Over the last few months, probably starting in June, people began telling me that they were calling me, but the calls were going directly to voicemail. I would never see a missed call, and I never received the voicemails. I spoke to several people about this, and both my cousin and a friend reported experiencing the same issue. We’d all call each other while trying different troubleshooting methods, but nothing worked. My friend said she’d spent hours on the phone with Verizon. It would seem fixed, and then it would immediately start happening again.
After a few attempts of my own, and not feeling comfortable knowing I could seriously miss an important call, I called Verizon.
I initially spoke with a Verizon rep on the phone, whose solution was to send me a Wi-Fi extender. The second attempt turned into a text chat nightmare.
Today, I went to a Verizon location. The associate adjusted some settings and confirmed it would work. I had my mom call me. The call went straight to voicemail and didn’t come through. After two more attempts, she finally managed to get through.
Then the associate claimed the issue was that my plan needed an upgrade. I explained that I fail to see how my plan would prohibit calls from coming through and told her exactly how awful those business practices are if Verizon doesn’t inform customers that not upgrading a plan could result in lost calls.
Has anyone been warned about this? Has Verizon formally notified customers? And if a plan is “no longer a plan,” why are customers allowed to stay on it?
Verizon, if you’re reading this, that’s why I left the store with two birds in the air.
I returned home this afternoon with the Verizon tech support number on the Post-it that Little Miss Upgrade handed me. Before her upsell attempt, I told the associate that my frustration was with the company, not her. At least, not yet.
Due to this issue, I’ve missed one call from my insurance company regarding a car accident, one call from my health benefits coordinator with time-sensitive information, and possibly a call from a person in distress who did not make it. That is why I’m angry.
I got home, called the number, and spoke to a rep named Joseph. I explained everything. To Joseph’s credit, he’s the first person in this entire journey to admit there’s an issue outside the scope of me resetting my phone or upgrading my plan.
First, he had me dial *86 to retrieve any voicemails. There were seventeen unheard messages that were never delivered to my phone, dating back to February. Seventeen.
Then Joseph reactivated network features and synced network elements. I had several people call me to test if their calls would come through. This was today, and I don’t know if it will stick. Joseph told me they’ve escalated the problem to their engineers.
It doesn’t matter. As of this writing, and as someone who has worked in communications (I'm writing fast and I’m angry, don’t judge), I’ll be sending this to The New York Times, NBC, CBS, CNN, and every other media contact I’ve built relationships with during my career.
I also told Joseph I’d be happy to provide him with all the comments from forums I’ve collected to help their engineers. Do I think my issue will be solved? No. But Joseph was, at least, a decent human being who really tried his best.
And while Verizon repeatedly thanked me for being a loyal customer for over nineteen years, all I’ve seen are my prices going up and my service getting worse. The alternative is changing companies, but no one is any better. At all. The gaslighting and absolute negligence on the part of these companies are absolutely obscene. And dangerous.
