I'm a professional photographer, and the internet is absolutley essential to my work. Whilst browsing around 12am just this very night, my internet suddenly and unexpectedly cut out. I was just about to upload a client's set to my site, which was alarming as my deadline is the following morning.
Now, obviously, I can't pay my bill online, but wait! I do also have a 4g Galaxy S5. I navigated to the Verizon website to see if there were service interruptions. There weren't, as far as this site would tell me. I did see, though, that my bill was past due. I was positive I set up an autobilling scheme, but I'll grant that maybe I just thought I did and simply forgot. This being said, Verizon never attempted to contact me at the number on my account or the alternate email associated with my account. This really is a small sin, considering I was not charged a late fee. I simply wanted to pay my bill, because at the time, I was under the impression I was shut off for late payment (I wasn't, read on).
So, on my phone (which, note, also has Verizon service) I click on "Pay my Bill". I'm brought to a service unavailable page. Now being a reasonable person, I'm fully aware that not all sites can be up all the time, and it's not anyone's fault for minor service interruptions. So I called Verizon. This is where everything went south.
I was connected to a service agent which I'm sure could be looked up as the last agent who accessed my account. After some minutes of answering the typical safety questions, I said I was in a hurry and simply wanted to pay my bill. I was also under the impression that Verizon enjoys maintaining customers. They don't. I was told that despite the fact the site was simply refusing my request to pay via 4G, I would still need to pay a fee of 8 dollars to pay over the phone. This isn't a lot of money, but what it is, is exploitation. If I can't pay via the website on mobile, can't pay online (my service being down), my only option was to pay over the phone. She outright refused to waive the silly fee. So, I asked to speak to her manager. After asking me "why", which is abysmal customer service in the first place, she tells me I'll get a call back in 24 hours. She was told serveral times that this was extremely urgent, but as if my words or concerns mean nothing, that's what I was insulted with. You all must note that at no point was I rude with this woman, despite her talking over me, and being rude to me.
I was so dumbfounded by this extreme lack of sense and abhorrent failure of simple customer service, that I ended the call. I'll be contacting Verizon again tomorrow to see what I can do about leaving the service.
Verizon, you can't attempt to close the road and then gouge the tolls on the alternate path. I wanted to pay my bill like a responsible person, but clearly that wasn't enough... But really, the story gets best here: after ending the call, I did a simple power recycle on the modem, just in case stuff like that still works. It turns out, my internet was fine, and back on in seconds. At no point did my customer service representative inform me that my service was still active, instead attempting to gouge me for a fee I never needed to pay, over a method that was never nessesary in the first place.
I just paid my bill, but hopefully it's the last. Let this be a cautionary tale. Verizon only cares about getting paid, and does not care about making customers happy.
