Michael just wanted to upgrade his DSL to a faster plan. Yet Verizon jerked him around, each successive rep saying something different, until he was told the upgrade would burn his house down. What?
This poor guy was a Verizon customer for seven years, dutifully paying his bills on time, until he decided it was time to upgrade to a faster plan than the one he had. His neighbour had that faster plan, and when he checked his address online, Verizon’s site told him the upgrade was available. But when he tried to make that upgrade…well, it didn’t go quite as planned.
The summary? Seven phone calls, 1 hour and 42 minutes between 11:50am and 12:42pm. What did that earn me? Absolutely nothing but utter frustration and torture.
Each of the seven reps told him something totally different, from “that’s not available at your address” to “that’s not available for an upgrade” to “that’s only available online” – and four more. But the best one has to be the last.
I directly asked “why is it I can open a new account with 7MB but I cannot order it as an existing customer?”. Her response: “your home cannot handle the 7MB speed. If I put in the order for 7MB, it will burn your house down”.
The upgrade will burn your house down. That has to take the cake as one of the craziest things ever said by an ISP rep. Needless to say, Michael is no longer a Verizon customer. [Consumerist]
Bill Kula
Monday, December 14, 2009 at 6:31 AMThis is Bill Kula, a Verizon national media spokesman commenting on Laura Northrup’s Consumerist story about our customer Michael trying to increase his DSL-based Internet speed with us.
First, our DSL service introduced 11 years ago (and our fastest DSL service of up-to 7.1 Mbps offered two years ago and now available to 10 million households) is very safe. I can’t speak for the alleged words of the Verizon sales reps with whom Michael spoke, but do not take their comments literally. When you use our 7.1 Mbps service, you don’t need to call out the fire department for heaven’s sake.
Michael got poor service over the phone and should not have had to spend so much time simply trying to get information on our dry loop DSL service. We apologize for the poor service; we owe him better; and we will use this case as an exercise in serious coaching of our members of our team.
We’d like to continue providing Michael his high-speed Internet service, and we spoke to him personally on Saturday and are checking to see if he can in fact receive our 7.1 Mbps DSL service based on the nearest DSL-enabled central office that serves his residence.
Customers can get lower dry loop DSL pricing when ordering online as compared to speaking to a rep at a center. That’s one reason the rates provided to Michael are higher than what you will see in the following URL about our DSL pricing:
http://www22.verizon.com/Residential/HighSpeedInternet/Plans/Plans.htm
As you can see, online pricing for dry loop DSL is $19.99 for our up-to 1 Mbps service; $29.99 for our up-to 3 Mbps service; and $42.99 for our up to 7.1 Mbps service. Some related links on this site provide additional info. about our free modem offer for online orders, plus our free Wi-Fi service for our 3 and 7.1 Mbps customers.
For all readers of the Consumerist and Gizmodo, rest assured, our DSL-based service provides great value for the speed as compared to our competitors. And when you use it, your house won’t look like the over-the-top photo that supports the original story. — Bill Kula, APR, william.kula@verizon.com
Andreas Souvleris
Monday, December 14, 2009 at 11:51 AMWow, Verizon actually cares about 1 customer! I want to move to America now.
PeterE
Monday, December 14, 2009 at 11:17 AMMy name is Bill blah blah blah you caught us out blah blah blah it’s cheaper to buy an upgrade online than talk to our woeful customer support blah blah blah.
Mivilicious
Monday, December 14, 2009 at 1:22 PMhaha BURN lol