Holy mother of god - Verizon has the WORST customer service i've ever seen

[aphex]

Now, i've heard all the horror stories of Verizon customer service, but never have I seen anything this bad, even worse that Dell (and thats pretty darn bad)

Anyway, I signed up for Fios Double Play last month (my first Verizon service in about 8 years), first bill arrives ~ $76. I log onto the website to pay the bill only to see the following (ignore the due date, i explain below);

Yet when I click 'Pay Now'

uhhhh, ok. So i try to pay by phone, same thing, says I have a Balance of $76.70, yet when I try and pay it says no payment due at this time and won't let me pay. I figured it was a bug in the system, so i kept trying back every couple of days to the phone and the website, no luck, still doing the same.

So i call customer service, get transferred, again, and again, and again and again. I hung up today after my 5th transfer (6th person I spoke to). One guy even went on a rant about how messed up the company is, how this wasn't his departments issue and how annoying it is to get these calls all the time when he has better things to do.

At this point I think I may need to send a check, but its obviously getting a little late for that now but may be my only option. That or just dont pay the bill and hope for the better next month?

Seriously though, how can one company be so horrible? And within 1 month of signing up for service be so horribly incompetent that i'm considering switching back already. Wow.

 

[kranky]

That's Verizon. First they bill you for what you owe but won't let you pay, then when you cancel they bill you for what you don't owe. In between they bill you incorrectly, then can't fix it.

At least they are consistent.

 

[mizzou]

I've had great luck w/ Verizon, but I always go to the store where I bought my phone/plans. I don't call corporate

 

[WaTaGuMp]

When I was shopping for a possible new carrier I walked into a Verizon store. They wouldn't really do anything for me to get my business. All the free phones were junk and they wouldn't deal in any way.

 

[Pardus]

Verizon customer service in general sucks, they hire low skilled workers, most of whom who barely got a ged and just read a script as they go. It's even worse at the Verizon stores, they ignore you when you walk in try to bait and switch.

Verizon pushes hard to sell all there products, but generally cant or wont support it. I stay away from there cell phones, internet and tv, don't need the headaches.

 

[Platypus]

XYZ customer service sucks!
No, ABC is way worse!

 

[shortylickens]

They suck.
But they get their money.
So its all good.
For them.
Also, aside from billing and customer relations, they actually do a good job. Their cell and home services are normally better than most others.

 

[apac]

Netflix + Hulu + OTA HD FTW!

 

[lothar]

It was only last month that I've been having problems paying my bill...Ever since they changed to that Verizon "central" thingy. I've been a Verizon customer for 2 years and I'm not changing their FiOS service to Comcrap. My cellphone contract expires December, but I will stay for now. I want to change but I'm waiting for the dual core Android phones which might take almost a year. I'm not going to get an Android phone from Verizon because I hear they turn them into bricks with their bloatware.

Their new Verizon Central website is a *itch to navigate. Their phone customer service is good. If you call, the automated prompts are annoying and can take you around in circles. I just keep pressing zero until I'm able to talk to an actual rep rather than a robot. Any "mysterious" charge I discover on my bill, I make sure they remove it and they do.

In conclusion...
Product: FiOS service is excellent compared to Comcrap. Faster download/upload, cheaper, no throttling, and I've never experienced an outage the past 2 years we've owned it. Voice quality is great...Never experienced dropped calls compared to people on AT&T and Sprint. My phone also works when I enter an elevator...With T-Mobile anytime I did that once it starts moving, the calls would drop.
Billing: Complete crap.
Customer service: Hit or miss...Personally I've never had any problems, but I wouldn't say they're the "best" either.

I think customer service at all telecoms are crap, so that's a non-issue.
I've never experienced "excellent"/"superb" customer service from any telecom company...ever.

 

[spidey07]

Telco billing is the biggest mess from a systems and practice perspective that ever existed. They are ALL like this. It comes from all the mergers and switching billing systems so there is no coherent system, just a huge hodge podge of dozens of different billing systems.

 

[JS80]

Every large corporation with multiple entities have nightmare billing.

 

[AznAnarchy99]

ATT is the worst in my book. I went to the ATT store once and they told me they couldnt handle the problem and had me talk to CS. CS called me a liar on the phone which ended up with me blowing up and hanging up. Then all of a sudden the manager in the store said sorry and he'll fix it.

Really he couldnt do it when I first asked?

The best? Tmobile. I love them

 

[spidey07]

Every large corporation with multiple entities have nightmare billing.

