Well folks,
Verizon is at it again. Some of you remember all the trouble I had getting a foreign residential listing with them.
They've had me listed with directory assistance for a year. They've never properly billed me and I was calling back monthly asking where the bill was. I told them that I was concerned that if I wasn't properly billed and paid that bill that my listing my not show up in the June phone book. Of course, I got transfered from department to department until someone finally decided to pull up my account (each time I called).
They kept telling me a month or two. When I'd call again in a month or two, it was 'a month or two', which happened a few more times. Then they told me I would get a year's bill in March. March came without a bill. I called them to ask where the bill was. They hadn't a clue why someone had told me March. I was told I'd be billed in June when the directory came out. I told them that if we waited for that, there was a strong possibility that my listing would not be included in the directory. They insisted there was no way that could happen.
Well, June came, the bill came (a year's bill, by the way), and the directory came out. My name and number were *not* in it.
Well, some of you remember how much trouble I was having with the VOIP company (Voicepulse) that was providing me with that number. Besides all the quality problems that their CSRs were not interested in addressing and the fact that there was no one to escalate to except the CEO of the company (whom they would not let you talk to, by the way), they wouldn't allow me to port my number away from them. I had been paying for a Carolina Net line so the number could be transfered all that time. I only held onto Voicepulse because that number was to be listed in the telephone directory and I couldn't port it elsewhere. I had filed a complaint with the FCC but after many months the FCC told me that they couldn't do anything about it because they were a VOIP provider (they can require them to provide E911 but they can't require them to port numbers? Strange).
I talked with Verizon Executive complaints. They were just as shocked as I was (like they didn't know how much trouble I've been having with their customer service). They wanted to issue me a credit for the listing but I don't want them to do that and told them so. I felt that if I didn't pay that bill, there was a danger that this would happen next year. Instead, we neogiated them providing me a forwarded local number that I could later port to Carolina Net. That number is up and running now. You dial my Verizon number and get forwarded to my Carolina Net line. I am waiting on the first bill for the forwarding (which Verizon is paying for me in settlement of this major foulup) until I can get a copy of the bill to Carolina Net and have the line ported to them.
So, I put in a change order on my foreign residential listing with the new Verizon Number. Since it is going to be ported away from Verizon, I needed it as a foreign listing so it would still be given out by directory assistance and appear in the 2007 book.
I went to the local Radio Shack last week and paid my Verizon bill for the foreign listing. The check cleared my bank account this morning. I called Verizon and the residential department still denied that they had responsibility for the account (even though the executive complaints department said that they had confirrmed that the residential department should be handling foreign listings). I had to call back and got someone else. I had to tell her how to pull up the account with the account number (not the phone number). After talking with her supervisor, she managed to pull it up.
She told me that they had indeed received my check. That the payment had indeed been applied to my account. But also a credit in the amount of my payment had been applied and they were refunding me the payment and they had closed the account against my explicit instructions.
Verizon Executive Complaints is furious and is looking into what happened. I've involved the NC Utilities Commission and sent a FAXed letter to Verizon's Executive Offices in New York to describe all of this incompentent account support.
Will let you know what happens.
And they call this a telephone company?
Regards,
Fred Atkinson