So, at the end of almost 4 years of service, I now find out that Verizon offers a much better deal to NEW customers. It is significantly cheaper and they give them a FREE DVR for life AND a $300 Prepaid VISA Card !!
So I called to do a "complimentary" account review and could not get a "deal" anywhere near the price of what they are offering to new customers...let alone what they state in their direct mail letter. I asked one Customer Service rep if I could talk to a supervisor...answer: "no"....you have to go online to get the new "deal".... Guess what ? The online deal is $5.00 more a month than the "scheduled" price increase" quoted of $10.00 and it does not offer the DVR.
So ... Dustin Kroger - Director, Customer Rleationship Marketing ...the guy who sent me the letter......WAKE UP...Verizon's Customer Service SUCKS ! Why are you screwing your best revenue base ?
I have contacted my NJ State Div. of Consumer Affairs who already has a website devoted to Verizon's misrepresentations, so I know i am not alone in my thoughts.
I will probably switch to Optimum online, simply because I can't get straight answers and I find this sort of corporate behavior pretty un-ethical.
I couldn't agree more!
Why can't existing customers get this free multi-room DVR deal?
Do we have to cancel our account and then sign up again?
The Optimum salesman is always knocking on our door to offer us a better deal, maybe we should take him up on it...Verizon isn't doing much to keep their loyal customers!
Verizon...seriously...what is your answer to this. Please respond to this soon or I am going to drop my service and go elsewhere...you are about to lose some money.
Its a common practice with many service companies to not give the good deals to existing customers.
However at least some of these deals, or other special deals, exist now for loyal customers. Seems to vary by regions of the country.
Common practice doesn't make it a good practice. 😉
Had a long conversation last night with a Service Cancellation agent and she tried to tell me that they stand on the quality of their product and basically that should be enough (not in those exact words)...I told her that quite frankly in this economy no company should stand solely on their product quality alone and if they arent offering solid cost savings then there's no good reason for a customer to stick around. Especially if they can leave go somewhere else and then come back and get those savings by "being new".
Sure it's a hassle...but again...in this economy when people are trying to save money the "hassle" can be worth it. They want to bump up my rate by $50 a month. That's $600 a year!!!
At the very least I am going to be cancelling some services which means they WILL be losing revenue.
Because it's their Modus Operandi.
Can't agree more. Verizon, you will be losing business if this is the way you treat loyal customers.
I dont know any cable company who will give existing customers better deals that new customers get. Years ago, maybe, but not these days. I switched a year and a half ago from Bright House who I was paying $99 a month for their bundle with snail internet speeds. After the year was up I called and tried to get them to keep me at the $99 rate as I was thinking about switching to fios. They told me there were no deals for me and was nothing they could do. I even called 2 other times to try again to nothing, but even the last rep. saw that I already called before since they keep records.
I ended up switching to fios. After a year and a half I saw the new upgrade center and the current offers. No they were not as cheap as a new customer would get, but not only could I get the $300 visa I could still get the bundle I wanted at a fair price compared to what Bright House would charge me. Lets put it this way, my father in law can not get fios where he is and pays $250 a month for the same stuff I have now and I'm still paying a good $100+ less.
Its all a matter of where you live, how much competition is around you and what not.
Would I like the free dvr? of course who wouldnt?
These days what a lot of people do is switch back and fourth from company to company just to get the good prices. We shouldn't have to do that, but that's how it goes. Once my 2 years are up I'm sure I'll switch back to Bright House for 6 months (since verizon makes you wait 6 months) then switch back to fios again unless I find a decent rate in the upgrade center at that time.
BTW...Im not asking for a BETTER deal...just the SAME deal.
Because we allow them to get away with it!!! What we need is more competition. If there were 10 cable companies in your area, I bet you could get a better price. Sometimes, I wonder why I bother with getting the higher priced cable TV. I only watch a very few stations. Maybe, we should all downsize.!!!
so-and-so wrote: " ... If there were 10 cable companies in your area, I bet you could get a better price ... "
And if there were ten storm sewers companies, I suppose my quarterly bills would be lower. How about ten police departments, ten municipal governments, etc.? Why stop at entertainment suppliers?
My point of course is that the capital and infrastructure to support the type of mass market supply under discussion is not free, and one way or another the investment must be recovered. Otherwise it won't be made in the first place.
Good answer armond! Verizon is a utility company, not just a carrier of TV service. I think another factor is that if all existing customers were to suddenly get the introductory rates and free DVRs given to new customers, where would the profit be? I'm not even the biggest fan of corporate America but it makes sense and that's how all corporations stay in business.
And yes, I agree that 10 cable companies in the area wouldn't make any difference in price.
I found out how to reap the rewards for loyalty.
I agree with you. We had a Verizon Rep. trying to sell the services and I approached him with the same problem. He suggested that I disconnect Verizon FIOS for a couple of months, go with a Cable Company and then try come back to Verizon. Well, I did that and Verizon screwed my last bill. They were incorrectly asking me for money on my last bill while in reality they owed me a Refund. They sent it to a Collection Agency. I was so fed up and angry that I filed a complaint with FTC and Better Business Bureau. Additionally, I spent over 20 hours with more than 7 different departments. Finally when BBB approached them with my complaint, someone from their higher office called and fixed the problem. I assure you if they had messed up my credit report, a major law suit would have been filed.
