Dear Ivan,
For years, I’ve used Verizon for my residential land-line telephone service. For most of 2007, I also used Verizon’s DSL service. In fact, Verizon’s “same price for life” offer on DSL lured me away from the more expensive Charter Communications broadband I had been using since 2002.
Over that time, however, my wife and I noticed our Verizon charges gradually rising until the phone part of our bill passed well above fifty dollars a month. We realized that, given our calling habits and cell phone usage (our cells are handled by a different provider), we just weren’t getting our money’s worth.
We debated dropping our land line altogether, but opted instead to try Vonage. The VOIP provider was running a special — $9.99 / month for three months and $24.99 a month thereafter — that would save us a substantial amount of money. Since we wanted to keep our Verizon DSL service, I did some research.
A very friendly woman with Verizon’s customer service department let me know that keeping DSL would not be a problem, even though I was “porting” my telephone number to a different company. Verizon, she assured me, would change my DSL service to something called “dry loop” DSL — essentially, DSL that isn’t associated with a telephone number. The entire thing would happen automatically and seamlessly — the only thing different would be a slight increase in my monthly DSL bill.
Fantastic! I’d get to keep Verizon’s DSL service, which I’d used without complaint for almost a year, and I’d be cutting my all-in phone and Internet bill by thirty dollars or so.
The lady with Verizon asked if it would be all right if she had someone call me to try and work out a way they could keep me as a telephone customer. I figured, hey, why not, and we set up a day and time Verizon would call me.
That day and time came and went, marking the first of what would be four times a Verizon representative promised to call and did not. Their loss, I thought, and went ahead with my plans for Vonage.
The Vonage equipment arrived; our telephone number was transferred from Verizon’s dominion to Vonage. By the beginning of November or so, we had Vonage up and running flawlessly and the DSL continued as before. I was very happy.
Then, on the 25th of November, I noticed Internet service had stopped. My first thought was a network problem… then I booted up my laptop’s browser and found a splash page from Verizon telling me my DSL service had been suspended.
I got on the phone to Verizon. After some time, I found myself in a very difficult conversation with a gentleman who called himself Mr. Singh. He would be the first of at least three Mr. Singhs I would speak with over the next few days, all with heavy accents and English language skills that lacked the finer contextual nuances so essential to clear conversation.
Once I repeated myself several times to Mr. Singh and managed to get him to deviate from his prepared script (at times the conversation felt like a Turing Test with a very ill-equipped artificial intelligence) I learned my DSL service had been disconnected due to non-payment on our bill.
Except… I had our latest bill in front of me. It had been paid several days before the due date, which was, in turn, several days before the 25th of November.
And so it began.
I’m not going to take you through it step by step like I had to live it; while I wouldn’t mind having you experience the level of frustration and lost time like I did, other people will read this and I don’t want them to suffer. This letter will be long enough, trust me.
After three and a half hours on the phone with Verizon’s Internet, Billing, and Phone departments, my DSL was restored… temporarily. The issue? For some reason, Billing had never communicated the need to transfer my DSL to dry loop service, and so my Internet was shut off. No one could tell me exactly why Mr. Singh thought I had an overdue bill.
There was a larger issue: a supervisor believed I had to have Vonage contact Verizon in order to set up the dry loop. She would not be swayed from this belief, despite what I had been told by the first, very helpful Verizon representative weeks before. Vonage, for their part, were baffled by this request, and could do nothing to help me because, of course, they are not DSL providers and have nothing to do with it.
At the end of the day on Tuesday the 25th, another very polite and sympathetic woman explained that “there are so many laws and regulations involved” that many people at Verizon were unclear on the protocol for porting numbers and keeping DSL service active. I’ll get back to that in a bit.
She explained that there was “some problem” with my order (the dry loop DSL) and that Rob from the “local office” would be looking into it first thing in the morning. He would call me with a resolution.
Rob became person number two from Verizon to never call me. My Internet disappeared on Wednesday the 26th at around 11:30 AM. At first I thought it was simply part of the transition to dry loop DSL. I’m an optimist, I suppose. By two o’clock, though, I figured I’d better call, because the next day was Thanksgiving and I had a feeling people might leave early for the holiday.
So began another three and a half hour stint on the phone with Verizon’s Phone, Internet, and Billing departments. Different departments tried to talk to each other to put all the information together — different departments based apparently in different countries and which apparently do not share call logs on the same account. Every time I was transferred, I had to explain — from the beginning — exactly what my issue entailed and what I needed.
