My son. Give 'em hell Scott!

Lucky for us all these people don't launch the space shuttle or do brain surgery. The very thought makes cold chills run down my back. Being a QWest DSL survivor, I can certainly feel and understand your pain.

Geez..cable is the way to go. DSL isn't worth the hassle.

"So you’re telling me that after this Friday, I the soonest I would have DSL is in the next 5 to 37 business days?"

Scott, I hate to be laughing at your crappy situation with customer no service, but the above line just killed me for some reason. Such a fun article from such a ridiculous situation...

That's why I visit scottmanning.com every day.

Nice job...

Good luck with your cable... I don't think you'll be disappointed.

Aaaaahhhhh, the joy of technology customer support. Congrats on the move, the house......your own place :)

ouch sorry to hear your tale matey...

but I AM happy to realize that poor service is not a european disease ....

you did good

I agree,i have verizon to.I think there customer suppoort is ridiculious.It takes about a week to fix one probelm which could have been resolved within 1 hour.

Verizon sucks big time. I have been waiting on DSL since friday. Because they have to escalate to the next level of support, I have to wait another 36 hours.

I think your going from the fire-an to the boiling water. I found Comcast were just as much fun as verizon to deal with. Direct TV were great i am looking myself to find a broadbandprovider outside comcast or verzion.

Wish me luck as i do you

Gogs

Glad I found your site. I was about to switch over to DSL. I am paying $44.95 with Comcast (A serious rip off). DSL is cheaper, but you know what...you're right. You never get through to Verizon. BRING BACK MA BELL!!

I have had great service with Verizon DSL and everything was set up even sooner than they promised! Anyone who is willing to donate more money each month to a cable company, the final bastion of monopolistic enterprise, is contributing to the perpetuity of terrible customer service...

how the hell do i get technichal support over the phone?!!?!?!?!?

I work in VOL tech support, and this is rather old so I don't know if anyone will ever read it. Basically the sales agent was wrong, she could not cancell the order, but our retention dept could. She just decided not to help you. See verizon keeps it's departments to seperate, even if she wanted to, she herself could not cancell the order, she does not have the privilges to access that information, or cause that sort of change in your account. It's for the most part not the customer reps (albeit some are asses), it's verizon in general, they don't give us what we need to fix your issues. And there is no real way we can let the ones above us know. Most all tech support and billing ect.. are outsourced, are greivences never go beyone the local inhouse company. You would be better calling and getting the complain address from tech support. Then get everyone you know to write in. I would give it to you but I'm at home, and do not have it.

Oh and forgive my spelling mistakes, it's late. For the guy above my orginal post, our # is 1-877-222-2375. Also, just to add, if you were keeping your phone number during your move order then yes it could take 5 - 8 business days if all went perfect. If you were going to have a new number, it could have been worse. Your order would have gone into pending as ther were have been no dail tone on your line. And order never come out of pending. You would have had to order phone service, wait 5 days then order DSL service. Anyway hope you enjoy the cable :).

Verizon. Geez what a PIA they are. Firstly I got suckered into getting their service, only to find out that I couldn't get a Static IP address, apparently something their Techs felt was too complicated. Thus I switched to DirectTVDSL. Got a static, then 3 months later they went Chap11. Tried (am trying) to get Earthlink to reprovision the service. After several issues, each call to Earthlink indicated an issue with the CO/Line. Patiently I waited for Verizon tto work this whole thing out for EL. Within a weeks time (1 call every couple of days) my distance increased about 1000 ft per call. Finally Verizon closed the tick claiming I was now beyond 18000 feet. Furious I called Verizon directly and they were happy to qualify my line as DSL ready. Can you say Monopoly? Verizon must be run by a sales ppl

Hi Scott,
I should have paged down to your page before I clicked on verizon online. I need to wait until past midnight so my up speed is fast enough to play my xbox connect tunnel. I did a dsl test below to show everyone. Forget about verizon DSL. 56K modem is just as fast here in Yucaipa, CA

2003-02-17 23:46:43 EST: 193 / 88
Your download speed : 193467 bps, or 193 kbps.
A 23.6 KB/sec transfer rate.
Your upload speed : 88888 bps, or 88 kbps.



577
ugh «33.6k modem download speed

ugh «typical 56k modem download speed

slow «single channel ISDN

bearable «dual channel ISDN

ok «IDSL

ok «150k Video Stream

ok «Fastest multiplayer games

fast «192k 'near CD quality' MP3

your
download «193 kbps

your
upload «88 kbps

faster «300k Video Stream

rocks (half megabit not shown)
awesome (1mbit barrier not shown)
insane (2mbit barrier not shown)
dude! (5mbit barrier not shown)

=Your tested speed (grey = est. TCP transfer overhead)

Let me start by saying that I work with Verizon on a daily basis as a Telecom tech for a public utily. I know that their field technical people used to be top notch but that is fading, as their corporate attitude ruins the company a little more each year.

My DSL experience is so ridiculous that I am cancelling the service but have been unable to figure out where to send their f'n modem!
Day 1 - fell for the sales pitch FREE FOR THIRTY DAY TRIAL.
Day 2(several days later actually) - A message on my answering machine stating "you'll lose dial tone for a while, so we can setup your new DSL service".
DAY 2&1/2 - Still no dial tone into the evening. PS I'm on call for my day job - trying to get a hold of someone in Verizon as my cell phone dies. On hold for close to an hour. Cell phone dies.
DAY 3 - charge cell phone. Call Verizon local office after trying to figure out why f'n number to call for repairs. Local Verizon repair office says "We're really sorry but that's a Verizon Online issue" I ask "Can't you people call your DSL group and let them know that they dropped my dialtone and never put it back? They say"Hang on - I'll try to get a hold of someone over there." They eventually get back to me and give me a number to call. I say "Can't you transfer me?" They say "Our phones are not set up to allow that." WOW HUH! I call there & finally get a hold of someone who promptly tells me that lack of dialtone is a local Verizon issue not a DSL issue. I say "But DSL was doing testing on the line and never put the circuit back correctly." they say "I'll have to contact them about it." I hang up - obviously pissed!
Now I knew at this point that the idoits had tested my line & it failed, so they moved to a new copper pair but had not patched it over in the local office. This means that my DSL was on one circuit while my telephone was left open. I now spent endless hours on hold waiting for tech support, & trying to get Verizon local people to issue reair orders but point them back to DSL group.
I finally had to bring the political angle! LET ME SPEAK TO YOUR SUPERVISOR NOW,(repeating several times because the service rep did not want to hear it. Finally I got thru to a supervisor -to who I made sure I was not pleasant and made it clear that I was quite sick of their pathetic tech support and customer service. I further stated that a relative was a representative to the Dept of Telecom & Energy, and I would be filing complaints ASAP and my best friend worked in the Governor's office ( which is true). LO AND BEHOLD I was called back two hours later ( after they looked into it grudgingly) and was told that I would have service back within the hour.
Day 4 - dial tone finally back. Figured I would install software 3 days later I got it running after it PORKED my machine several times.
DAY 7 - Hey look DSL!!!!
Wait a minute...this isn't very fast.... Not much different than my 56K....can't connect to their network when I'm already on the phone....Lots of noise and level degradation on my phone ... yes the filters were installed and it's still poor! $50.00 bucks a month for this crap? I don't think so.
Don't do it it is not worth the unbelievable aggrevation.
I'm still trying to figure out where to send the f'n modem. Any one got the address? email me @ stickamps@aol.com
Thanks
stick man

This sounds exactly like the nightmare I have recently had with earthlink DSL! Must be a DSL conspiracy. I was thinking of switching to Verizon! Now I really don't know where to go and am considering forgeting the whole thing!

We'll I think I"m on my way to the Verizon DSL HELL adveture.

I go online to subscribe.

Recieved modem.

Hook it up, the 1/3 lights come on, power. (fujitsu modem)

Hmmm...I reset power. Same only the power light comes on.

Call tech support..15 min wait.

"36 hrs an Engineer will call you."
and then your line will be tested.

I hope it all works out.

Verizon DSL sucks! I've been trying to get installed for exactly 2 months. These peole are idoits! Not worth my time to detail the experience. Stick with dial-up.

having trouble staying connected to internet when making or recieving phone calls.i've been in touch with verizon numberous time ,each time i get a different story. now , a verizon tech is making a house call. i'm really tired of all this. any sugestions? dave

Well, I'm glad I ran into this page. I was looking into getting Verizon DSL because I just got their "One month free" pitch in the mail, but after reading your posts, forget it. I don't need DSL hell. Thanks for the warnings, and good luck to all of you who are already stuck in that mess.

They sent me my return labels and return authorization, so that I can ship this piece of shit back to them.Boy they did not want to hear that I was cancelling! I got a receipt from Post office to prove I had shipped within their 30 day rule.

So please & thanks - I have the address to ship it to.

But wait, funny there's a strange charge on my Verizon bill for $13.90 they have yet to explain.
Can't wait to see what the reason is...
The saga continues even after it's gone...

Just got Comcast going at the girlfriends - it looks promising...we'll see!!!

FYI - I tagged the first email as stick man & second post as Jay
Sorry to confuse

I'm an Earthlink customer. Knowing a little about this stuff i managed to get it up to a tier 2 trouble ticket the same day.

