2021 Severe Service Degradation

[MrBaseball94]

I'd like to add that this is been going on in my area since Spectrum began offering their service. Their service is on Verizon's network. And I'm somewhat confident that Verizon is selling their current 4G service to Spectrum and limiting their current customers in order to get them to switch to 5G.

It is sad since I have had Verizon service since the mid-90s and have somewhat been satisfied with their service. I briefly switched to Sprint in 1998 and their service was absolutely horrible. No coverage in many many places that Verizon had coverage in.

I've never had an issue getting Verizon service inside of a Walmart or any other large store. Now if I go to a large grocery store or Walmart can no longer pick up a signal in those stores. I'm showing 2 bars inside my home where I used to have 5 and never having any issues.

Currently getting 13.2 Mbps download & 4.78 Mbps upload inside my home on supposedly 4G LTE, used to be a lot faster.

My children have T-Mobile service and they have absolutely zero issues and getting a lot faster speeds here in the house as they do streaming among other things. Seriously contemplating switching to T-Mobile.

I'm using a Google Pixel 3XL @ zipcode 78665.

[MrBaseball94]

Here's a link to screenshot of info for the tower I'm currently connected to:

https://imgur.com/gallery/lwZs7Mn

[vzw_customer_support]

We can understand your concerns regarding your service, please know we never want anyone to have a negative experience on our network.  Please send us a Private Message, so we can work together to resolve your issue.   *Lisa

[dhodges45]

Dear Verizon customers all over the United States,

As the author of the original post that spawned this thread, I’ve been reading each of your responses and the responses of the multitude of Verizon agents. Each time, I shake my head and feel your frustration as agent after agent assures you that “they never want you to be disappointed” in your service, or that they “are so sorry for the inconvenience.”  I again shake my head when agent after agent invites you to go to a private message, wherein you will only be met with further frustration and disappointment. 

Unfortunately, the bottom line is — your issues will remain, in perpetuity.  

Verizon will feed you information that is, in fact, non-information.

1. First, they’ll see no outages in your area.
2. You’ll be asked to reset the network      settings on your phone.
3. You’ll be asked to take out your SIM card and reinsert it.
4. You’ll be assigned a ticket number, and you will be assured they’re looking into the issue.
5. You might hear back in the form of a robo-text that the issue has been resolved. The text will instruct you to text back YES if the issue is resolved, or NO if the problem persists. Answering NO results in exactly nothing. No response, no further contact. It’s an unmonitored text number.
   
6. You might also never hear back from Verizon ever again as to the status of your ticket. If you contact them to inquire, you’ll be informed that it’s still open (but no info will be provided as to what’s being done).  Or even more maddeningly, you’ll be told the ticket is closed and the issue has been resolved. I have my suspicions; I don’t believe “tickets” are anything more than a way to appease upset customers who are being separated from their hard-earned money in exchange for substandard service.  Having a ticket number is psychological trickery to make you feel as though action is being taken, when in actuality, it is not.
7. If you make it this far without chucking your device off the nearest overpass and cursing the name Verizon, you’ll attempt to find answers in any way, shape, or form of which you can conceive. You’ll take to Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Verizon’s official website; you’ll call Verizon on the telephone (all of which depend on your CELLULAR SERVICE, ironically enough).  Web searches for people with similar issues will confirm that you are not crazy, but you’ll find every Verizon agent is as useless as the next. None are authorized to access the specific information which might answer — at least in part — your queries.               
8. You’ll file a formal complaint with the Federal Communications Commission.
9. When finally (and quite magically only days following the FCC filing) you are assigned a “customer relations” agent, she will inform you that there are no further issues in your area. You’ll be made to feel as if the fault lies with you, or your device, or is due to a change in geography (hmmm) or some other such nonsense. There will be no offer of release from your contract, nor will you be refunded any money for the months and months for which you had no service but were still billed. 
   
10. You might, like me, push back a little on that — and you’ll be given a “go away” prize of a few bucks, along with a mini-lecture about how Verizon is not legally obligated to offer you such, so you should actually be grateful. You’ll be informed, when you ask specifically what was done to “resolve” the service issues, that such information is proprietary. You are not privy to it. 
    
11. Later, you’ll receive a letter in the mail, cc’ed to the FCC agent in charge of your  case, detailing the phone conversation in which that “customer relations” agent made you feel like (naughty word for human excrement), and it will mischaracterize the nature of the entire conversation. Don’t bother trying to get a transcript of the call. Those are for Verizon’s internal use only. 
    
12. Perhaps you’ll take it to the media like I did.  The media actually takes up the story and comes to your home. I was interviewed by a local CBS affiliate which attempted to contact Verizon’s corporate office for comment. Unsurprisingly, even WTOC Savannah will receive no response.
    