By the end of Wednesday, a gentleman in Tech Support decided that the real problem was with the telephone line coming into my house. He wanted to schedule a technician to come out.
Of course, the next day was a holiday, so I knew that meant waiting at least until Friday for satisfaction. That meant no Internet (and therefore no land-line phone service) for another thirty hours or more. I was very, very dissatisfied with this, since I had no reason (given the conflicting explanations provided regarding the nature of the problem over the last two days) to believe it was actually a technical, on-site problem.
Nevertheless, I agreed that the gentleman could call me back with a scheduled time a technician would arrive. I stressed that no one from Verizon who promises to call back ever does, and insisted he return my call within fifteen minutes. With a tone of great assurance, he told me, “I will call you back in five minutes, ma’am!”
(Yes, after over an hour on the phone with this gentleman, he still had not gleaned from my name or the timbre of my voice that I was not a woman. I let it go. What point in clarifying it?)
Guess what, Ivan? He never called me back.
I spent Thanksgiving with my wife, sister-in-law and her boyfriend. Everyone chipped in to make a different dish. I did the turkey. We watched some football, and a movie. All day, in the back of my mind like bile in the back of your throat, I couldn’t stop thinking that come Friday, I would have to get back on the phone with Verizon. I wondered if I’d gone over my cell phone minutes with all this calling. It was stressful.
Friday.
I started calling at eight in the morning. I began with Tech Support, which had no record of a service call order being placed on Wednesday. I was not surprised. At one point, I was back on the phone with Billing, who assured me they would connect me with the people who could help me — the California local office. They connected me with Tech Support, who not only insisted that Billing was not working today and no one was there, they also were, judging by their Pakistani or Indian accents, most assuredly not the local California office.
Turns out the local California office answers their phones in Tijuana, Mexico. No problem. The customer service rep there spoke perfect, fluent English. The only issue in communication — a common one for all of my telephone interactions with Verizon — was the absolutely abominable quality of the connection. Strange that a telephone company would have consistent static and noise on their lines. Apparently your blue-jacketed, bespectacled spokesperson and his “it’s the network” cadre of Verizon troops don’t bother with the quality of the customer service connection.
In case you’re wondering, Mister Seidenberg, it was not my cell phone connection — that is perfectly clear on all other calls.
Anyway, this last customer service rep tried to get me to the right person, and again, I was left on hold for so long he asked if he could try calling me back on Monday. I said sure, thanks.
Ivan, I don’t know if you’ve been keeping track, but when I hung up with that person, counting Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday all together, I had been on the phone with Verizon a total of ten hours and thirty minutes.
Ten hours and thirty minutes.
Three days.
No resolution.
Guess what I did next, Ivan?
I called Charter Communications. Spoke to a nice guy named Earl, who was based somewhere in the Southern United States. In a little more than thirty minutes, he had my 5 meg cable broadband account set up, gave me a deal on the first six months and arranged for a technician to install it the next day — a Saturday. Twenty four hours later, I had a strong broadband Internet connection and the use of my land line telephone back.
One Charter Communications person did this in a half hour, while a dozen or more Verizon customer service representatives with ten and a half hours could do nothing.
Monday came and went, and of course I received no call back from Verizon.
Allow me to reiterate the specifics of my complaint. Indulge my inclusion of a few things I didn’t address above.
- Verizon undoubtedly has many customers who wish to port their telephone numbers to Vonage or another VOIP service and still maintain Verizon DSL service. Based on the several conflicting sets of instruction I received from different Verizon representatives at different levels of authority, Verizon has not trained their staff on the correct way to handle this. Verizon is a telecommunications company. Figure it out. You would have kept me as a customer if proper training was in place.
- Verizon does not link a customer’s account from one department to the next, and Verizon’s customer support representatives do not share call logs for a customer from one department to the next. This results in a frustrating game of — you guessed it — telephone — when reps from one department try to explain things to another. It also causes your customer to repeat themselves innumerable times in the course of seeking satisfaction. Ridiculous. Coordinate and link your departments.
- I do not begrudge the right of people in other countries to work for Verizon. That said, Verizon would do well to make sure foreign-based representatives are fluent in English. The quality and efficiency of the customer service experience diminishes a great deal when on the phone with Verizon’s outsourced foreign labor.
