Mayweather boxing fight erroneously ordered; No service for 5 months due to wiring & box issues

[crmn]

Treat your customers with real RESPECT. Treat customers as human beings, not just as cash machines! I am leaving Verizon after being a customer for about 20 years. I had so many problems and complained so many times to Verizon, I don't even know where to start this post.

Let’s try with the beginning, trying to recall the dates after all these months of constant problems. About February 2015 the image on the TV started to freeze, then re-start, and the “freeze” periods became longer and longer every week. Starting with 10 minutes freeze, then to hours, than to almost all day, until around April 2015 when we pretty much had just a black screen. May be wed TV a few minutes a day. The internet connection was very slow too and often dropping the line entirely. When we first called Verizon in April 2015, the phone operator ERONEOUSLY tied our complaint to an area outage that had absolutely nothing to do with our problem. As a direct result of her error, we had to wait for about an entire week to get a technician sent to our house, when the “area outage” repair was slowly progressing. We were told later by the technicians that our problem was not connected to the outage, and that he was in our area all the time, he could have come in the same day.

Nevertheless, the technician would come. Look around, get the TV to work a little bit, and then the same problem would start again 10 minutes after the technician would leave: the internet was slow, and the TV screen would freeze more and more often and for longer time, until the TV screen would be just black. So we had to call Verizon again, and wait for a week or so until the technician would be send again, and do the same thing.

Over and over again, almost every week I would spend HOURS on the phone with Verizon, every time explaining what the problem was, and Verizon sending again a technician who would not know what the problem was. Every time the technician was send to my house I had to take TIME OFF FROM WORK, to be there. The technicians told us that Verizon strictly limits their time at customers’ house to one hour, and that they are forced to fill out paperwork and provide explanations as why they needed more time. As a result of this Verizon policy, the technicians would not stay long enough to solve any complex problem.

By the end of August beginning of September (approximately), I called Verizon and told them I will not open the door to another technician unless a supervisor is present. That is when the field supervisor Tony came with the technician. Tony confirmed that the internet was barely crawling at a speed much lower than what I was charged for, and that the TV screen was black, without ANY reception. He apologized, he said there was no excuse for Verizon technicians not to solve this problem since April when we first complained. Tony gave me his word that he will not give up until the problem will be identified, solved, and my Verizon bill will be corrected for the MONTHS when I did not have proper service. To include TV, slow internet, DVR boxes, and additional programming I was charged for such as Romanian TV, HBO, SHO. Because I had TV with either freezing screen or without service at all for about 5 months, he would make sure I will not be billed.

Tony and the technicians worked for a few hours (end of August or first days of September), and they said the wiring was at fault, and that the Verizon technicians should have determined that and should have fixed it from the first visit, in April. Not to be delayed by erroneously associating our service to an area outage, and not sending technicians for months without being able to determine the problem and fix it. The bad wiring was the cause for BOTH the very slow internet, and of the lack of TV reception. All seemed OK when Tony and the technician left, and I was optimistic after Tony gave me his word that the Verizon will not bill me for all the months of poor or complete lack of service. He also thanked me for my patience with Verizon.

Oh, well…only hours later the TV screens started to freeze on and off again, until the complete black screen. We called again the technician and this time he determined the outside box needed to be replaced. However, he did not have a new one in the truck, and he would replace it with another used one which hopefully would still be better than the one I have been using. The last technician assured me too that once we determined that the service was repaired completely, Tony will make sure my Verizon bill will be corrected and not charged for the months I did not have service BECAUSE OF BAD WIRING!!!! I could not have TV reception or internet at the proper speed with bad wiring and a bad box.

What can I say? The service was finally repaired at the end of the first week in September, but the Verizon bill was not properly corrected. I did get about $200.00 in partial discount BEFORE I talked to Tony. But my monthly bill is about $180.00/month. So I paid for about 4 months even though I had poor or no service at all. Tony never corrected the bill as he said. When I called him, I was told he left in vacation the very next day.

While waiting for Tony to correct the bill, My 88 years old mother who does not speak English well and who had cataract surgery, might have encountered that pesky PPV advertising that Verizon plasters on our screen every morning, and she must have pressed the incorrect button, while trying to find the Romanian TV channels. When she could not change the channels, she must carried on with her day, or just might have fallen asleep, as 88 years old ladies sometimes do. As a result, I was charged $99.00 for a Merryweather Boxing fight.

I called the supervisor Tony, who gave me his word he will make sure my service is repaired and my bill corrected for the months I COULD NOT HAVE SERVICE because of defective wiring and broken box. Tony answered the phone and told me he was promoted to work to the Capitol Hill, and he will forward my case to the new manager who replaced him in the field. I never heard back from anybody ever again. That much about giving me the word that he will PERSONALLY not stop until the service is repaird and the bill corrected.

I called Verizon to have the boxing fight charges waived and to have the bill corrected of the old charges when I did not have service, and Verizon supervisors refused. Even though in over a decade since I had TV service with Verizon we never even once ordered a PPV sporting event.

I refuse to pay for 5 months of poor or no service at all, when Verizon mishandled my calls, made us wait as part of so called “area outage”, then not being able to diagnose for 5 months the wiring problem and the defective box, while continuing to charge me for internet, partial TV, plus HBO, SHO, boxes, taxes, fees…

Now Verizon threatens to turn off my service tomorrow, October 30, 2015.

What can I say? I had enough! I asked Verizon to cancel my service and I will transfer my phone number to another company. Verizon supervisor advised me to keep the service a few days , to make it easier for the new phone company to request the transfer of my home number. I agreed to keep the service a few more days only until my home number is transferred to the new company.

[LawrenceC]

Hi crmn,

Your issue has been escalated to a Verizon agent. Before the agent can begin assisting you, they will need to collect further information from you. Please go to your profile page for the forum and look at the top of the middle column where you will find an area titled "My Support Cases". You can reach your profile page by clicking on your name beside your post, or at the top left of this page underneath the title of the board.

Under "My Support Cases" you will find a link to the private board where you and the agent may exchange information. The title of your post is the link. This should be checked on a frequent basis, as the agent may be waiting for information from you before they can proceed with any actions. To ensure you know when they have responded to you, at the top of your support case there is a drop down menu for support case options. Open that and choose "subscribe". Please keep all correspondence regarding your issue in the private support portal.