On the Verizon deboggle

My internet is back up. The funny thing is my wife called me at work yesterday to tell me that it had just started working, and not five minutes later a Verizon tech called me to say that it would not be up before Friday.

Talk about the right hand not talking with the left.

Just for fun, here's what I sent to the Better Business Bureau on the matter:

My complaint is with the internet service with Verizon. On 3 April, 09 I disconnected my telephone service with Verizon because I did not need it. When the line was disconnected, Verizon also disconnected the DSL to the house, which was not supposed to happen. From what I gather from the clown show which Verizon calls customer service, the telephone and DSL should never have been hooked up to where this would happen in the first place. After calling them the next day (4 April) to have the internet re-connected, we (wife and I) were told that it would take 2-3 days, and that we needed a "dry loop account." So 3 days later we called because the service was still not connected, and we were basically told that there was no record of us trying to re-connect. Considering the number of departments that you are transferred to within Verizon's ridiculous customer service, and also taking into consideration the amount of different countries that these departments are in, you can easily see how this happens. Moving on, Verizon told us that they would hook our internet back up in 2-3 days. On 12 April I called back and was told that the department that would do the re-connect was closed for Easter, and that there was no record of the last order. I called back on 13 April, only to be told that again there was no record and that they would put in the order and it would be 2-3 days. My wife called them right back (the 13th; same day)to try to figure out what the problem was, and was told that they were working on it, and to expect internet in a 7-8 days.She called again on the 15th and 16th to complain, with the same result, but this time Verizon said that they would hook our internet up on 24 April. I called back on 17 April to complain, and, you guessed it, no record of the order and it would take 7-8 days to re-connect. The Verizon representative told me that the order would be expedited, and that we would have internet on 20 April. I called on 20 April, and was told that the order was never completed, but that it was scheduled for the 24th. The lady also told me that she would finish the order to have it completed that day, if possible, and that she would personally call me at the end of the day to check the status. I don't recall her name; a mistake that I will not make again, but she sounded like the only competent person that Verizon has. About ten minutes after the callwith her, a Verizon Tech called to tell me that the order should go through today, but that we shouldn't expect to have internet before Friday (24 April) at the earliest.

Short of seeing Verizon go bankrupt and watching their vast empire of poor service crumble into little pieces, the only thing I want is internet service at my house. My wife and I, like a great deal of Americans, bank and pay our bills online, so not having internet is a big inconvenience. If Verizon's customer service is so terrible that they can disconnect your service by accident, entirely of their own fault and probably because the service was hooked up wrong to begin with, and then be too stupid to hook it back up after repeated calls from a consumer, then I would have hoped that they would have cared to mention that fact in their brochure in the first place. It would have saved me a great deal of heartache.

The settlement that I am seeking from Verizon is for them to either hook up my internet or concede that their system is broken and they can't do it so that I can find a competent service provider.

The lady that said she would call me back for a follow up never did call back. I'm still going to look for a new provider. My wife tells me that the bundle package we have with Verizon is cheaper, but I honestly could care less. I would gladly pay $15 more a month to never have to go through this mess again.