- Without direct call-back extensions for each and every customer service representative, there is zero accountability to individual customers. Four times, a Verizon representative promised to call me back, and four times, they did not. Why should they? I have no way of reaching them, and the odds that I will be connected to them by calling the toll-free number are so low, they have no fear of ever being called to task. Zero accountability means no personal commitment to each customer’s satisfaction. That’s unconscionable.
- The quality of the connection on hold and during conversations with customer service representatives is terrible. Static, background noise, flanging effects and other line noise make communicating with a representative — and being clearly understood — very difficult. Add to the mix a representative for whom English is not their native tongue and Verizon’s ability to deliver excellent customer service is reduced almost beyond the point of redemption.
Mister Seidenberg, as you can tell, the experience of last week has upset me.
Do you know what ten and a half hours of my time is worth?
I’m a freelance new media and social networking consultant. If you were my client, ten and a half hours would set you back almost $850.00. In fact, I fell behind in my responsibilities for a client because my work depends on reliable high speed Internet and I was on the phone with your company for… say it with me… ten and a half hours. I’m not even considering the other freelance work I could have sought and contracted in those ten and a half hours.
According to Forbes, you make $11.5 million dollars a year. Assuming a forty hour work week, ten and a half hours of your time is worth $58,052 and change. Would losing that hurt you? I don’t know. I do know that the time I lost hurt me. Think about that. I hope it matters to you.
Ivan, you not only lost a customer, your company provided such poor customer service and operated in such an inept, disconnected (ha ha) and disorganized fashion I’m sharing my grief with the world. This letter includes the words “Verizon” and “customer service” so often, I’m confident it will appear high in the results at all the major search engines.
I’m putting a Creative Commons license on this so people are encouraged to re-post it and spread it around. I’ll be posting it on Twitter and encouraging my 1,000 followers there to spread it around to their connections. I’ll post it to the 650+ friends I have on Facebook. And of course there’s the five thousand or so people who read my blog every month.
Maybe, just maybe, the result will be that fewer people choose Verizon for their telecommunication needs. Perhaps… just perhaps… another result will be that you will read this and instigate a sweeping reform of Verizon’s customer service operation. Maybe. Frankly, I’ll take either one.
Am I being vindictive, Ivan? You might think so. Here’s my perspective: Before my career in information services, I spent twenty years as a customer service specialist in a retail setting. All that time has made me a strong advocate of the importance of excellent customer service. I know what it takes to do it right. Therefore, I have very little tolerance when it is done wrong… especially when a company with the resources and depth of experience Verizon possesses gets it wrong.
Honestly, there’s no excuse.
Make it right. It’s your job.
Best,
Matthew Wayne Selznick
Update: On Friday, December 5, 2008, I received a call on my cell phone from the Verizon Customer Advocate. My open letter to Verizon CEO Ivan G. Seidenberg got their attention. The Advocate apologized for my customer service experience and let me know they were working on the situation. She asked if there was anything they could do for me to make it right.
I told her there was nothing they could do to get me back as a customer. I let her know that I appreciated the call, but the best thing they could do was fix it — that the attention this post has received and the comments it has generated point to the fact that my experience was not uncommon, and that it struck a chord.
I suggested that, while the private call to me was appreciated, it may be more effective for Mister Seidenberg himself to respond in public — either in the comments section of this blog post, or on a Verizon blog with a link back to this post. If I heard from Mister Seidenberg personally — and more importantly, if he made a public commitment to reform Verizon’s customer service department with specific steps to take and a timeline for execution — that would send a real message to Verizon customers past and present. It might also reassure folks who were considering Verizon but changed their mind after reading about my experience.
As soon as I made this suggestion (possibly as soon as I told her they would not get me back as a customer) the Customer Advocate seemed like she was in a hurry to end the call. She assured me that she would pass on my comments, but did not specifically state that she would tell Mister Seidenberg directly. So that’s what I’m doing here with this update.
Let’s hear from you, Ivan Seidenberg. What are you going to do, personally, to make sure the customer service at Verizon is radically improved?
Everyone else, if you’d like to contact the Customer Advocate department and urge them to have Ivan respond with a commitment and concrete, executable plans for improvement, the number they used to call me is 1-972-399-5913. (Turns out that number has been disconnected as of 12-11-2009) If you’re a Verizon customer, let them know how you feel.
An Open Letter To Verizon CEO Ivan G. Seidenberg by Matthew Wayne Selznick is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License.