I lost synch on my modem. 8 days ago.I need a port change. I was told 3-5 business days for Verizon to do this.....8 days ago. Verizon still says 3-5 business days. They just did'nt tell me which days they do business.
As y'all know its Earthlink to Covad to Verizon.
Earthlink is working the prob.
I verified this by getting thru to a Earthlink liason at Covad, after some cajoling on my part the covad rep read me off their (Covad's)internal trouble ticket info, which said that we're all still waiting on Verizon to swap the port.
I called Verizon....you'd have thought i had called the White House and asked to measure Bush's willy in both the limp and erect state.
The woman asked me "how do i know its their problem, earthlink and covad are probably lying to me."
I said look, i ain't gonna debate this with you, just give me the local phone # of the Verizon facility.
"That's priviledged information, and even if you get through they won't talk to you"

I'm 1100 feet from the damn building. I'm about ready to beat the freaking door in.
I gotta get back to work.
But i see i'm not alone.
later

yeah, verizon dicked me around for a while. I ordered it on 3/2 and the ready date was 3/10. So i waited and the 10th came...and gone.. I was already pissed and worried because i read a lotta bad stuff about verizon. So i called up comsumer service and they told me there was a outage and to check in the morning. Morning came and it still didnt work!!! So i call again and they said that the outage was still goin one and to check back tomorrow. So after a few days of them dicking me around and me calling back, they ask me if i had a alarm system in my house, i said no. But a day later i remembered that we did have a alarm system a while back, so i go into the alarm box and i see a cable that kinda looks like a ethernet or phone cord, so i unplug it and i plug in the modem and the damn ready light was still blinking. So i went to go unplug the modem but then i happen to look at it again, and it had stoped blinking. So the moral of the story is that IF U HAVE OR HAD AN ALARM SYSTEM, UNPLUG THE PHONE CORDS IN IT!!!!

To anyone who knows the return address for the damn Verizon DSL Modem!. Im so sure that a lot of people are complaining about Verizon DSL services!.I'm using verizon dsl and considering about canceling their crapy and poor customers services. Can you imagine that i took me more than 1 hours to wait on their f''king tech. support line, and got nothing responded?. I wanna find out exactly where to return the god damn Verizon DSL modem after i cancled the service if anyone knows, please help me through my email( nguyenk2006@yahoo.com ). Verizon is the biggest f''king LIAR of all companies i've ever known. Therefore, if anyone thinking about getting Verizon's services, i suggest that they better not get involed with any verizon's business.

Gee...what a hassle. I ordered my VOL DSL in Dec .02, was up and running four days before the SRD. And it's been wonderful.

Course, I'm an ATT/Comcast escapee here in Richmond,VA. Good luck with Comcast. You'll need it.

WE HAVE VERIZON WIRELESS AND VERIZON LAND SERVICE.

WE ORDERED DSL, AND NOW IT DOESN'T WORK. EVERY TIME I CALL, SOME POOR UNDERPAID REP FEEDS ME A LINE OF BULL TO TRY TO 'BUY SOME TIME'.
WELL, I AINT' BUYIN IT. I E-MAILED BILLING AND TOLD THEM THAT IF MY DSL WASN'T UP AND RUNNING BY MIDNITE TONITE WE WERE CANCELLING AND SENDING THE WHOLE THING BACK.
WE DID HAVE THIS BEFORE, AND IT WORKED OK THE FIRST TIME. BUT WE GOT A BRAND NEW 2.56 GIG DELL, AND WANTED TO HAVE DSL. BUT THIS COMPUTER IS SO JAMMIN, THAT THE ONLY PAIN IN THE DIAL UP IS THAT IT TAKES LIKE THIRTY SECONDS. BIG DEAL. HAVE WE BECOME SO CONDITIONED TO WANT EVERYTING "RIGHT NOW" THAT WE CAN'T WAIT THIRTY SECONDS?
I'M MAD AS HELL AND I'M NOT GOING TO TAKE IT ANYMORE.
KNOW WHAT? THIS HI TECH WORLD SUCKS. I AM NOT GETTING RID OF MY PEN AND PAPER TOO FAST.
I HAVE HAD NOTHING BUT TROUBLE WITH EVERYTHING "HIGH-TECH"
DON'T EVEN GET ME STARTED ON AUTOMATIC DEBITS. THEY ARE A NIGHTMARE. AND ONLINE BILL PAYING? DON't DO IT!!!! YOU'LL BE SORRY!!!!
THEY DEBIT WHEN THEY SHOULDN'T / THEY DON'T WHEN THEY SH0ULD, THEN YOU GET STUCK WITH LATE CHARGES. I HAVE HAD TROUBLE WITH MY BANK, MY GYM, YOU NAME IT, AUTOMATIC/ELETRONIC DEBITING IS A NIGHTMARE. I'LL STICK TO PAYING IN CASH THANK YOU.
THE GOVERNMENT DOESN'T WANT US TO DO THAT. THEY WANT TO TRACK OUR EVERY MOVE ELECTRONICALLY.
ANYWAY, I'M RAMBLING NOW.
ANYWAY, HERE'S HOPING VERIZON IS BETTER FOR YOU THAN IT'S BEING FOR US.

Hi Got my DSL in October of 2001. I looked on the Web site found out my area was covered and order the DSL. I cancelled my phone line used for the computer. All the package came. I installed at my end and did the down load etc, I will confess I made an error and had to called the 800 number. People very very helpful and within minutes I had everything up and running. I'm sure they are other cases that might no go so well.

My Verizon DSL service took less than 1 week after initial order to become active,but I think claims that one can use "regular"phone service and DSL are a "bit" exaggerated.In fact,I believe I was misled. I found that when using my regular phone line,with "everything"connected that DSL speed was VERY slow,perhaps slower than "56K" dialup but at least slower than 2 channel ISDN and Comcast Cable.

I took my cptr outside and found that when I connected the modem directly to the interface box,DSL speed was much higher.

I would like to "simply"switch DSL service to a second available phone line but nothing is simple with Verizon.I would have to cancel existing service and start from scratch .

Verizon telephone tech support has gotten worse over time.Support people sometimes can not be easily
understood because of accents and they are not patient people.

I also had DSL...i actually switched from cable to this...HA....after having it installed i felt it was a bit slower...BOY WAS I RIGHT...for the same price as cable...i was running at half the speed....SHAME ON YOU VERIZON....

i'm sure glad i found this site verizon isn't worth it at all i have a home network with a 2wire home portal and i keep loosing my connection i called up verizon and they tell me thats it's 2wire tech support that i had to call so they transferred my call to 2wire, 2wire told me that it's verizon and not them! what is this i said so back to verizon tech support they toldme it was the dsl modem that i had (which was working fine until i connected the 2wire, so i sent back the modem and verizon shipped me a new one that gets very hot and has no power switch ( and yes i still have the problem). i then called verizon tevch supoport again for them to tell me that i can't always leave my 2wire homeportal on or my dsl modem and i though that this was an always connected connection. then they are doing something that i just heard about in newyork any way if you don't pay your phone bill in full every month they will send your dsl payment to there collection agency i don't think thats a problem but i have a very limited income and can't afford to pay the bill in full sometimes. so that totaly sucks i ahve had it with the high phone bills and the crappy dsl service that i have been getting it's off to to local cable comapany to receive services from them!

For those people who are having major problems getting DSL connection feel free to call Verizon's best friend :) The Public Service Commission. The number is usually found in the front page of your phone book. They just don't like to announce that this number allows you to report problems and they will investigate why Verizon is having a problem. They are GREAT.
Back in May 2001 my mother ordered DSL. Got the modem, but never got a connection. Should have been up and running by may10th. Called May11th to find out what was wrong. They had no clue. Finally after 11 days of talking to different departments and getting pissed off each time I informed her to call the PCS. With in 2 days she was working. :) Later she began to have problems. Turns out her modem was bad, but Verizon refused to accept this. I, an employee of verizon, had to call internal numbers and talk to several supervisors in the area to schedule a tech to come out and test the line and modem. He put the DSL on the second line outside the house and gave her a new modem. The second line helps prevent trouble and interruptions on the line. She has worked fine since. If your tired of dealing with support and getting nowhere, either ask to speak to a local customer operations supervisor/manager, or the local engineering department. These people are the ones that know how DSL works, not the dumbass customer support and sales rep.
On to my problem with DSL. I ordered DSL back around on February 2002. I was told that it would be in-service with in 10days. What a joke! Two days later, after Verizon had done some testing they forgot to hook me back up in the RSU. I tested all my outlets thinking it might have gone bad. I then tried a phone outside at my box. Nothing at all. So I called repair. (Another joke!) I was informed that they could see a signal all the way to my house and to double check all the outlets incase the one I was trying had gone out. I told them I had already done that. I was then told to do it AGAIN. As the problem was within my house. I finally got pissed at the idiot and hung up
Since repair did not want to help me I had to once again call internal. I spoke with a CO Tech, and asked a favor. They were happy to help and went out and sure enough! They had disconnected me in the process of testing and just forgot to reconnect my line. What a joke that was for days. I had a signal at my house?!?!, but yet the signal didn’t even leave the RSU!!
Within days of getting it set up I just decided to try cable instead. Why not! Verizon was offering a discount from $49.95 to $44.95 for employees. What a surprise! The discount was the same price as cable! :) The best thing we could have done. It really is much faster, three times faster for us. Don't listen to all the bull about Verizon offering a better service and dedicated. If verizon were dedicated to their customers there wouldn’t be a problem. They really don't give a shit, its always "There’s no money in the budget for that, so take a short cut." There's never going to be any money if you keep pissing the customers off and making them go else where for service.

CAN SOMEONE HELP ME.........

I GOT THE VERIZON SERVICE ACTIVATED, QUICKLY... I ALREADY HAVE DSL FROM EARTHLINK COVAD ON A DEDICATED LINE.... THIS VERIZON SERVICE IS LINE SHARING, BUT MUCH CHEAPER...