True. But telco takes the cake in sheer complexity and constant change the is unmanageable. Add in all the different city/county/local/state/federal regulations/lata/taxes and you can see where it leads.

FUBAR

 

[kyrax12]

I heard that Verizon Service was better than AT&T though.

Is it worse than AT&T?

 

[spidey07]

I heard that Verizon Service was better than AT&T though.

Is it worse than AT&T?

They all are atrocious, always have been when it comes to billing.

 

[vshah]

while i don't have residential internet service with tmobile, their cell customer service has always been top notch. we've been customers for over 10 years and they bend over backwards every time, be it getting an unlock code while still on the phone (where it usually takes a day or two), or allowing early upgrades. I've had an early upgrade on each of my 4 family plan lines within the past year.

on top of it all i pay $200 for 4 lines w/ data that has no cap, only throttling.

yes, i am a huge tmo fanboy

 

[ElFenix]

at&t and sprint have both been very consistent billing me. only issue i ever have is sprint autopay needs 2 billing cycles to update my card when the old one expires. basically the only inconvenience is that i get sent to billing upon trying to call someone, they update my card, they manually bill once, and then i go my merry way.

 

[El Guaraguao]

lol you said "darn"

 

[Wordplay]

Verizon customer service in general sucks, they hire low skilled workers, most of whom who barely got a ged and just read a script as they go. It's even worse at the Verizon stores, they ignore you when you walk in try to bait and switch.

Verizon pushes hard to sell all there products, but generally cant or wont support it. I stay away from there cell phones, internet and tv, don't need the headaches.

I worked for Flextronics which is a company Verizon uses to help out in their wireless stores. You are right it is a script in which they pushed on us to use for every transaction. If you didn't use the guide they created then you got written up.

 

[Kroze]

Dude you have no idea, wait till you sign up for Verizon DSL service. God forbid if you call their customer service. 10 out of 10 times you're connected to a guy name
"Bill" "Joe" "John"

with a horrific Indian accent and couldn't speak English.


At least Comcast customer service hire someone who live in America and CAN speak English.

 

[GTaudiophile]

About two years ago, my GF considered switching from T-Mobile to Verizon. We spent 45 minutes in a local store and that was enough for us to determine how poor their customer service is. We vowed never to consider them again.

 

[slag]

That is pretty bad, but I'm having issues with Sprint right now. I worked there for 9 years from 1999 to 2007/8 and had cell service. During that period, my sister got SERO through me and so did my inlaws. They live 3 hours apart. Before I was laid off, my inlaws found a better deal with another carrier so after their plan ended, they jumped ship to alltel long before I left Sprint.

Fast forward to Monday when I try to get new service through Sprint. They asked for my address, I gave it to them, and it was incorrect in their system. They couldn't tell me the correct one, but I somehow had to guess through about 10 different addresses, before I realized they had somehow messed up my inlaw's address with mine and they said they cant change it until after the first bill comes.

I then signed up for the plan and phone and passed the credit check, but now Amazon rejects the transaction because Sprint says there is a problem. Seems they think I still have service with them, even though I haven't had service in over 2 years, because they hosed up the account between me, my inlaws, and my sister who still has SERO. When I left Sprint, she had to resign up her SERO account under her name (which she did), but somehow its still tied back to me, even though all ties were supposed to be severed.

Looks like I'm going to have to drive into Lenexa to the corporate employee office to get things squared away. What a hassle...

 

[Gibson486]

I think it is dependent on area. FIOS in MA has AWESOME CS.

 

[Jeeebus]

FIOS was the best internet/tv we ever had. The customer service, however, was (and still is atrocious). It all began with the fact that we didn't have a Verizon phone # (we had Vonage). Just trying to get someone to talk to you was a 10 minute affair. Ok, what's your phone #? Hmm, not in our system? Account #? No, we can't seem to pull you up that way either... And this happened every single time I had to call.

Now we're in FL and can't get FIOS (though, for all of its customer service issues, I still wish we could). It's been about 4 months since we turned off service and were told that we're owed a $99 refund. I've received a bill for 4 months in a row showing a $99 credit - have called 4 times now to just have them send the check.

And I anticipate this will go on in perpetuity, like all of Verizon's billing issues.

 

[brxndxn]

From my experience, it is consistently their corporate policy to fuck up the bill - whether you are a home user, mobile user, or business. They constantly throw in random charges that most customers just pay. They will promise credits and never issue them. They will put you in a neverending spiral of transfers to people that are not even authorized to credit as little as $30.

Technically.. they're the best cable service (FIOS) I have seen.. but their support and billing is so bad it seems criminal.