You are encouraged to re-print and distribute this blog post far and wide so long as you do not change it, provide attribution, and do not profit from it. The illustration accompanying this work is not covered by this license. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://www.mattselznick.com/contact/.
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Man, that does suck. It’s not an uncommon story. I won’t go into our long story, but summer of 2006, we had no internet for 10wks, and interment landline service. We were told that the lines were too old and to get FIOS. We were then told FIOS wasn’t available in our area. The same thing happened this fall, right when Tom started his job search. Around here, we can’t get rid of Verizon, so waiting for FIOS is our only option.
Oh goodness, so maybe switching cell service to Verizon is not a good idea after all…
Can you hear me now? nope
I’m sure this was an unneeded stressor over your holiday. I’ve never been a customer of Verizon, and after reading this, it would take one hell of a deal to get me.
I would love to read the response if you receive one from Ivan.
Sorry to hear you have had these ‘issues’. I’ve always had great service with Verizon as a cell provider, but I had the option of visiting the store and talking to someone in person. But I’m getting an iPhone ASAP.
This is a serious issue that plagues a great number of large industries. Sadly, I’ve never had an overwhelmingly positive experience with any telecommunications provider I’ve had to call or work with. It just seems to get worse and worse.
I often wonder if the dogfooding solution that developers use would work with customer service. If the people deciding what their policies were had to act like a customer and use their own service consistently, would the problem exist as much?
Oh my lord, can I relate. Your story is almost identical to mine. I detest Verizon, and hope that they lose enough business to finally figure out just how wretched their customer service system is.
I would love to see Ivan call his customer support with a problem, just to see the frustration that we the people have to go through, only then do I think he would truly understand.
I hope all of their shareholders read this letter.
There is a big difference between Verizon Wireless (the cell phone company with their “network”) and Verizon (the phone company that runs the legacy services from the old “Baby Bells” in the Northeastern United States and the former GTE phone systems).
Verizon Wireless has a 40% minority stake by major European mobile provider Vodafone. Therefore, it is run significantly different than the rest of Verizon, since they have to impress their European partner.
Matthew’s problems are with Verizon and not Verizon Wireless.
This really is getting some coverage, you can find it on a few sites gaining popularity, such as DIGG.com
( http://digg.com/tech_news/An_Open_Letter_To_Verizon_CEO_Ivan_G_Seidenberg )
Personally i know a few people that have gone through this and my own dealings with Verizon service has demonstrated how disjointed and ultimately pointless it is and that it is better to just cut the losses of time spent (I lost 7.5 hours on the phone on a single problem myself) and switch services.
Verizon Customer Service? ppfffffffft!
i’m having a problem with them at the present time…..this is a second go round…i’m a glunten., for punishment…..everything you said is true….their trying to make pay them for switching to another company…they said i terminated my contract early and they want 276.00 for switching…by the way they can’t show me any written contract? they called and said it was made verbally…..this was after i asked for a copy of the signed contract…..they have turned this bill over to attorneys solomon & SOLOMON in albany , n.y. to collect the money or they are going to proscute me….is this how big business handles a loyal customer for over 30 years…..by the way, i have 2 home phones with them and 4 cell phones at present time…..if the keep it up, their going to lose them also….this is so stupid….the phones that i switched at my business, i saved over 150.00 per month….after switching, they call up and wanted to give me a sweetier deal…..why didn’t they do that when i was a nieve customer?…i just wanted to share this with your viewers…..by the way mr.seidenberg is getting a letter also……bigdaddy
I would love to know if you get a reply…..HAHAHA I happen to know from experience that the DSL and the telephone are actually seperate companies at Verizon. In addition, one thing that Vonage does not tell you is that the DSL switch to “dryloop” has to be included on the order to port your number. It usually is not because there is another company in the middle that handles a portion of the port. The other thing that you don’t get told is that you have to pay for the Verizon DSL with a credit card after you switch to “dry loop.”
I will omit most of the gory details, but I have been trying to get a
Verizon land line since October. I have been sent around and around in circles
and even hung up on. I explained to them in Oct. that they needed to
extend the line up the road about 800 feet from the neighbor. I finally filed
a complaint with the Pennslyvania Public Utility Commission. That has been about 10 days.
Still no phone, no indication of when I will get a phone, no indication of if
I will get a phone. They did manage to bill me for a dial tone plus one month of service.