I disagree with this entire complaint. And switching from Fios to another cable company just to get a cheaper deal? This is just my opinion but I would think that it would cost more time and money just to do that. I just renewed my 2 year contract with Verizon and I am getting discounts ( 2 $10 discounts I believe); upgrades for lower rates; and a $250 pre-paid debit card which I fully intend on using. That's a great savings! I don't have a DVR and if I had a DVR, of course I wouldn't mind getting that for free. Someone else here apparently was able to do that as an existing customer but that's just given to new customers as far as I know. And regardless, given the nice deal I'm getting to keep my rates down, not to mention being able to have access to all of these extra stations that cable customers would have to pay extra just to have and to have picture quality and Internet speed and digital phone service which are way better than what cable could offer, how can I go wrong with that? The only increase I'm getting is a higher initial bill because of the one time activation fee and the partial month of service for which I get billed in advance but then after that, my bill is estimated to be even lower than what it was before.
Cable doesn't offer anything close to the kind of quality that Verizon offers and the rates for cable go up and up without a contract. I think there are certain things that Verizon has communicated poorly. You will have no disagreement from me when it comes to that but I do not believe that Verizon is "screwing" existing loyal customers because I have just mentioned the rewards for a loyal customer like myself and all it took was an on line chat with a CSR under the link for "upgrade and renewal center" and this particular CSR did a fabulous job with me.
I had been thinking about possibly switching to Comcast but there is just no way. Not only would I not gain anything, but that would be settling for a product of lower quality and I am sure that the customer service would vary just as much.
All I can suggest is that you do your research and get all of your information right before switching. Take some time to think about it first, seriously. And the only other thing I can say is that if the rewards for renewing your contract aren't enough and all you are looking for is the exact same deal that a new customer would get, then I guess you would indeed have to switch to cable for a while and then back to Verizon. I have seen what my family has with Cablevision and Cablevision doesn't impress me at all when it comes to the graphics, TV picture quality, no IMG menu, and fewer choices of channels. The fiber optics are far better than that.
Questioning...you are missing the point. We were'nt able to get that deal...I dont know how you got it...I talked with 5 or 6 reps and none of them would honor tha deal for me since I wasnt a NEW customer. So I dropped the TV and got Netflix...I havent missed the TV at all.
How did I get the deal I mentioned? Like I said, by renewing my contract and I explained how I did that, by going on line to the upgrade and renewal center and getting onto a chat with a live rep to walk me through the process. It's really not rocket science. I'm sure my case isn't unusual and that it wasn't just a case of being lucky. I don't have any connections with Verizon higher ups and it didn't just come about magically. If your intial 2 year contract has expired and you are now on a month to month plan where your rates can just go up whenever, you're not going to get the rewards that I described if you just stay on the month to month plan. My point is that if you renew your contract, then you can get the pre-paid debit card, discounts, and upgrades for lower rates as I described and your rate is locked in for the next two years with the early cancellation fee, just like starting over as a new customer only nobody needs to come to your house to install the wiring which is already there. It's not a question of whether or not a particular rep wants to honor a deal.
You're not going to get the deal that new customers get and that's what the whole emphasis of this thread seems to be about. If you're looking for a free DVR for life as and the new customer rate of $89.99 per month, then that's not going to happen. And my other point is that if you're just expecting these deals that I'm getting by staying on a month to month plan and hoping that a rep will just grant that to you, that's not going to happen either. Try renewing your contract and you will be much happier.
Amen! I made the following post http://forums.verizon.com/t5/General-Residential-Products-and/Customer-Retention-or-Customer-Abandon... several weeks ago to no avail. I've asked again for some response from "Customer Retention" and just receive the same script or promises of a call back by a supervisor that is NEVER kept....... Unfortunately, the only recourse is to vote with your pocketbook and take the business elsewhere. The real kick in the pants is that Verizon keeps records and scans address, credit reports, etc in an effort to deny you the New Customer deals if you cancel and then try to re-subscribe! I think that this demonstrates exactly what kind of company you are dealing with. The wise thought that "Character is what you do when nobody is looking" is embodied in Verizon's policy of rewarding "new customers" versus punishing existing customers.....BAD CHARACTER>>>>> (before the Company schill's weigh in with their comments, I am not talking about customers who get a deal for a 2 year contract then cancel and re-up....I'm talking about, in my case, a customer who signed up 9 YEARS ago and has continued to pay my $200 a month for 9 YEARS. Now, I am asking to receive something even close to the deal that I just got for my daughters new house of $140 per month for MUCH faster/better/more channels service along with a $500 gift card. In all, over a 2 year contract the new customer will pay $1,940 LESS than this Loyal customer. We are not talking chump change)
Then switch to cable if you're not satisfied. I skimmed over your other thread and it seems like you got some very helpful suggestions with good information.
The June 2012 edition of Consumer Reports has a breakdown on customer satisfaction for many telecom companies. They also include in that piece some advice on how to bargain your way to a more satisfactory contract. Worth a mention.
Loyalty my **bleep**. Verizon does not give a hoot about loyalty. You do get Double Speak, **bleep** and Scripted **bleep**. They never answer a question unless you repeat it and keep asking. One way of getting a deal is to quit Verizon for 1 year and then come back and get the promo. Many are Cutting the Cable, all you need is the Internet and then subsribe to NetFlix, Hulu etc. You save on the SetTopBox,DVR and some taxes. In the end you pay, pay and pay some more.
When companies get as big as Verizon is they just stop caring, It's all about profit not doing good business.
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