Here's a Quarter - Call Someone Who Cares! But Wait till it stops raining!

“We never stop working for you” is the motto that drapes across the outside of their envelopes, every piece of advertising and ironically enough - even the bill Verizon graciously sends me every month. And In the case of my service they are forced to stand behind their motto. Of course I believe the true intention was to give the illusion of good customer service etiquette without having to do much work.

I’m sure its frustrating for every other American as well, when phone companies go bad, so I don’t feel that I am an isolated case, but when exactly is the phone company forced to provide a service to a customer that is forced to subscribe to their service due to lack of choice in suburbia? Phone companies have the privilege to monopolize their territories! Along side their motto “We never stop working for you” In all seriousness, in the area where I live - If you live here….you have X phone company.

Without further ranting over the lack of choice, I will address my ongoing dilemma and promise to omit exaggeration.

For more than 10 years, I have lived in the same home. The last four to five years, every time the sky darkens and a sprinkle moves in our tiny neighborhood of about 5 lose phone service.

The failing service begins with an overpowering static that may allow you to hear every third word a person says, thus rendering the phone unusable. Typically this lasts an entire day prior to dial tone disappearing somewhere into fiber-optic hell. When I first contacted them after loosing full service years ago, a tech arrived - assessed the situation and cut one of my lines from my bedroom. Apparently this particular phone service doesn’t like to hang out in my bedroom and began some sort of protest as the result – so the tech CUT MY LINE! Upon my return home I was greeted at the door with a nice little note explaining how the bedroom phone was the problem and was cut as a result – however, if I would like to have a new line ran it would result in a small fee of $75.00 per hour and a trip charge.

I immediately pounced on the phone, not the one in the bedroom of course and called customer service – I believe it was a nice rep from somewhere in India – and reported that “I have paid additional for in-side wire service and believed this type of problem would be covered.” That’s when I found out that the line was apparently sub-standard (out of date) it would not be covered. I told the rep she should see the rest of my bedroom! Let’s talk about out of date! However, rather than the phone company continually letting me pay for a service that would result not covering this type of damage, I felt I was being robbed.

Hasn’t it been reported that technology only advances every six months theses days? What a racket. After calculating $2.95 month for a useless service for an entire 5 years – totaling a whopping $177.00, I was furious – that IS after all ONE Hundred and Seventy SEVEN Wendy’s Junior Bacon Cheesburgers! Not to mention it would have more than covered the work I pointed out to them. Nevertheless I was advised I should take my complaint to a supervisor…so I waited through FOUR versions of the tune “I Believe I Can Fly” before I was able to politely explain my situation only to be told the same thing – What do they do read from Q CARDS? Insert SCREAM Here!

So now I have no phone line in the bedroom and I was able to come to terms and accept just living with that. UNTIL…The next time it rained!!! This time - The Den! That meant my internet line, Oh, Bother! After careful ranting to customer service – note: I had learned from previous conversations what to say – the problem was solved according to their report. It happened again and again until I had only one line is left in my entire house and was informed that it too was sub-standard and would have to be replaced at my expense. Finally I bit – the line was replaced just last year!

Being the kind of woman I am though, I just couldn’t let it go! I know, that’s every woman, right? I followed up the service with a letter to this particular phone company and made a nice little visit to my neighbors to see if they had problems during the rainy days. At that point I discovered that we had all suffered similar outages and they too had been loosing their extra lines.

One by one the phone lines in our neighborhood dwindled to just one per household.

One of my neighbors had taken measures further than my own due to their knowing someone with connections that would allow them to lodge formal internal complaint.

The situation in our area was that the ground lines were so old, unstable and unable to support all of the lines that were being run and the tech had been eliminating in order to get by and ultimately make his job a little easier – less lines means less calls. I Get It!

It was also found that this particular company was sanctioned to install all new ground wires in that area and had not followed through. You can only imagine how livid my neighbors and I were. We were able to communicate with one another and force the new installation in the summer of 2005. Although none of us got our previous lines back without paying, we thought at least now we would be able to make phone calls on rainy days from our one phone. Following these numerous disputes I had pondered dropping the inside wire insurance. Of course I was kindly informed that if I did and a service technician would have to come to my house I would be charged. At the present time – I by my calculations, I have paid over $400 into this insurance.
That $400 must insure that every time it rains, my phone service goes out because I still loose the use of my phone. I continue calling the automated service from my cell phone – resulting in peak time charges and once service is restored, I file on-line complaints stressing to them that “Every time it rains I loose my phone.” I am never able to speak to a live person – I believe it’s bedtime in India, so I request response in the form of someone contacting me and leave all three of my numbers and my email address. To date, no one has responded by phone or email. Of course I do receive the computer generated response letting me know just how important my calls are and am reminded that: “We at Verizon are committed to never stop working for you.”

Like most working moms I truly lack the energy or the time to battle this company further. I suppose you can say they’ve won! Perhaps that was their intention from the beginning, you think?

I look for Verizon's motto to change one day to “We never stop working for you to give-up and shut-up.”

This post has been entered in a contest at EverydayHogwash