I have recently experienced the most hideous customer service from DIRECTV that I am left scratching my head wondering, did that really just happen? Can these companies really get away with this? and how can “we” have any power? I searched the internet and found you among many dissatisfied consumers of cable and satelite TV. I love your open letter and feel slightly impowered by it. I am grateful the internet gives “us” a voice. Thank you.
Here’s my rant:
We have been customers of DIRECTV since 1998. We have always had amazing customer service and loved the company so much that when we relocated from FL to MA we decided to keep our account current with them because we didn’t want to loose our package that they no longer offer. Selling our home in FL and purchasing a new one in MA took longer than expected and we managed to keep our account current for 1 year. Bear in mind, we loved DIRECTV so much that we payed for service we didn’t have for 1 year just to keep our package.
That was our first mistake. In hindsight it was not one of our finest decisions. When we called to have DIRECTV set up in our new home the CS rep told us they could offer us a free upgrade (a new DVR and receiver) as our equipment from FL was out dated. Great, thank you was our response and we waited a month before we could get someone out here to set us up.
So on November 19, 2008 the two men came 5 hours late, caused damage to my home and never finished the installation. We promptly called DIRECTV to let them know what happened and we were told WE needed to contact the installers ourselves and work it out. WHAT? After about a 3 hour conversation we still didn’t have a resolution to our problem. Since then I have logged 25+ hours to customer service.
Our house is still damaged with a drilled hole from the outside of the house to the inside. They used the wrong cable. They wired the cord through the heating system, cut off the ground to a coaxial cable, drilled through our wood floor, etc. etc. Customer service tells us we have to write a letter with pictures and have a professional estimate included. Once again passing the task on to the consumer. They set up to send out a manager (Dec. 13)to complete the installation and when he came he said he works on commission and couldn’t do the job. He would send out a supervisor the next day as the supervisor gets flat rate pay. That never happened.
So segue to Dec. 29, 2008 our bill arrives and it prompts me to call and fix it along with more hours of trying to get some satisfaction to solve the current issues. It was 7 hours worth of calling. Yes, 7 hours. I finally was fed up and told them to come and get their equipment I was done with DIRECTV and their response was we signed a 24 month contract. I asked them to produce this contract and 4 hours later I find out this is just a verbal contract. I was given faulty 800 numbers and switched from 9 different CS agents. Apparently there is absolutely NO WAY OUT OF THIS SUPPOSED CONTRACT that we were never told about and never signed.
Believe me, there are far more details than I care to put anyone through. At one point my friend came over for a 3 hour visit and the whole time was spent on the phone with DIRECTV CS. She witnessed a CRG agent named Chris, bully, belittle and insult me.
I have found out through much research that DIRECTV subcontracts the work out and the subcontracters, subcontract the work out to non union workers. When they came to our house for the initial install they didn’t complete the installation because they didn’t have the proper wire, cords, and equipment. They did a horrible job and I am still in fear of my house catching fire because of the cable that is run along my heating pipe.
So after much ado, it is left that we have yet ANOTHER date set up for them to come and fix our issues, this will be the third visit. We have a damage claim report out there, and we are locked into a 2 year contract with them. So we set up to have all our boxes but one sent back to DIRECTV. More than likely we will not hear from anyone on damages because we haven’t since November and more than likely no one will ever come out to our house and DIRECTV has our money for 2 years because they can.
Only one TV gets reception so all that for a whole lot of crap!!!!!! DON’T EVER LET DIRECTV UPGRADE YOUR EQUIPMENT THEY WILL LOCK YOU INTO A 2 YEAR DEAL. STAY CLEAR OF DIRECTV! So now I am left with a problem. Who do I get for my TV service? I’ve heard similar strories from COMCAST and Verizon.
Thank you so much! Even if you didn’t read my rant it felt good to put it out there. Thanks for the forum. Any advise to expose this company would be greatly appreciated.
Sincerely,
Laura Maxwell
Laura — happy to provide you with an outlet… looks like you needed one! You might also post your letter to http://www.consumerist.com — they’re a blog that’s focused on bad customer service.
By the way, for the record — the post you commented on is about my trials with Verizon, specifically their land-line telephone and DSL service. So far, I have no complaints about my satellite television service, which was originally with Dish Network and is now with DirectTV.
