Unreasonable technician charge

[AZ531]

When we first had our Fios service installed, I was promised that all coax cables would work before the technician left. I knew that some of them coax cables were not properly connected. When he came he installed the small box downstairs, which is the wireless box. He plugged it into the coax as well, which made us think we needed it and made us think it was working. We then later decided that we did not want a television upstairs and the small box could not be used to fast forward or rewind live tv, which is a feature we like. So we moved the regular cable box downstairs and hooked it up to the coax cable (which we assumed was working from when it was installed months ago). It did not work and was in fact, not hooked up at all. We called and asked for the technician to come out. I was not told there would be any charge. In fact, I was told that if there was a charge, the technician would let me know. He barely said two words to me the entire time. He came, checked the cable, went into the basement and plugged it into another cable and then it was working fine. I was suprised, then at the end of the month, to recieve an extra $159.00 charge on my bill.

I called to have this fixed. I explained everything I explained above. And still they said the charges were valid because I didn't call in the first 30 days after installation, when there was no way I could have known the coax cable was not working, as requested since the wireless box didn't use it. I honestly feel cheated, as though the technician "hooked" it up so that we would have to pay him more to come out again and fixed it when we finally realized he never actually did it. I was not asking much in asking this charge to be removed as it is completely unreasonable to assume we could have known the cable was not working and not unreasonable to assume he had hooked it up (as we asked him to do when he installed it). 

I am upset at the customer service and the lies we were told. At this point I feel like we have no choice but to cancel as verizon has been very dishonest, or at the very least they are backing up a negligent tech, at the least, and a dishonest one at the worst. I did send in a mediation request, rather than going straight to arbitration but I honestly believe this should have been handled long before it got to this point. I am very disappointed that verizon does not care enough to keep their customers. This is also the reason why we decided not to add cellular service with verizon, because I feel like they care more about getting money out of their customers in the short term, then keeping them in the long term. I was previously an xfinity customer for 3 years and was hoping to have fios for much longer than that as it is a faster service where we live. If this issue cannot be resolved in a fair and reasonable manner they will be losing my future business as well as anyone I know.