). So I responded to the second message and got the message “you have reached the limit of private messages etc.”

So one attempted message that didn’t go through is is the limit apparently. Where’s the rolling eyes emoticon?

Meanwhile I’ve been given yet another trade-in dollar amount for my old phone, different than the others.

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