Cheers,
Matt
i want to let everyone know what an awful experience my parents had with verizon. they were trying to switch back from cable,my father is 70 with heart problems and my mothers 94 year old father lives with them, my mom is 63. they told verizon that they would need the hook up right away.they were tired of being without a phone whenever their digital phone would go out with cable. so instead of verizon leaving the phone on through cable they disconnected their phone service. leaving them with no phone. they live in the middle of no where. no cell service either. when my sister and i would call we would be lied to and given story after story. they have been with no phone for 6 days now.and we are still waiting for them to come. one of the things they told us was they couldnt come out because they tried to call and couldnt get in touch with anyone. HELLO they are the ones who shut off their phone!!!! then they lied and said that someone came to the house and spoke to my father and that they needed a special line and had to come back to dig a ditch for them????my mom was the only one home all day that day. my father was at the doctors with my grandfather. no one ever came out. when i spoke with a manager they told me i could file a complaint but it wouldnt do any good because he is the regional manager for the entire east coast. his name was anthony ratuis. i have tried everything and this will be day 7 with no phone can anyone help me to file a complaint. they cant go back to cable because their phone has not been activated and verizon has all legal ownership over their phone number…… amyt5051@aol.com help
Verizon Is the worst in terms of dealing with them on the phone. This is largely due to the actual outsourcing of services.
Canada is great to deal with, but not the others. This is not because of prejudices but due to the fact that they do not understand my MEANING or my english, though they speak it albeit barely.
I subscribe to PREMIUM service, so I am getting the BETTER ones!!!!!!
God help the poor old woman who calls and needs to change something on her bill or has a question.
Terrible!!!!!!!!!!!!!
They have had people I have spoken to on hold for over an hour!!!!
And if you don’t wait, they will switch you around all over again to get to the correct “dept”.
Rediculous.
We want our operators and our job base back.
If any one out there is thinking about starting a phone company, now is a great time!!!
You would automatically fill your customer base simply by advertising the best customer service and no more than a 12 minute wait on the phone , with your service!
If you hire people from this country, your customers will be happy too!
Heaven knows we need the jobs HERE.
thank you and I wish you all well
Systems Rule!! Mr. Siedenberg has a problem with his systems. Those perfectly lovely Verizon people are instructed by their systems to never admit that people at Verizon make mistakes. The alternative, that I the customer is stupid, is also denied, but when forced to pick, the systems rule. And no-one, but no-one is allowed to make a credit. Not even Mr. Seidenberg? The systems assume that if it isn’t in the system it isn’t true. I feel like I am being called a liar or worse, stupid, when I tell the 5th person that is what happened last month, that the billing people’s notes say I was transferred to residential and that the conversation really did exist and that’s why I paid $29.99 rather than $41.99 last month. Well, no I didn’t apparently.
I am a Verizon lifer – Wireless, Landline, Internet and I’ll be a FIOS user when it arrives. I even went with Verizon VOIP, but that was a disaster, so I switched back. I just t spent more than an hour on the phone trying to get a $24 credit – the credit they agreed to last month. It didn’t happen, because the system says it didn’t. So now, I am resolved that $24 will sit on my account forever.
I would move but I can’t go to ATT, because 4 years ago Cingular passed on “my” bad debt to a collections house. The debt did not exist. I was faced with hurting my credit or paying $200+. There was no way to get it credited – Cingular could not access the old AT&T account and their systems had no record of their agreement to credit my account – it got lost in the takeover somewhere. So we don’t do business there.
As a European in America, I wander why we take this stuff. It upsets me most beacuse it’s a poor business approach to take to your customers – somehow they need to:
a)see the difference between me, the good customer with a real issue, and the people their systems are designed to protect Mr Seidenberg’s company from.
b)put in a sensible escalation system that does allow for mistakes to be made at Verizon
Hell and yes, i’ve had so many similar experiences with verizon, verizon hsi and verizonwireless. go figure a bundle of …
well, anyways, I was wondering if you were successful in retreiving Ivan’s cell/home number and or his actual email/snail-mail address.
If you have, please share. thanks.
Sincerely,
Arthur
p.s. have you ever experienced that one employee who actually believes that “they” aren’t going to mess with her 401k, yet, she actually believes verizon is going to reward her for harrassing the customer instead of helping them? yes, i’ve gone around the world twice, just trying to call the office in new york city.