THE FILTERS DO NOT WORK WELL... I STILL GET A LOUD HISS WHOOSH BACKGROUND NOISE ON ALL PHONES.. I HAVE PUT FILTERS AT THE MAIN BOX... I HAVE PUT THEM ON EACH PHONE...SAME RESULT.. I HAVE STACKED MULTIPLE FILTERS..SAME RESULT...

I HAVE A HOME SECURITY SYSTEM...BUT DOUBT THIS IS A PROBLEM.

RICHARD

I went online looking searching for "Verizon DSL Sucks" and found your website. How fun. Anyway, I have a similar story:

I was a Verizon DSL customer for 2 years as well. I also moved, from Philly to South Jersey. My wife called Verizon (known hereafter as V) to transfer the phone and DSL stuff. V told her, like you, "not a problem". So it took me a while to get my computer set up in my new house. I finally got it set up, but I did not have a phone line in the upstairs office. I called V to have one installed upstairs, for the sole purpose of DSL. I had already received a bill for phone and DSL, so I ASSUMED I could get on-line. Alas, when I connected the DSL modem, I got a ready light blinking and wasn't able to get online. I called V DSL and asked why that is so. They said, "Well, DSL is not available in your area." They tell me this after I checked and their website said that it WAS available in my area and after they told my wife "not a problem." I guess I have a different definition of "not a problem" than what V has. So now, after 3 hours of quality time on the phone with the brain-dead people at V, I am cancelling the DSL service, going to get my money back ($95) for the extra jack put in that I didn't need, and I am going to switch all of the phone service to AT&T. And, by the way, I'm having Comcast come in Friday to hook me up for cable internet. F Verizon. F them right in the ear.

Hi,

I have verizon DSL and yes DSL in most situations
is a bear to get off the ground. I had to have
Verizon repair my ancient some 10 to 20 year old
phone lines throughout the house. Basically the
last jerk that lived here wired things poorly.
But I finally after running out to the hardware
store came back installed a monster 24 gauge twisted
pair phone line and I am getting now damn near
T1 Speeds! And it's 1pm now ;) So please make
sure you are connected to your jack with the
highest gauge wire you can find! If possible
run the line directly to your out side phone
box! Why run high gauge? Because DSL requires
as much voltage as you can feed it, and 24
gauge is the next best thing to CAT 3/5 ethernet
cable. :) I will not take all the credit, my
phone repair guy was the one that told me that
I should install the highest gauge wire. Oh
and you should never ever run the flat phone
wire to your DSL. It won't even get you off
the ground......we're talking no connection at
all.

Until I find one DSL test page that shows my
test results below 768 I am very happy.
My fastest reading yet is over 1.2 megabits.
Shhhhh don't tell Verizon hehehe..........

I was using Earthlink for DSL for almost 6 months, and had the same problems as the thread above. I changed to verizon DSL (we are in plila,pa.) and have had only minor problems since. The longest I ever had to wait for support was 10 minutes, and the problem fixed on the spot.
I almost always get 630 up and thats great. I run into a problem with the 130 down. Its great for loading web pages, but it blows for playing online games. I am thinking of trying comcast cable, anyone out here have any better ideas?

I am going through hell with verizon dsl right now. I so wish I found and read your page as well as the many others before I ordered dsl. As of 12/05/03 it is going on 30 days and still no DSL. I have had 3 push backs. I have lost my dialtone twice. Once for four days and the other for one. I am 10 seconds away from ordering Comcast.

After 2 months of being beyond frustrated with getting booted offline/failing to sign on to my DSL account, here's a nifty quote from the "creme de la creme" Tier III technical support folks: "Do you have any appliances turning on and off in your apartment while you're on line?"

(As ridiculous as that sounded, after keeping an eye on the "ready" light on the modem, it actually turns out that despite having all kinds of filters on my phone lines, I get booted off my DSL connection every time the PHONE RINGS. How's that for high-tech?)

I have an appointment with Earthlink/Road Runner cable.

in aug '03 i transfered my msn dial-up to verizon dsl since my verizon home phone service were offering a special deal for dsl w/msn. i had the service for approx 30 days when i was deployed overseas. i notified verizon to 'hibernate' my service for (hopefully)2 weeks until my return. upon my return i had service restored but WHERE WAS MY DSL? to make a loooong story short i have been trying to get dsl on my line since oct '03. FINALLY i have been informed that dsl is not available in my area. ? what happened to it and why has it taken so long for them to find this out? my house hasn't moved. wasn't there some way to find this out earlier on? why after a bazillion repair/install/trouble tickets was there absolutely no one there mining the customer service and why don't these people communicate with one another? verizon dsl stinks AND why am i waiting 2-3 billing cycles for a credit to show up on my bill AND why have i been charged for the 2 modems sent to me when i haven't even received the return labels AND why can't they have the modems picked up instead of me having to take them to the post office? wasn't my trouble worth anything to them? I GUESS NOT!
lastly, i have been without internet access for some 5 long months and when i contacted msn to restore my dial-up service... they told me that they couldn't do that until verizon disconnected from my phone line. my verizon dsl disconnection SUPPOSEDLY took place 03/09/04. i just hung up the phone with verizon tech support/retention branch/billing... they're putting in a trouble ticket and i should know something in 4-5 business days - isn't 5 days from now APRIL FOOL'S DAY? somebody pleae wake from this nightmare. VERIZON DSL STINKS!

I am a verizon online tech support specialist and I will tell you how to get verizon DSL without problems

1. When ordering ask the salesman what your loop length is(do not settle for oh you are close enough, get the exact number of feet) DSL is a distance sensitive technology and you must be within 18000 ft of your cental office for it to work, SUPPOSEDLY!
The truth is that unless you are within about 15,000 ft you are going to have nothing but problems

2. Find out if you are assigned your IP by DHCP or PPPoE. PPPoE is for verizon east customers. This includes all New England states, NY, PA, MD, NJ, VA, and half of WV. DHCP is for verizon west customers, this includes everyone else. If you are assigned an IP by DHCP, Dont worry, you might have a serious problem maybe twice and 90% of the time all it takes for a recovery is a quick power cycle of your equipment. This is becuase DHCP requires no secure authentication. PPPoE on the other hand does and will cause more problems than you want to deal with

3. When installing the equipment, plug in your modem and connect it to a phone jack, if your DSL or Ready light does not turn solid green immediatley call tech support(Do not attempt to install the software)

4. Also, do not use a phone cord that is more than ten feet long, the DSL signal will grow weak and you will not acheive sync.

5. Make sure your system resources have at least 80% free

6. Filtering is very important everything that is analog and hooked to a phone jack must be filtered. Including all alarm systems and sattelite systems.

7. If you have Windows 2000 or below your installation requires that you use the CD, if you have Windows XP do not attempt to use the CD to install, instead call tech support and ask them how to use windows XP's built in connection builder.

8. Remember that when typing in usernames and passwords that they are all case sensitive (Use only lower case letters)

9. If you want to set up a network at yor home, only use linksys routers. Verizon offers full support for these and you will be immediatley referred to your routers manufacturer if a power cycle did not fix the problem.

10. Finally, if you do not want any problems get a cable ISP.
I dont particularly know about comcast but I myself have road runner. Not one single problem. To hell with DSL. Start thinking this way and you will be a lot happier. Have you ever noticed how hard it is to get a technician to your home to fix your DSL.
This is becuase of the line of demarcation. This is the line where verizons responsibility ends and yours begins. This is why when you call roadrunner if a power cycle doesn't work they are sending a technician to your house to fix it.

However if you follow the first nine steps Implicitly you will have maybe only 5 major problems per year. Trust Me!

Verizon installed my DSL service March 17, actually the whole installion went pretty well, only a minor problem. I was very please and thankful to the reps. for doing a fine job and a good
service "UNTILLLLL", I recived my monthly statement a week and a half later, Oh, but I do recall the very pleasent rep. stating, 'AND, YES MAME WHEN YOU GET YOUR NEXT VERIZON STATEMENT YOU BILL WILL LOOK A LITTLE DIFFRENT". Well, it sure the hell did. First of all I sign up for the 29.99 deal with one month free. When I looked at my statment I was charged 34.99 for a buisness instead or residiual, billed 1 month in advance
They correct error but stole the month by offering a credit instead. For once I just wanted to feel what a free month was ...from the selfish bastards I knew it was a crock of S---.

I ordered DSL after I got a letter stating that DSL is ready in my area. I ordered it, got turn on date: 4/1/2004
Week 1: e-mail new turn on date 4/8/2004
Week 2: e-mail new turn on date 4/15/2004
Week 3: e-mail new turn on date 4/22/2004
On 4/22/2004 7 pm, install software, plug in modem, waited 2 mins, no carrier. Called verzion, was told there is a cancel order in place. Huh, I did not place a cancel order. Got transfer to another department. I was told that I am too far for DSL. I ask why I did not get an e-mail telling me this. I was told I will get a letter later.

I was so disappointed the VERIZON DSL IS SO SLO00000000000000W.
SO Slow that even dial-up connection is better at least, you
can see something in the browser once is lunch. Not VERIZON
ALL BLANK OR WHITE SCREEN. POSTED May 7 2004. Please refund
my money.

I believe this madness. I went through it! I just got my Verizon DSL activated this past Friday after three weeks of moving from the old apartment. Imagine, only three weeks!! :(

They are also lying that your phone service needing to be active. We temporarily lived at both places. They disconnected our phone service (no dial tone) and I had working DSL at the old place for three days before they disconnected it!

DONT Do it!!!! GET CABLE or anything else. Anything but Verizon. Trust me on this I have an inside source. You go Scott!!!