13. When you have had more than enough of Verizon’s corporate abuse, you’ll start to organize the community (all of whom are suddenly without Verizon service that was once adequate), only to discover there’s a clause in your customer agreement (did you know you agreed to these terms when you first used your Verizon service, despite never being made explicitly aware of them?) which removes from you the right to legal action by either class action or jury trial.  You may, instead, file for relief in small claims court. Or you may agree to arbitration, for which Verizon hires/chooses its own attorney. 
    
14. You’ll look for another internet/mobile service provider.  You’ll find that Verizon’s coverage, while basically useless, is still the only ISP in your rural area. (You will also discover that all major carriers have the same arbitration clause in their respective customer agreements, so why bother?)
    
15. At this point you will give up trying to get any help from the enormous corporate entity to which you pay a hefty sum of money each month. You will still not have any answers as to why your once-adequate cellular service dropped off the face of the earth. And you will still be on the hook for the monthly payments because (a) you are in a contract, and (b) you live in a rural area with no viable alternative carriers.
    
16. You will invest thousands of dollars into equipment and antennae to boost your pitiful Verizon signal at home. But you’ll still be S  O  L when you’re on the road. Go figure. 

Wherever you may be in this painful process, I feel for you. If you’ve gotten different results…better results…please, for the love of all that is Holy, share how you managed to do it. 

Warmest Regards to each of you.  Hopefully the condensed version of my experience with Verizon in 2021 will save you some heartache or/or sanity, and you can skip ahead to #16.  You won’t save any money, but perhaps you’ll arrive at acceptance. And acceptance, they say,  is the final stage of grief. 

Merry Christmas!!

[lorabells]

All my service problems started some time ago but worsened immensely when I got the 13 pro. What is going on? Ready to switch providers!!

[Sharon2122]

I have had great service with Verizon until about 3 years ago and I have been trying to find a better service since they just keep saying the buildings or that trees block my signal I live in a small town but I am in the second highest point in my county the tower is on the Highway right across the woods from my house very frustrated considering what I am paying Sharon in Savannah tennessee

[dhodges45]

Unless the buildings are new or your landscape has changed dramatically in the last 3 years, those are standard excuses given by Verizon for the sudden and significant loss of cellular/data service. The fact appears to be that Verizon is rerouting your cell from nearby nearby towers to others (hence the suddenly-weaker signal).  Why they do this, I can’t be certain. But it seems to be the only plausible explanation. Another possibility is that they pick and choose customers (arbitrarily?)  for whom data speed is throttled — again, for what reason?  In any case, they are within their rights to do so, if you read your customer agreement carefully. I didn’t even know I had agreed to any such terms and conditions, until I began to deeply research what could be going on to cause such degradation in our once-reliable service. Verizon has many rights, while you (by simply using their service) have relinquished most of yours. It’s a sneaky, dirty little trick. But all major carriers have similar customer agreements. Unless you know for certain that another carrier will provide you with a stronger and more consistent signal, there’s really no difference between Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile. 

Also, take note of how nothing I’ve written (as the original author of this thread) has elicited any sort of response from Verizon. 

[TheMayor7]

Join the marginal service Facebook group on this. Time to fight back with bad PR.

[TheMayor7]

Join the marginal service Facebook group. Time to fight back with bad PR.

[CurtisCope757]

I purchased the S21 5G on November 11 2021. It worked for a couple of weeks, and then the week leading up to Christmas I began to lose all connectivity 5 or so timies a day and would have to restart my phone to regain service. Starting on Christmas day, it got so bad that I could only get actual service once or twice per day for a few minutes and could pretty much only use my cell while connected to WiFi. Starting around January 10th 2022, WiFi calling was no longer an option, and I have since had to resort to using my Ring Central internet line I use for work as my only reliable means of communication,.

I attempted to get this issue corrected as soon as I noticed how bad it had become before Christmas in 2021, but was told by VZW technicians that there was nothing wrong. I have been trying to get this corrected for nearly 6 weeks now, but the customer service team is the most incompetent collection of people I have EVER dealt with in my life. I finally went straight to my insurance company and demanded a replacement phone, and this new S21 works sometimes, putting me back to about December 25th's service status. In Tampa, the retail stores are open maybe an hour a day and then lock their doors, and if you attempt to contact someobdy at their customer service number it hangs up on you. If you get online and request a call back, there is not an available time slot until the following day and then they just call and immediately hang up on you.

I have been a Verizon customer since 1999. Also, I work from my cell and this has been costing me THOUSANDS of dollars per week for well over a month.  I have documented attempts daily of my efforts to obtain help from the the company, and I continue to accrue bills and late fees for services I have not been provided at all.  I have never dealt with a more disguisting company in my life than what Verizon has become over the course of the past year. I am taking the company to court, and I cannot tell you how much I am looking forward to it.