How do we make Verizon understand?

[Jenna32]

ve been with Verizon 17 years, 13 of them happily. I'm not sure what happened there 4-6 yrs ago but they have been a different company ever since. I have had to contact them more in the last few years for one issue or another than the first 15 yrs combined.
The dbl verification to get into your acct. is absurd. My brother had a stroke & is partially blind. He has a flip phone, 1x2 in. screen. He needed to change his address. He called & told them his issue & they sent him the code. He can't tap it & verify due to, flip phone. He was to call them back with the code. It took so long for him to make out what it said that the code expired. Mabey, extend the time of expiration for someone who can't see? He did this a few times & gave up frustrated & upset over 1 MORE thing that he can no longer do for himself. I called for him on Sat. I explained the situation & 4 hrs later, "Adam" locked the acct for 24 hrs by mistake. We set an appt for 4pm Sunday. "Adam" called at 4:25. 2 hrs later, I found out that he had been calling my brother the whole time I was on hold, still trying to get him to verify with the code. He sounded frustrated & said that there was no more he could do without the code verification. I said, you knew this was all because he couldn't see the verification code. Why are we still doing this? There has to be a back up system in place for disabled people? I asked to speak with a supervisor & "Adam" said that he has been working with a supervisor & he will tell me the same thing. I spoke with the supervisor, "Josh", he told me they have a separate dept for the disabled but they have closed for the day. He was happy to give me their number & hrs of operation, Mon-FRIDAY 8:30-5:30. I call them & explain the situation AGAIN. She says that he has to go to the store to make the change, with an ID & PROOF of disability. HE CAN'T DRIVE?! She said that I can do it. I'm 700 miles away! She said that anyone with his ID can do it. Because, THAT'S secure?!
Even this is not nearly a good rendering of what we went through, the time, the frustration. And this doesn't include the 2 hrs I spent on the phone with them months earlier over this dbl verification. No one should be required to poses 2 expensive mobile devices just to pay a phone bill! And I do, but it's the principal of it. AFTER 2 hrs, he tells me about a Onetimepayment site. Really? REALLY!?! I used that site a couple months & it started to do the same thing. I don't have the answers, but there's gotta be a better way. I will say, my phone number & password worked just fine for 15 yrs.
I went to the Verizon store where my nightmare experiences(not enough time or space to get into that) began 4-5 yrs ago, to have my phone unlocked. There was 1 customer there & in the 25 min that I was there, not 1 person walked into that store. The last time I was there, I waited over an hr to speak with someone. I will be leaving Verizon this wk. And it's sad, they used to be a great company.

[SynthpopAddict]

I can't speak for what's going on at that store location, but 2 factor authentication is the new normal in these times with all the data breaches going on.  It was only yesterday that I read of someone whose account was hacked and taken over to where the legitimate customer can't even use their service anymore.  I have also read of numbers being fraudulently ported out or crooks buying numerous devices/service for themselves and tacking it onto someone else's account.

If your brother is having difficulty seeing his flip phone screen, might a magnifying glass work?  Or consider getting a phone which is more low-vision friendly (Google comes up with numerous options when I searched "phone options for the blind").

[Siadin]

Regardless of the new normal on authentication, As a 10 year customer I can't agree more about something going deeply wrong at Verizon over the last few years. They're a total mess on their account management (literally I plan for at least one to two follow ups every single time I have to work with them now because I can't tell you how many times I have gone through the cycle of them trying to fix something, saying its fixed, having to recontact them and have someone somewhat competent say there was nothing fixed or there was no record of the last call, then they try to fix the problem but somehow things wont even show up for them, then... yeah it goes on and on every single time).  A couple of years ago I would have sworn by Verizon being one of the greatest customer service companies. Today I would rather peel my own fingernails off than deal with Verizon customer service, and I dread every single time I have to interact with this company. Whoever took over this at the top and said cutting the customer experience to save money is a miserable failure.

It's just one more company that is providing worse and worse product, services, and experiences while hiking the prices. RIP to the Verizon that was actually great.

[vzw_customer_support]

We hate to see that you are having any issues with getting the account updated or access. We definitely take security verify seriously but do want to go over the options for him to be able to get access to any codes needed right away. We are sending a private message to go more in detail. 

-Meg

[vzw_customer_support]

Hey Jenna32, we just wanted to check in with you to see if you still needed help. We're standing by to assist, please let us know.

-Anthony