Verzion is unfortunately my local phone line provider, they just laugh when DSL or even ISDN is mentioned. Obviously if you can't get a company off the ball to support something they seemingly provide elsewhere...well

I have DSL but my provider gave me filters for each phone in the house plus a special filter for my security system line. Phones are clear as a bell.

IF ANYONE KNOWS WHERE TO BUY AN OLD-FASHIONED PHONE THAT RINGS WHERE YOU CAN TURN THE RING OFF OR TURN IT UP AND DOWN, PLEASE POST SOMETHING HERE. SIMILARLY, IF YOU KNOW WHERE I COULD GET A NON-DIGITAL ANSWERING MACHINE WITH A TAPE FOR THE OUTGOING MESSAGE, PLEASE POST A MESSAGE HERE. THANK YOU.

I just found out you can't cancel Verizon DSL by calling the same local phone company number that you order it from. I have to call a number in a different state and time zone. I can't call it now. I was told that to cancel DSL it is 1-800-567-6789 [possibly in Texas], and that I will have to wait for a special return mail label to be sent to me in the mail (hopefully not UPS). I never had a chance to use it as my RoadRunner began behaving a soon as I ordered Verizon!

When I called my local Verizon office the phone wasn't anwered normally. Instead of being able to speak, I was asked for my name and phone number. Very 1984. In recent years, the national Verizon office has forced all the regional phone companies it owns to switch over to a much more inconvenient voice mail system. Their ringing didn't even work right, i.e., somehow it rang too many times before the voicemail came on and people were hanging up before that. It took way too much to get them to fix it, all the while protesting that nothing could be wrong. I would concur with the Verizon employees that wrote in here.

Phones and phone companies in general aren't what they used to be. You used to be able to get local directory assistance number for free. The operator picked up the phone right away. Long distance information operators were in the city you were inquiring about. They were much more accurate and helpful. Almost all the phone company employees were gracious, professional and competent. They took pride in their work. I'm not thatold, I was born in the sixties, but when I remember even the seventies or eighties, it looks like that gas station scene in "Back to the Future" where hordes of uniformed attendants swarm out pump his gas and go over his car.

I use phones with bells, the old-fashioned ones. I used to have one where you could adjust the ring volume or turn it off. The latest phone like this doesn't have that option. I used to have answering machines where you could tape the outgoing and/or ingoing messages and not lose them when there was a power outage. It was never that big a deal replacing the tapes. I could adjust the number of rings from 0-10 or more. I used to be able to turn off both the ringing on the phone and all noise from the answering machine if I wished to but still have the phone free to make outgoing calls. I can't do that now. I even drilled a hole in the back of a dresser drawer for the cords and placed my answering machine there so I wouldn't hear the click when it went on. That was in the 1980's. I feel annoyed and at a loss from changes since then. I think people are also much ruder and more scattered from dealing with all the incursions and complications of modern technology. I feel that's it's a shame. Arrogant male corporate heads and technology obsessed nerds seem to be driving society. Right off a cliff.

Blue

IM CANCELLING MY VERIZON DSL ACCOUNT

I wish I had seen this website before I installed my DSL. After waiting a month for the OK to install, I have had nothing but problems. First, I use the USB port of the Westell Dual Connect modem. The software wouldn't install the drivers. Tech support refused to help saying that sometimes it doesn't work with Win 98SE and basically told me to install an NIC network interface card. I refused to accept this. Found out the modem they sent is discontinued - but I found a PDF file which instructed me to remove the USB Composite Driver. (One of the many techs I have spoken to later said that the first tech should have been able to help me with this.) Then, they advertise MSN Premium, which advertises MCAFEE Firewall and Virusguard as part of the package. Everytime I clicked on help for these products it brought me back to the Verizon DSL support page. NO support there! Don't bother asked on the phone either - they don't know much about MSN and nothing about Mcafee. Turns out Mcafee will not install correctly if you have ever had Mcafee on your computer. You need to tweak the registry. Fortunately I was able to get a one-time call for Mcafee support - I can't even remember how I got to that point! Next, the Verizon Online Support Center that I installed on 8/10/04 started giving me update errors every time I rebooted. The first tech support on this topic told me that it must be a windows error - It was not. The next tech support said to uninstall, then reinstall. The errors continued. The next tech support had me uninstall the Support Center software but also delete the folder, ProgramFiles/Common Files/VerizonOnline/SFP - then reinstall the software. This time it did install correctly and I no longer have that error message on my computer. I did however discover that the first version of this software created 1.7MB of log files in the folder, Windows/VerizonOnline/SFPSrvrLogs, there are no new files after the second version was correctly installed. Of course, I didn't get a straight answer if I could delete these or not. So keep an eye out if you might be using the older version of the Verizon Online Support Center and it is creating all these files. I have 601 of these and it was only on my system for 14 days! Now, when this next version was being installed, it was taking FOREVER to "Synchronize" or update with the server. That's when they had me check my speed. Turns out it was way below what it should be. They ran another line test and found out my modem was at 100% capacity - way too high for DSL correct noise filtering. Then I started having problems connecting. If I had my second Direct TV receiver plugged into the phone line (even with a filter), I couldn't get on at all. I now have that unplugged in order to get on. On the second call of not being able to get on after a cold boot, the tech told me to reboot and cycle the modem off/on. I was then able to get on. Since that worked, he would not start a trouble ticket. He said they usually wait until 3 times before doing that. Well, the next day the same thing happened. I called. This tech support guy said that he couln't understant why the previous one didn't submit a trouble ticket. I now have had a Network Specialist look at my line - and they have forwarded my ticket to Engineering. I now have to wait 2-4 days for an answer.
Good luck on anyone getting their Verizon DSL up correctly!

Hey, does anyone here have email addresses for the higher-ups at Verizon? I have been through a nightmare with them the last few weeks, and have spent countless hours on the phone and do not ever want to speak with any of those people again (no offense to any of the Verizon workers...you should get other jobs, though!), or spend any more time on hold.

I'm one of the rare people who really didn't have trouble worthing griping about with my Verizon DSL, been a customer for 2 years, and I'm not a speed demon or anything, so the speed is fine by me. So everything was fine until we bought a house and moved in this month...I work from home, so my internet access is critical...

I called Verizon and spoke with Ms. Kern on August 20 to have my phone and DSL services transferred from my old address in Merchantville, NJ, to the new address in Trenton. Because I had trouble moving my [phone and dial-up] service two years ago (a story for another time), I asked Ms. Kern to please verify that everything would be okay: that my Merchantville phone service would indeed be disconnected; that my DSL email address — which I use for my home business — would not be terminated; and that both my phone and internet services would not be interrupted as I moved from the old place to the new. Ms. Kern assured me that everything would go as I needed: my new phone and DSL service would start on August 30 in the Trenton house, and the services would terminate in Merchantville on September 2.

On August 23, I was disconnected from DSL in Merchantville, one week before we were scheduled to move. I am a graphic artist working from home, so the inability to conveniently meet my deadlines is a huge problem. I called Verizon several times to try to rectify the situation: I spoke with Brent, Paul, Tina, and Laverne; all of them gave me the impression that my DSL service would simply be switched on in the Trenton location immediately. Believing that they were telling the truth, and because I was very close to deadline on a number of my projects, I moved my home office a week ahead of schedule. After these efforts, DSL was NOT on in Trenton.

Two more days went by, and we still did not have DSL. I started to panic, so I began burning my proofs to CD, and my boyfriend sent them out to my clients for me from his office in Philadelphia. He is extremely busy at his own job, but we’re in the middle of a move, and I’m in the thick of deadlines, so it was our best option. But because he, too, was worried about whether I could retain my clients without the ability to email them directly, he did some research from work and found some high-ranking contacts at Verizon. A few days later, Vera Gonzalez (an assistant to some big wig in NYC, I think) called him back and told him that she would cancel the existing DSL order, and resubmit an expedited order. By August 31, we still hadn’t heard anything back, and we still had no internet connection. We called the order status number, and it told us our DSL was scheduled to turn on September 1 -- 9 days after my Merchantville connection was erroneously disconnected by Verizon; and two days after the original verified start date of 8/30.

I spoke with Vera several times on August 31, and each time she told me that a technician would call me shortly. I never received a phone call from a tech; and around mid-day, when we checked our order status, the recorded message said that my service would start on September NINTH. I was floored, exasperated, very worried for my job. I’m not sure why Vera didn’t check our order status: I’m certain she cancelled our order the day the service was scheduled to commence.

By this point, I had received numerous calls from my frustrated clients, and my boyfriend is busy enough at work without taking care of my job as well. I tried to get Vera back on the phone, calling both her office number and her voice mail number, but she didn’t return my calls. I called the general Verizon DSL number and spoke with a sympathetic man named Terry, who stayed on the line while he transferred me to Mr. LaGuerra in consumer relations. Mr. LaGuerra told me that I should have kept my dial-up modem (Why? I’ve been a DSL customer for 2 full years), that I never should have placed the terminate and the transfer order in the same phone call (what?!?), that I should take my work to the local library (come on! Do you think a library is going to a. have Adobe Photoshop and Quark Xpress for me to use and, b. allow me to bring in my own disks and CDs? Not a reality). Does he tell distressed phone customers to string some line and some soup cans between locations? I simply want the service I ordered. He transferred me to Betty White, who is in a department above him. She said she would place an expedite message on my order, which would still take 3-4 business days; she noted that because of my circumstances and because it was Verizon’s error, that I may have service sooner, but she could make no guarantees.