Thanks for the comment, Arthur. As far as Seidenberg’s contact information, the closest you can come to is Verizon’s corporate offices:
Verizon Corporate Headquarters
140 West St.
New York, NY 10007
Phone: 212-395-1000
Fax: 212-571-1897
Toll Free: 800-621-9900
I called in about a week ago, very dissatisfied with the service I received with the internet service your company provides. When I was at the store and the sales person told me that getting internet with Verizon was easy and simple and would be fine for home use, I decided to go with it. Never was it explained to me that, I could go over my usage time on the internet and rack up an additional 200.00 on top of the 50.00 fee I already pay for the internet. 250.00 for internet is insane! When I called in to inquire why my bill was so high, the woman I spoke to informed me that Verizon internet service is more for people on the go and NOT day to day usage at home. Well, if I had been explained this at the Verizon store I would have never purchased this service from you. I was just trying to keep life simple and have fewer bills to worry about. However, why in the world would I get Verizon internet for my home PC when I can go with any other company and have unlimited internet for a set monthly price. On top of all this, now I am getting charged a cancellation fee from you on top of the almost 300.00 bill just for internet. I have been with Verizon for a very long time and I have been dissatisfied many times with you, but this is the worst! I can’t believe that you would rather lose a longtime customer rather than at least waive the cancellation fee for the stupid internet. Especially since the sales associate was only interested in selling and not looking out for the best interest of “the customer”!!! I understand I signed a contract, but this is crazy! After telling the woman on the phone the situation, she could care less if I was going to cancel all 4 phones with Verizon, no, she made sure to inform me of all the cancellation fee’s I will receive. This is not customer service! My bill is almost 1000.00 because of this and now my phones have been shut off! I know I’m not the greatest paying customer, but are you so big know that you don’t care about pissing customers off?
Alex Perkins
Prescott, AZ 86303
Dissatisfied Customer, want to know if anyone in Verizon still cares
Alexandra — thanks for posting your comment here. However, you might have better luck directly addressing Verizon directly or posting to one of the consumer advocate websites out there. It’s not known for sure that anyone at Verizon is watching this blog post or that they will respond.
Of course, I appreciate your sharing your experience — I just don’t want you to expect that posting it here will bring resolution.
Hi Matt -
I feel really stupid, because two weeks ago I ordered Verizon DSL service for our new Manhattan office. This feeling comes from not remembering all the agida I went through 6 years ago when my (then) company started DSL service on Long Island. It took 5 months to get a good installation.
What was I thinking back on January 6th?! The Sales Rep was wonderful, and really seems to believe in her products. But as soon as we committed to a two year contract, it all fell apart. Installation did not happen, no one called, we arrived with our people and furniture —– and had to send it all back to our (thank heavens, not yet re-leased) old offices. No one called to let us know they had not installed; no one has any explanation as to why the ‘technician’ wrote ‘not ready’ on the installation work order. No one can tell me why _I_ have to keep calling to find out when they are going to attempt another installation.
Talk about economic failure – the days and hours of work lost to ‘errors’ by Verizon, just in my tiny part of the world, amount to substantial dollars.
Hi Matt -
I just emailed my Sales Rep and copied “ivan.g.Seidenberg@verizon.com” – surmising his address from my sales rep’s address and it was delivered!
Just wanted to let everyone know – we’ll see if I get any response, ha!
Thanks so much for posting your open letter to him, so I know his name.
Catherine
Within 10 minutes of copying that email address “ivan.g.seidenberg@verizon.com”, I got a call from the VP of the NYC region, who promised immediate resolution to my problem. Subsequently, I got calls from several other people at Verizon, on a “reach out” basis (their word) asking what had happened. The installation was scheduled and accomplished the next day.
This was a business install, so personal accounts may not have the same success, but it’s worth trying!
Congratulations, Catherine! Me, I’m waiting for a bill for “early cancellation” of my DSL service — you know, the service Verizon wasn’t able to provide and never followed up on.
I’ll keep everyone posted..!
Catherine, I can’t get them to fix my phone and DSL. I sent an email to ivan.g.seidenberg…etc. Did you say that you also copied a local Verizon mailbox?
Dear Matt,
Could you tell me where can I get the email address for Mr. Ivan Seidenberg? I tried googling it but could only get a street address. I’ve been having problems with Verizon since May 2008. Partially my fault since I didn’t drop them sooner. My latest issue is that I just received a bill from a collection agency informing me I owe Verison money for services I dropped back in November. Disgusted is not to word for it. If you have it, please send info to email listed above. Thank you.
Patti, scroll through the comments on the post — the corporate office address is there.
