Dealing With Verizon

I wanted to write this and see if anyone has ideas of what I can do next...

In May, I decided to move and ended up crossing over from Arlington County to Alexandria City.  At my old address, I was using Verizon FIOS services (TV, phone, internet).  While I've had a bunch of issues with Verizon customer service (it sucks), I decided to keep using Verizon at my new address because the internet speeds and service was really good and reliable.

Once I moved I found out that I couldn't keep Verizon FIOS services here because the City of Alexandria had messed up a few years ago and stalled the installation of FIOS until Verizon ran out of bandwidth- so Alexandria has no FIOS.  Because of that Verizon wanted to send DirectTV to do my TV service, but when they showed up it was determined that I couldn't get a good signal here for satellite TV.  Later that day the Verizon guy was supposed to show up to hook up internet and phone, but he never came.  So I called and cancelled my order and went with Comcast.

The next month to my surprise I got a bill in the mail from Verizon for $120+ for the services they never turned on!

When I called Verizon customer service (and that is a maddening process in itself to get someone on the phone), I spent over an hour on the phone with someone before I was told it was resolved and my bill would be adjusted to $0.

The next month another bill showed up- now instead of $120+ it was for about $60.  So I called and went through Verizon customer service hell again, spent another half hour on the phone before I was assured it was taken care of.  

A few days after that I got the same bill in the mail for about $60, which I figured was just sent before the Verizon person handled it.

To my surprise- guess what I got this week.  The same $60 bill, but now from a COLLECTION AGENCY which was threatening my credit score.  All for a service that Verizon never provided and assured me twice was being removed from my bill!!!

Just as an aside- this is not a bill from my old address.  Verizon wanted to change my phone number here because it wouldn't port to this address, so my old bill in Arlington was separate and paid for.  This bill is only for the new address- which never had services!

Who can I complain to at the state, local or national levels about this?  I want to get this resolved, but I also want to make sure Verizon is held accountable for this type of fraud.  Email me (notlarrysabato AT hotmail DOT com) with your ideas of what I can do to make sure that happens.  Thanks.

Comments

[Pvogel]

We had comcast it was fast and wonderful. It was also expensive 230$ a month. We switched to verizon last year, we now have dsl not cable modem, its about 25% of the cables speed. We have direct tv, with no channels to watch city council. But it only costs 115$ a month. so the quality of the service is dependant on price, just as it should be

[Verizonfios]

Hi, we apologize for all of the frustration you have gone through. We have looked into this and your account should currently be $0. If you continue to experience issues or have any questions, please don't hesitate to reach out to us on Twitter at @VerizonFiOS.

[Alexander Hamilton]

Twitter? Really Verizon? I guess you can only deal with customers 140 characters at a time. Pathetic.

This is also a story about the debt collection industry, which is borderline evil. You wouldn't believe the kinds of cheating, stealing, and lying associated with some of these companies, like Encore Capital Group. And the fact that Verizon handed over your "delinquent account" to one of these firms without even bothering to contact you themselves is indicative of the business model being used here.