I again left a number of messages for Vera Gonzalez, believing she had some power to undo her cancel request, but again, did not hear back from her. Please note, she uses an old “I’m sorry, the number you’ve reached is an invalid BellAtlantic number...” message for her answering machine. She gives that number out to people, and does, in fact, periodically, answer that phone, and also, to the best of my knowledge, BellAtlantic has been gone (at least from this region) for three years.

I waited about an hour for someone to call me back, and when that didn’t happen, and at my absolute wit’s end, I called the State Board of Utilities to see if they might be able to help in this situation. The woman was very nice, but said that her agency only handles phone — not internet — complaints for Verizon. Despite the inability to get involved, she said she’d call Verizon to see if anything could be done for me.

Vera Gonzalez called back about a half an hour later to tell me that I should have service within 3-4 business days, but since the State Board was involved, she could no longer follow-up with me. I explained that the State Board called Verizon as a simple courtesy for me, since they couldn’t get involved with internet complaints. Vera said, “Oh they’re involved, okay? Have a good day, goodbye.”

And as it turned out, I was back up two days after Vera's phone call, TEN BUSINESS DAYS offline. Totally unacceptable. I also received a new DSL modem from UPS that same day my service in Trenton started, which, of course, I do not need, since I was an existing customer, with equipment in perfect working order.

Because this was a bit harrowing, we decided to order cable, too, for the other computer in the house. Obviously, if I want to continue to work for myself, I need a back-up plan if Verizon is involved. I plan to give the cable a shot, see how fast and reliable it is, and if all goes well, I'll cancel Verizon.

Glad to have found this page, and hope you don't mind my verbosity...I hope my experience will help people choose another service, and also see if anyone has any Verizon email addresses. I cannot afford the time to speak to any of those people again.

Thanks!
Chrissy

Dear Chrissy,

I really am sorry to hear that. I found a e-mail address for a Kevin something in upper managment at Yahoo Financial's profile of Verizon, as well as the snail mail address and and names of the higher ups. They suck and are really messed up. I guess you have to keep your old DSL until after your projected move date and your new one before your expected move in date, although that is outrageous and probably unrealistic. I am still waiting to try to wrap up the disconnect of my Verizon DSL about a month later. Still waiting for the return label for the second, unsolicited, modem they sent me. Not sure if it will get here or not.

Verizon Online DSL Sales CSC-Tampa - aka DS-Hell

My best description of the DSL Tampa Sales office operation is: a complete Cluster-Fuck of ongoing problems and issues of epic proportions, directly under the control of (mis) Management from every level and their ongoing comedy of completely avoidable errors. Its even been compared to a Shakespearian-like tragedy where everybody involved needlessly suffers deep and permanent grief and losses. I have never seen such piss-poor judgment and operation skills when it comes to the decisions that are made and the way it wastes company money, pisses off, frustrates and churns customers and truly erodes the inner most soul of its best employees. After several years of having the misfortune of being employed here, I feel compelled to tell of my DS-Hell experience. It is only right and just, that the public and corporate get a senior Rep’s first-hand account of the day-to-day operations of this illegal abortion of an office. Please understand, this is NOT an employee gripe against the company, but a loud wake up call for anybody in Management who touches this thing that it is in dire need of a complete major process overhaul, as our survival is clearly at stake.
As you read on, you will truly be in awe of just how utterly fucked up and out of control this ENTIRE operation is. Things are so bad that a class action lawsuit by more than 10,000 completely pissed off customers was filed in January of 2001. You can see the details of the case by going to: www.cmht.com/casewatch/cases/cwverizon.htm. Many of the problems were caused by the complete lack of foresight by upper Management of keeping up with the cable companies in the “broadband race”. Both this and the somewhat delayed 2001 merge of Bell Atlantic and GTE left Verizon way behind and thus scrambling to catch up. This “rush” is partial cause of the present day turmoil that exists. You will truly be with your mouth agape in disbelief, as I cite several examples of the Cluster-Fuck in motion, it’s core and how it’s mass and gravity continue to grow unchecked at an alarming rate to this day.
Let me briefly cite exactly what’s at the core of the fore mentioned Cluster-Fuck and then further explain the examples:

1) The complete misdirection of inbound calls to the DSL Voice Portal (IVRU) system that is both known and documented by Management and their utter disregard and refusal to correct them.

2) A long history of inadequate, slow, poorly designed and error-prone ordering software, (Oasis, OLO, and SSP) as well as ongoing miscommunications to customers, once again under the complete auspices of truly incompetent and hands-off, lame-ass IT Management and their departments.

3) Escalating, outrageously high sales quotas on both DSL, dial-up and way over-priced Linksys Routers that are not ethically obtainable within normal 8 hr. workdays and ongoing IVRU issues. Unjustifiable and wasteful ongoing mandatory overtime, mostly due to above-mentioned #1 and below-mentioned #4.

4) A long history of extremely high employee turnover due to above-mentioned #’s 1-3, as well as other obscene “needs of the business” management policies. This too is documented in HR records. And now the “contractor-only” hiring policy.

Now, let’s take a deeper look into the above issues one at a time:

The IVRU DSL Voice Portal has an extensive, notorious history of frustrating both customers and employees alike to the point of near insanity. No one is spared the wrath of its relentless torture. It has always been completely inadequate at first, properly screening, and qualifying the caller and then routing them to the proper office that is best equipped to handle their type of call request. To make matters worse, it is now ALL voice response prompts, which means an even higher possibility of being misdirected. For example, a person with less than perfect English or diction can be routed to the completely wrong dept/office, depending upon how the system’s “voice recognition” interprets the caller’s voice input. So if you speak like The Elephant Man, talk ghetto, or like a true redneck, this system will swallow you whole and then shit you out to the wrong department; most likely into Sales. There are many days when our Reps. take 20-30 calls in a row that are not sales-related. Truly guys, a major fuck-up and a 4-star money-waster here!! Think about this: a properly designed IVRU should first get the customer to a main menu of basic choices, then further qualify and screen the call based upon the callers input. BY PROPER DESIGN, it should NOT let the customer GET to the WRONG place. That is its only fucking purpose!! When you let someone advance aimlessly thru the system by pressing the “0” key and they wind up in a residential DSL fucking Sales queue looking to get the balance of their home phone bill or to renew their Verizon Wireless Free-Up card; you have a problem Houston. Although the majority of the misdirects are external, many are also from other internal sources (other Verizon offices) that also need to be re-educated on the what/when before they transfer a customer to Sales. Historically, these people have proven to be as capable in their job function as Stevie Wonder being your tour guide during a blackout. Customers also complain DAILY about the difficulty of wading through the treacherous array of voice prompts and how much they hate to have to call in to us for anything.
Clearly, through both input from the different depts. and proper flow-charting design, we could both better serve the customers and employees alike, while saving a butt-load of money by both first completely re-vamping and then ongoing tweaking of the ENTIRE IVRU. Once again, Management at ALL levels refuses to do this. Any local manager with a grade school diploma could easily see this by doing regular call observations and then take the appropriate action to get it corrected. Over the years, they have wasted a shit load of money by hiring external companies to “determine if there is an IVRU problem”, only to come to the abundantly obvious conclusion that we are literally SLAMMED with butt loads of misdirected garbage calls. This has also been documented in a corporate-wide Service Alert in 2003. Contrary to the mental hand-job of outright lies they tell you, they can fix the problem and they fucking know it!! It is a relatively easy and inexpensive fix as well!! It will likely be key to our future survival. It is truly fucking amazing that we are a multi-billion dollar, global Telecommunications company and we can’t properly operate an IVRU?? What a complete and total fucking embarrassment!! At the present time, through the use of internal documented call tracking by multiple Reps., we receive 60%-70% mis-directs in the sales queue. An additional 10% or more are calls that are NOT DSL QUALIFIED or don’t have Verizon local phone service and should have never made it thru the IVRU to the Sales queue in the first place!! Now your total is nearing 70%-80% misdirects!! This means that if the IVRU did it’s job, we could operate the center with 50%-70% or less of the present head-count, not to mention eliminating mandatory overtime and restoring employee morale and dignity back to the office. The annual cost savings could easily be in to the several hundred thousand + dollars range as well. Why does this shameless charade go on and on when the “fix” is SO easy?? Just a glimpse within one section of the core of the impenetrable cluster. Everyday that they wait just pisses more and more money away. As a long term stockholder and veteran employee, I am truly appalled at Management’s indifference approach to the issue.