Matt,
I just wanted to thank you for this post! Today is February 19, 2009 and I just spent 3 hours on the phone. At first I was trying to get my user name and password to my land line / DSL account. After being transfered 8 TIMES, sometimes back and forth between different departments I am still not able to access my online account. I was trying to access my land line/DSL account because I wanted to look at and pay my bill. I had signed up for One Bill, combining my DSL, land line and cell phone bills into one bill. I noticed on my Wireless account it showed my current bill as being paid and refered me to my One Bill account which I couldn’t access because I didn’t know my user name or password. After 3 hours I gave up. I then called Verizon back and asked to be unenrolled form the One Bill program only to be told I wasn’t enrolled! I asked if I wasn’t enrolled, how come the Wireless account says to go to my One Bill to pay??? Finally I called the Verizon Wireless and they were able to unenroll me, but now I still don’t know the true balance of my previous One Bill! I am so going to email Ivan to get answers. Maybe if everyone emailed Ivan, he’d get off his butt and do something about his company’s crappy customer service!
Another example of how Verizon’s various departments don’t talk to each other… and how their website is next to useless. Thanks for the comment, Christine!
I had two recent experiences with Verizon:
1. I am using FIOS (great!) for internet and Vonage phone service to which a wireless base station is connected to serve all other wireless phones in the house. Because my house is old, I had a lot of unused old-style twisted pair connections for wired phones which I wanted to disable. All I needed was a Verizon technician to come to my house to advise what I could remove without affecting my FIOS/Internet/VoIP service. I called the FIOS service number and it took me a total of about 30 minutes of being passed from one place to another, and every time I was passed I had to again repeat my phone number (which because of Vonage) Verizon didn’t know, name, address etc. before I could say send me a technician to my house. I didn’t count, but I think I spoke to at least 6 or 7 different agents. Finally someone took my message and passed it to a dispatch center who called me back in the evening. A technician came the next day (expected before 10am, actually at about 4.30pm).
2. Now that I had cut all the dead wiring, I needed someone to relocate the FIOS Power Supply Unit (PSU) and its Battery Backup Unit. Again I called the FIOS Service Number and the passing game started anew. I counted, and spoke to seven different people, and every time I had to repeat my phone number (not known to Verizon), Name, Address and my request to send a technician to relocate the the PSU and BBU. Finally, my request was noted and a ticket has been issued and forwarded to the Dispatch Center. I requested to be called between 12noon and 2pm today. It’s 1pm and nobody has contacted me yet. Stay tuned.
My 5 cents to Mr Seidenberg:
Ivan, your operation would fit a third world country (maybe that’s where your support staff are located). I shudder to think about a situation where essential telephone/internet service is inoperable and I need to get support in an emergency. Matt, the author of this blog, shared with us that 10.5 hours of your time is worth about $58,000. This comes to about $552 per hour. I am a little guy, and my time is worth only $55 per hour. Given my trouble, I should be given credit on my account for the lost time. Fair?
Update:
I was promised to be called yesterday between 12 and 2, and alternatively 7am to 9am today. No calls received. Why does Ivan make all that money if he can’t even get his service organization it good shape.
I have to agree with the posters on this site. Verizon is HORRIBLE at customer service. I have just today wasted two hours of my life, trying to do the simplest of things. Pay my Bill.
Overall, I have wasted likely a bit more than 20 hours of my life on the phone with Verizon. As soon as our service contract is up, we are canceling our phone, internet,and digital TV service. Verizon should be put out of its misery and simply go out of business.
The icing on the cake is this, the Billing collections department HAS NO SUPERVISORS. Or Managers. Thats coming straight from a Supervisor named Becky in Customer service. You call the Collections department and you have ZERO recourse if you are hung up on, mistransferred, misinformed or otherwise mistreated, all of which I have experienced with Verizon. And I am just trying to pay my bill, which Verizon keeps screwing up! I get confirmation emails saying that I have a payment agreement, with amounts, dates, account numbers and confirmation codes, and then they do not withdraw the funds. I have paid by phone, to have that payment never leave my bank and never enter my Verizon account, but they waived the 3.50$ fee at the time I did it! Uh hua, and an hour and a half of my time in Feb just somehow slipped out of the space time continuum, though my husband does not report any missing time. And of course, there is no entry into any log on my account on that phone call….. well series of phone calls because the system hung up on me twice on that particular day.
Verizon is hands down the worst company I have dealt with in my 40 years. They make me wish for the better service you get with the IRS.
NEVER EVER sign up for Verizon. Any Verizon product or service will not be worth what you will have to go through.