IT and ordering systems issues and other miscues have plagued the entire Verizon Online division since day one. It all started with a an ordering system called Oasis- more commonly known as “SLO-ASIS” by every poor soul that’s ever had to fucking use it. This IT ordering tool abortion used to take 15-20 minutes to complete one fucking simple DSL sales order and STILL had one of the highest rate of provisioning errors (order fallout) known to mankind. Many customer orders did not complete or got hung up with some error and the Loop Qualification was inaccurate. NX1.7, (the West former GTE ordering tool) although a much quicker and easier system for the Rep. to use, has not fared much better with the order fallout. As you can imagine, this just increases pissed off customers and churn, as well as calls to and from every damn department to get the problems corrected and the customer their service. To make matters worse, this piece of shit would periodically “clock” for extended lengths of time, or go down more than a Cajun whore during Mardi Gras for any reason at any time during the business day. There were days when you literally sat there at you desk waiting on SLO-ASIS, (like watching paint dry) wondering what the fuck you did in your miserable life to possibly deserve this kind of shit. Worse, yet, how the fuck could they possibly let this go on day after fucking day?? Another SLO-ASIS “loophole” issue involved sinister scumbag Reps. canceling your orders that were in progress, then replacing them with their own orders to get sales credit, once again leaving both you as a Rep. and customers with that “just raped”, not so fresh feeling. Not to mention their regular routine of “slamming” customers by the shit load!! These felon-like maggots openly laughed at and even bragged about their defiant acts of both company sales guidelines and ethics policies. Worse yet, local management looked the other way, as the more sales they got, the bigger their bonuses were and the better they looked to their direct reports. Although a few e-mails were sent out reminding of “proper sales guidelines”, most were either ignored or deleted upon receipt, as there was never any real threat of disciplinary action against the offenders. You then get to repeatedly re-live the emotional trauma of your rape, by watching in awe as these same thieving pieces of putrid shit get awarded “sales performance” prizes ranging from hundreds of dollars in American Express Gift Checks, to Las Vegas trips as well as fucking Jet Skis and 4-Wheeler ATVs costing over $5,000.00 each!! As a Rep, it’s like living a total fucking Freddy Kruger nightmare!! You try your hardest to make your sales honestly and truly help the customer. You endure the Vietnam P.O.W. camp-like emotional torture of relentless irates and misdirects that you can’t help. You apologize your ass off to customers daily, knowing that there’s gotta be a better fucking way to get this shit done right the first fucking time!! Does anybody in Management give a rat’s ass about any of this shit?? Obviously NOT!!
Finally, after years of administering punishing pain and torture to both customers and employees alike, Management realized that SLO-ASIS needed to be dumped like yesterday’s retched turd (summer, 2003) and gave us OLO, or commonly known as the 1-Step Tool. This next IT blunder was faster at taking orders, but gave more order errors and fallout (as it had to update into SLO-ASIS) then its slow predecessor and pissed off even more customers and Reps. In Jan. 2004, as they slowly transitioned towards the mid-April, 2004 release of SSP, both these systems were hosed regularly if not daily. I can clearly remember in mid Jan. of 2004, when the fucking Einstein-like genius of IT took down SLO-ASIS from 8:45 A.M. ‘til mid afternoon on 9 consecutive business days. This means that during the busiest times of the day when you needed to use the system most, you were completely hosed. Does this make any business sense to anyone, anywhere?? And remember, they’re not just crippling our one office. This system is used by other Verizon Online Depts., like Billing and Tech Support as well as Verizon local CSSC Reps. in every state that was former Bell Atlantic territory from Maine to West Virginia!! This affected literally thousands of employees. Don’t you think that in most normal companies, they would schedule this shit to be done after business hours?? Not these fucking lame ass retards!! How dare we ask them to come in on weekends or nights to get the upgrades done!! Once again Management watched it go on all day, every fucking day!! And do you know what the Management solution was?? Our Section Manager (on her way to the snack machine) would waddle through the floor with her farm animal size ass barking out commands to take “paper orders”. Way to go lady!! You ARE a modern day genius and a living fucking legend!! Problem there, is that she doesn’t give us “down time” to put the paper orders in!! And unless you come in at 7:00 A.M. on you own time you can’t use the system anyway, so you’re condemned to trying to squeeze your “paper orders” into the system during the day, either between calls, while you’re on hold with other departments or on your breaks. By comparison, a dental root canal procedure would be more pleasant.
As of mid April of 2004 we started to use the latest IT ordering problem child called SSP. Although SSP is very fast and helps the Rep. get the orders in quickly, it still hoses way too many orders. Worse yet, it leaves fallout orders in a “Pending” status for weeks, or months until ultimately the customer calls in irate and wants to know where the hell their order is. There was a period in May 2004 where we left over 4,000+ customers in limbo, hanging by their genitals in this “pending” queue. Once again, in true Management fashion, they send out a scripted service alert telling us to let the customer know that the orders will be completed as soon as possible, with no “service ready” date and that an offline team, with no ETA, is working the orders. How completely fucking weak and ambiguous is THAT?? To compound this insanity, literally fucking thousands of our customers have had their DSL service “disconnected in error”(for no apparent reason), due to some sort of internal system fuck up, that the retards at IT have not resolved yet to this day!! Is it any wonder why we have incredibly high customer churn and the American public fucking hates Verizon like Osama Bin Laden?? As of today, the “pending” problem still is a major issue and SSP clocks way too much and gives a shit load of error messages, once again thwarting both the sales and provisioning processes. I still have orders pending for weeks, if not months after submitting these to IT to be corrected!! Clearly, this entire ordering platform was never thoroughly and correctly beta-tested before it was brought online for use. Management should be crawling IT’s dyslexic retarded ass daily until the problems are corrected rather than distributing some vague bullshit band-aid solution script to read to our customers!! It is fucking unimaginable that we can both do business and treat our customers this way!! These poor people deserve an honest answer of when they can expect service. Customers have choices and if we can’t seem to get it done, they WILL go and HAVE gone elsewhere.
Other inexcusable IT embarrassments have been information being communicated to customers that is either misleading, inaccurate and/or completely erroneous on both the Verizon Online (VOL) website or through direct mail in the form of letters, phone bill inserts or post cards. Let me just touch on a few of these, so you can have a better feel of just how deep and wide the festering disease of incompetence has penetrated.
In a corporate service alert distributed on 8/4/2004, IT erroneously sent 75,000 letters to existing Verizon Online DSL customers that stated “Remove 1 VERIZON ONLINE DSL CUSTOMER”, indicating that their DSL service was being cancelled. How can 75,000 letters being sent out to customers possibly go un-fucking noticed?? Well, in the famous words of Johnny Knoxville: “Welcome to Jackass!!” How many desks and offices must it cross before somebody might question the wooden pallet load of 75,000 fucking letters passing by?? Not to mention the cost – each letter 37cents x 75,000 letters = $27,750 just in fucking postage alone!! And what about the fallout when these poor people call in, pissed off in a panic, wondering how and why their service was being cancelled?? How could anybody in IT possibly let this happen unnoticed and then do absolutely nothing to stop it!! Who IS driving this IT bus??
Through another corporate service alert dated 7/23/04 another inexcusable IT mishap was documented involving the Verizon Online ordering website that occurred from 7/8/2004 – 7/23/04. It impacted approximately 4,700 customers that had placed online orders for DSL service. The customers were mistakenly shown as being Loop Qualified (DSL available) in error, as DSL was NOT actually available. The problem here is that it took IT 15 days to realize that this had occurred before any one even noticed. How completely fucking weak is that!! Some of these poor people had been waiting for literally years to get DSL, only to have their genitals teased to the brink of orgasm and then left in a “blue balls”- like state of frustration, as they later found out that DSL was actually NOT available. To compound this total fuck up, there was also a “free after rebate” promotion for a Linksys wireless router going on during the same time period. Many of these eager souls, placed their order for that too paying by credit card, only to later find out that it was all a cruel joke. They got their routers right away, but no DSL equipment or service. And where do you suppose these customer calls were sent?? You got it!! To the Sales Dept!! Where we could do absolutely nothing to help these poor people, only to transfer them to our cancellations group (Retention) to credit them back and apologize for this shameless embarrassing IT internal fuck-up.
Other IT ongoing errors involve current Verizon local phone customers being sent erroneous information by mail that they are now “pre-qualified for DSL”, when in actuality they are not. The problem here is that IT sends large bulk marketing to everyone within a certain area where DSL is available within their Central Office (CO). However, not every customer within that CO is loop qualified (electrically capable) for DSL. Here again, IT drops the ball for not accurately qualifying these poor folks in the engineering database before sending them letters. Worse yet, they can’t even provide an estimated time frame for availability, which is completely unacceptable. Once again, leaving our customer perception in the toilet of a public rest room.
Although too numerous to cite here, a long notorious history of IT fuck-ups have occurred and I mention these few only to demonstrate both the scope and diversity of the ongoing problems that exist and how it truly impacts EVERY aspect of the business. To me, IT fuck-ups are both our biggest threat to the future of this company and by far the predominate root cause of the majority of the Cluster-Fuck of problems that they spawn. Those responsible at every level should be held accountable for all their ineptitude and demonstrated ongoing indifference regarding these types of issues. There are truly NO excuses or valid justification for ANY of this.

Escalating and unrealistic sales quotas and other management issues are now at an all time high. I don’t want to dwell on this section too long, but I do want to give you a clear view of just how skewed and out of touch these fuckers are with reality.
Let’s start with July 2004 DSL sales quotas: first they want you to sell about 323 DSL units this month. Now lets break that down: you have approx. 22 selling days to do this – so you need to avg. about 15 units a day to meet your quota. Problem here again is the huge call misdirect and order fallout issues. On most days, you are lucky to get an avg. of 13-15 DSL qualified calls out of the approx. 60 calls you answer. Of those you’ll sell about 12-13, with maybe 1-2 being a follow up. That means that you’ll avg. about 11-12 per day after all the ordering system IT fuck-ups which = approx. 253 sales per month. The conclusion: you finish the month at about 79% of quota. So as you can see, even if you sold every one of the DSL 15 qualified calls, (beyond a Superman-like feat) after order fallout, you couldn’t possibly meet this quota honestly and ethically without “slamming” customers. Next are the overpriced Linksys 802.11B wireless and 4-port wired routers. The wireless units competitively sell for an avg. of $39.95 after rebate in many major electronic stores. Other equal brands like D-Link and Netgear sell for $19.99 - $29.99 after rebate. The Verizon Online price is $99.95. A 4-port wired cable/DSL router competitively sells for $10-$20, after rebate. The Verizon Online price: $79.95. Holy shit!! Who the fuck in their right mind would possibly buy any of these things from us, when we’re 3-5 times or more the price of the rest of the fucking populated planet?? And our quotas on this piece of shit are at 74 per month for July and 90 for August!! That means that you’ll need to sell 4-5 per day to make quota, especially after people read the fucking Best Buy or Circuit City ad and find they’ve been a victim of “router rape” by Verizon and then return what you had to sell your ass off, for them to buy!! And to top it off, for the last 3 months, we’ve been advertising the shit out of this thing “free after $99.00 rebate”. So, now more than ever before, customers don’t want to spend the $99.95 for it at all!! Great time to skyrocket the quotas guys!!
Next item is about “close ratio”. First, lets give you Management’s calculation method, then, I’ll apply some 5th grade math of my own. Management says that they define your close ratio as your total daily DSL sales divided by the total # of calls you take daily; i.e.: 14 sales divided by 60 calls = 23.3%. Here’s the actual close ratio: 14 sales divided by the total number of DSL qualified customers whom you pitched –(15) = 93%!! Do you see how totally fucking skewed their methodology is!! This is nothing short of a complete insult to your intelligence!! They’re holding you as a Rep “sales accountable” for every damn call that you get, including the shit load of misdirects that THEY drive right in to our center!! If you have an a la carte router or dial-up sale, they are NOT counted as a sale and furthermore count against you for close ratio!! Can you see how totally fucking twisted and absurd both their math and logic is?? Their 25% ratio alone tells you that they acknowledge approx. 70-75% misdirected calls. Worse yet, they “coach” you if you’re consistently under “their” bullshit 25% close ratio rule. This leaves you dizzy, scratching your head in a Twilight Zone catatonic state of disbelief, as your true close ratio is damn close to 90%!!
The next departure from reality involves you being “sales quota responsible” when you’re on vacation. So that means that if you have 3-4 weeks of yearly vacation, YOU, as a Rep must meet your ENTIRE monthly quota; even though you’re not even in the fucking building!! Anyone with the common sense of a seedless grape could clearly see that this is impossible. Not these Fuckers!! If you start to fall behind on quota, they’ll put you on “an action plan” to improve your “poor” performance. Another classic example of the true Cluster-Fuck in motion and it’s warped view of reality.

Ongoing extremely high employee turnover has always plagued this office as well. It is the fourth and final component that completes the Cluster-Fuck. The synergy of ongoing problems and complete frustration will ultimately lead to your unavoidable surrender here. It already has for literally the hundreds if not thousands of the willing, yet doomed souls that have passed and continue to pass through our doors.
In October of 2003, Verizon Management employees were offered a “Voluntary Separation Package” – aka a VSP. At that time we had about 110 Sales Reps. on the floor. 62 of the 110 (over 56%) chose to take the VSP, proving both the “fed-the-fuck-up” and “completely hopeless” employee sentiment of this intolerable and unbearable working environment. For many, it was the ultimate “out” – a chance to be finally be free of their relentless misery, get about a years worth of pay and benefits and then flip this fucking place off in the rear view mirror one final time on your way out of the parking lot!! To cite a more extreme example: this July, we hired on a new Sales Coach from the leading global wireless phone manufacturer. Clearly this speaks fucking volumes about this entire sham and complete horror show of an operation.
Make no mistake, all the turnover here at this office is completely due to all the above fore mentioned items I cited. Every one of these things truly makes this entire experience like wallowing naked daily through a cesspool of raw sewage. To cite another more extreme example: At the end of July, we hired a Sales Coach from the leading global wireless phone manufacturer. Although capable, his tour abruptly ended in less than 1 week, after being bulldozed by the Cluster.
Another by-product of the high turnover is the invoking of mandatory overtime. This means that once again you are anally penetrated against your will to endure 1-2 hours of daily torturous overtime for months at a time until Management can hire some new victims. They justify this sham as a “due to the needs of the business” issue. In reality, its just one more mental hand-job of lies, deception and utter bullshit to cover for their own obvious ongoing incompetence. Management now hires “contractors only” (non-permanent employees). The vast majority of these misfits couldn’t hold a permanent full time job in most working environments, yet we choose to hire them anyway just to fill a seat. On some days, as you walk through the building, it looks more like a “best of” Americas Most Wanted ghetto reunion, rather than a serious place of employment. Besides that, most have no related experience and further complicate and contribute to the existing state of turmoil. As the new recruits come on the job, they then have to “re-align” (move) Reps. to “balance” the different sales teams. So, with the constant hiring, firing and quitting, you often have to move your desk/seat several times yearly to a different location. This causes a “Chinese fire drill” state of confusion, leaving you scrambling to get situated at you new workstation only to find that you can’t even log-in to the network to get on the phones and get your work done. And if you do ask for help, like getting your e-mail set up, odds are our local IT fucking pros will take a week or more to get to you. Let me give you a better actual example of this: in 2003, due to some IT fuck-up with Lotus Notes, (Verizon’s shit e-mail program) several Reps were without their e-mail for six fucking weeks before anyone of these retards could figure out the database/id’s had crashed and needed to be rebuilt. No other modern company on this planet would find that acceptable.
Another inexcusable office policy is that of “employee releasability”. This means that if you do happen to find another job within the company, local Management has the discretion of the if/when you can be released from purgatory to start your new position. Many of these poor and deserving employees have been held back for 90 days or more. Some of these people were then passed-up for the promotion, as the hiring manager needed to fill the position a lot sooner. So besides controlling your everyday miserable piss ant existence, they now have a firm, sinister and unyielding death grip on your entire future. Once again, leaving you as an employee completely hosed, knowing that your chance of both promotion and escape from your hell-like sentence has slipped through your hands. Hence the nickname for this place: “DS-Hell”. Kudos to fucking Verizon Online for being the first company to bring the Hotel California concept where “You can check out any time you want, but you can never leave…” to it’s best employees. Where else can you be given super human goals to achieve and yet be micromanaged and treated like such a kindergarten child??
On behalf of the company, from a Sales Rep who truly cares, I want to deeply apologize to any and all of our customers for the inexcusable and shameless Cluster-Fuck of problems that Management has caused us all. But we as employees on the front line, like you our customers are mutual victims of their relentless and repeated acts of unlubricated sodomy.
Until current Management is either replaced or figures out that they need to get in touch with reality, watching this place run for the dwindling number of us Bruce Willis-like Die-Hards who remain here, will truly be like watching a monkey fucking a football.

Ok - my last post was on Sept. 1 - and the Network Specialist was reviewing my line. Sept. 3 - A Verizon Tech (very knowledgeable) came out and determined poor signals coming into the house. They replaced the wire from the pole to the house. We made sure that the phone jack for the DSL modem was on a separate wire that went directly to the service line input. The Tech also installed a house DSL filter (very simple, the wire for the modem's phone jack gets connected to the bottom set of screws, the voice lines get connected to the middle set, and the top set gets wired to the house terminal screws. When he left all was right with the world. Two days later, we started having inconsistent speed. Then we could barely get on the internet. I tried moving the modem away from the computer tower. I installed the DSL filters that came with my kit (The tech said it wouldn't hurt to have both). Called the DSL support and they had the Verizon Tech out again within a day (exactly one week after last visit). He checked all the outside and inside wires. When he checked the bare wires to the phone jack the reading was ok. When he put the phone jack back and checked the signal thru the phone jack, the signal just weakened. He called a Verizon Cable expert who came out in a few hours. After about 3 hours they found that somewhere down the street, there were crossed wires. I don't know how he fixed it, but we have had clear sailing ever since.

Bottom line: It took exactly one month to iron out the software and telephone wiring problems. However, the Verizon Phone Technicians were extremely nice and helpful. It did help that I have a computer software background. I have been finally (since Sept. 10) happy with my DSL service.

A couple of software related suggestions:
If you install MSN Premium 9 with your Verizon DSL and if you have Win98SE and a slower computer (mine is 500Mhz), don't install the MSN Toolbar. It runs an application called MSNAppAU to continuously check for updates. I tried looking for a way to shut it off and there is none. (If you uncheck it in MSCONFIG startup - it will come back anyway). If you have installed it and want to uninstall, make sure you uninstall it from the toolbar. If you have MSN installed, you can change the options of MSN Messenger to not check for updates. I believe MSN places the program LOADQM in startup. MSN 8.0 gave a way to not have this check for updates. There is no method in MSN 9.0 as of yet. I unchecked it in Startup with no problems as of yet.
Also, if you have the Quicktime Tray icon and you are not using quicktime, I also unchecked the QTTask program in Startup with no problems.

Also, with MSN Premium, you get Picture It! and Library. These are part of Microsoft Works and will also check for updates continuously. If your system is slower, as mine is, you can get into these programs, get into the OPTIONS menu and somewhere there you can uncheck to "Check for updates".

With MSN Premium, you also get McAfee VirusScan 9.0 and McAfee Firewall 6.0. Both programs are now working correctly on my system after ironing out installation problems. Make sure that if you had previous McAfee products on your system, they are completely gone. (Check the McAfee website for uninstall procedures.) Then make sure you install Viruscan first. It will install a program called the Security Center which runs in your system tray. Then, install the Firewall. I had previously installed Firewall first, then Virusscan, and I also had remnants of previous McAfee products and it would not work correctly.

this happened to me too

Hey, I just wanted to update. I sent a scathing letter to Verizon about two weeks ago, basically outlining my shitty experience with them, and threatening to file a claim against them with the (NJ) state board of public utilities, and the state's attorney general's office.

I got a phone call last week from someone with just a first name, but she told me that Verizon was very sorry for my troubles and they were waiving three months of my DSL charges. Which is okay, I guess. But not great. She was so nice, and efficient, and the offer didn't suck, that it kind of took the anger out of my hatred for Verizon. Which left me feeling kind of empty inside.

But I just wanted to let you all know -- 3 free months of DSL hardly makes up for the grief they give, but it's something. Maybe we all can threaten the same sort of action in writing, they'll be giving away a lot more free service.

Good luck!
Chrissy

Just an update. Although I never even connected to Verizon DSL or took the modem out of the box, I'm still trying to complete my cancellation months later. I cancelled Verizon DSL in late summer because my Roadrunner started to behave before I installed the DSL. Verizon never sent me the prepaid return label for the second, unsolicited modem they sent UPON MY CANCELLATION. After a while I taped the two modems together and affixed the one prepaid UPS return label to them. Just then I noticed that it was a UPS ground label. I live in Hawaii. The modems were being sent to Pennsylvania. The UPS guy took the package upon my request. That was a while ago. Just recently I got a postcard "invoice" for over one hundred dollars for the "unreturned modem." The second one, the one I never asked for and that they never sent the return label for. The one that was taped to the other with copious amount of clear package tape. I just sent them an e-mail telling them what I think of that. STAY AWAY FROM VERIZON DSL.

Where I live, in Hawaii, the quality of service is acceptable for many people, depending on where they live, but the other aspects of the company are totally screwed up. It is beyond belief. The public utilities commission should suspend their license. Criminal charges should be brought against Verizon national.

Update on four month process of cancelling Verizon DSL. I found out that they regularly send out bills for the returned modems because of an "overlap." My modem had been received but I nevertheless received a bill for it. I found out also that they regularly debit people's bank accounts for these returned modems, if the customer has automatic bill payment. My local Verizon office in Hawaii has been very good about straightening out what the national Verizon people have done. National Verizon give's the person from my local Verizon office the same run around they did me. She's been on top of it and is going to straighten the whole thing out. Thank God. To sum up, today's lesson:

Verizon DSL regularly debits customer's bank accounts for returned modems.

Verizon DSL regularly bills customers for returned modems.

This sounds really illegal. I think a fraud investigation should be done. Decades ago the national phone company, Ma Bell, was broken up by law enforcement due to bad behavior. It needs to happen again.

Here's the corporate address and phone number for Verizon:

Ivan Seidenberg
CEO
1095 Avenue of the Americas, 36th Floor
New York, NY 10036
Phone: (212) 395-2121
Fax: (212) 921-2971

Your best way to cancel or get help is to write a letter to the CEO. You will find it is too burdensome to cancel through their procedures. Don't bother with them. In the space below I will also provide a link to Verizon's profile at Yahoo Financial.

Here's the corporate address and phone number for Verizon:

Ivan Seidenberg
CEO
1095 Avenue of the Americas, 36th Floor
New York, NY 10036
Phone: (212) 395-2121
Fax: (212) 921-2971

Your best way to cancel or get help is to write a letter to the CEO. You will find it is too burdensome to cancel through their procedures. Don't bother with them. In the space below I will also provide a link to Verizon's profile at Yahoo Financial.

Link to profile of Verizon on Yahoo Financial

http://finance.yahoo.com/q/pr?s=VZ

Another way to cancel is to write a complaint at PlanetFeedback. From their I think it goes to their "President's Appeals" process which is probably better than trying their regular obstacle course.

Verizon is headquartered in New York which has a tough Attorney General. He could go after them. You might want to write a complaint with the NY Attorney General.

Hi, Im not shocked at the situation with Verizon Dsl, I too was once a customer for months because I recieved a letter to $30.00 a month dsl if I change my phone service to Verizon (I had At&t) and I was told I could connect to dsl from my line BUT guess what after months and months of disconnections while online and many problems that I thought and blamed on my kids screwing with the computer I found out after weeks and weeks to get someone to check my line (which I finally had a friend that worked for the company do) I was told I was more then 18,000. feet from the main connector and would forever receive crappy online experience, sometimes connect and sometimes not, fast, slow...who knows. Needless to say I was able to get back 4months credit of my 6 but it was a big pain in the butt and many many phone calls and a waste of time. So now I have no dsl but I have Verizon home phone service tricky of them isn't it! New Jersey Bell use to be a respected phone service but it and its new name Verizo are a terrible company with many problems.

I won't waste space describing my dsl horror story because it's already been told numerous times above but I will say--verizon people, you aren't alone. My experience came with sbc/ameritech!!
I went from sbc 600dl/128ul(when it worked) to covad 3000dl/768ul (which rarely worked for the 27 days I was saddled with it) to Lightning Bolt Technologies 1500dl/768ul which worked great until I ran a 24-gauge line directly from my outside box to a new jack I installed and now what was working great is working even better than that. It's nice bypassing all the noise and the related issues from routing the dsl through the house wiring. A quick word on each of these companies tech support departments. The sbc tech support people are really nice. I think. They're very hard to understand. SBC outsources their support to India and Malaysia. These folks may be nice but they can't do a darn thing to help you. The covad people are nice also and they're actually located on the North American continent. They also have a propensity to lie to you as much as they can. The result of that of course was my short 28 day stint with them. I then did a dsl provider switch to LB Tech. This move was handled by LB with very little interaction on my part. It allowed me to keep my ip address that was origianlly assigned to me by covad and it allowed me to keep the modem I was currently using. The only thing I had to do besides placing the order with LB was calling covad to turn off my service with them once the switchover to LB occured. All of this took a whole 5 days to complete and there was no downtime(at least that I saw) when the switch was made. Oh yeah, I was going to say something about the LB tech support people. Fortunately I can't. In my 2+ months with LB I have yet to have had occassion to call for support. May that condition last forever!! As far as the cost I'm paying 64.95 a month. A bit pricey yes but I work from home, transfer both ways large files, and needed a better upload speed than I had with sbc. LB does have other lesser priced plans with different speed combinations. An interesting sidenote here is that my 3000/768 service with covad didn't work because my loop length was to great to support the 3000 dl speed. Covad doesn't offer a 1500/768 plan but they did configure a setting on their server so I would run at that combination for a few days to test the stability. That speed was stable and covad made the offer to keep that setting but told me they would still have to bill me at the 3000/768 rate. 99.95 a month. The interesting thing here is that LB has a 3000/768 plan and charges 79.95 a month for it. Same speed, 20.00 difference. And where does LB buy their bulk band width? From covad!!!

Later
T

Ohhhhhh, someone feels my pain!!!!!!
I have had DSL for 4 years, the company I was with changed hands 3 times, in the process dropped my upload speed from 768 to 128 (I run servers, this is not good). Supposedly this is because Verizon changed the relationship that this provider had with them, whatever. I figured they were lying to me and I wanted to change providers to take advantage of 3000/768 service for $10 / mo less than what I was currently paying anyway. I was told the cutover would take an hour or 2. I went down yesterday morning, and today, not only am I not back up but: a) there is no one at Verizon that will even talk to me, and b) the third party I'm obtaining service from can't get an answer from them either. I have customers calling me asking me why my sites are down, when they're coming up, and my wife is ready to kill me. Don't even get me started on their cell phone service. Apathy must be part of their training regiment. I've never seen a company so dedicated to pissing people off (outside of AT&T maybe).

Haha, did anybody else notice that the entire right side of the page is verizon dsl ads? Quite funny. I had almost the same exact problems with SBC Yahoo DSL (I was moving). Comcast should pay DSL for all the customers it brings them. Hah.

See my website, Resources for Verizon DSL Victims
Just click on my name here and you will go to it.

Otherwise, cut and paste this URL:
http://www.webspawner.com/users/verizonvictims/index.html

You must be an idiot. It takes 15 minutes to install. Verizon's service center is lacking big time, but compared to cable broadband prices, you can't go wrong.

Umm, Greg, I don't think anyone here has trouble with the installation process. The trouble is with the SERVICE. Verizon employees promise one thing, and something else happens. And in the end, when you're so close to getting everything settled, some Verizonoid in accounting thinks you haven't been paying your bill and cancels your service, when in fact, another Verizonoid in CORPORATE FRIGGIN' HEADQUARTERS gave you three free months of service because of their unbelievable negligence which caused a huge disruption in your business. And of course, you know from months of experience from dealing with these people, that there's not a thing that can be done for at least TEN DAYS, and so you just switch to Comcast, because Comcast will be out within a day and have you up and running with (compared to Verizon) almost no bull sh*t.

Consumer Avenger -- by the way, EXCELLENT site. Thank you.

i what to know how long the cd will take because it has been 1 hour now

Thank you Chrissy! To see my website just click on my name here.

Terresa: I know this is a bit after the fact, but did you get the CD to work? What system are you using? Not that I can really help, I'm just an average person, and not a Verizon employee (THANK GOD).

I just wanted to update what's been going on with me. I was given three months of free service because of Verizon's colossal f-up back in September, but in the meantime, we had a hurricane rip through here and damage the lines -- so both the phone and the DSL went down. Luckily, we have Comcast internet as a friggin' back up, so my business can stay afloat while Verizon flakes out. Anyway, Verizon actually told us the problem was inside the house (good one) and we should try x, y, and z to try to fix it. Because we were without service, we thought, "Okay, let's just see." So we jumped through Verizon's stupid hoops (stupid me, I guess, right?) only to find that in the end, we still did not have any service whatsoever. Verizon continued to tell us that the problem was inside the house and didn't send repair for FOUR DAYS. Now, I know, that when weather damage is the problem, a company might get backed-up, but sheesh, JUST LET US KNOW, okay? Instead, they continued to say the problem was on our end, but when repair finally came, the guy said, "I have to repair the lines at the pole, so there won't be any charge."

I sent another letter of complaint after we were not credited for the outage, and about a week later, the DSL service simply stopped. I am an optimistic person, and despite the unbelievable history I've had with Verizon, I really thought the blinking light on the modem migh