February 17, 2009
Verizon Customer Service EPIC FAIL
Back in October I heard about Verizon's "all in one" plan that includes cell phones, Fios TV, Fios internet and a Fios land line all on the same bill for a discounted rate. Awesome right? I thought so too and that my friends is where my saga begins (cue star wars them song) . . .
Episode 1: The Phantom Menace
As a part of the "all in 1" deal was a land line. I haven't had a land line in almost 5 years since for the most part, I used my cell phone exclusively without too many overages. However, because I was doing more and more consulting work and speaking with customers all over the US I started going over my minutes. I looked at vonage and a few other options but the land line would essentially be free if I got the "all in one" package so it seemed like a no brainer. . .
I got my order setup, got a new lower monthly rates rocking all the movie channels and got a date scheduled for a tech to come out to setup my land line. Before hanging up, the Verizon customer service representative asked me a question that I will never forget "is there anything else I can help you with" (cue empire battle ship) and like a fool I said "my Verizon cable box crapped out on me a couple weeks ago, can I get it replaced." "Not a problem sir, I'll put the request in now", they replied after running a few diagnostic test.
Fast Forward to 3 weeks later and my Verizon tech (who I scheduled 3 weeks prior and even got a confirmation call the night before) was a no show. After waiting 2 more hours, I then decided to call Verizon.
Verizon has no clue what the deal is. They go back and forth, putting me on hold and looking at my account, etc etc, and after about 2 hours finally figured out the problem.
Apparently, when I made a request for the replacement cable box, it locked up my new service order request because service order request take 48 hours to process where as replacement orders happen immediately. Verizon's system does not allow more then 1 order to go through at a time until all previous orders have been fulfilled so they where waiting for me to send back my cable box to complete the order. However, I never received the shipping information because my previous account was technically canceled and was being reprocessed under a new account that could not be completed because of my pending service order.
The Verizon rep then told me that they had an idea and I was put on hold for another 45 mins. The rep got back on the phone and told me everything should be resolved in the next couple days and scheduled a new appointment to get my land line installed. A few days later, a tech showed up and I was the proud new owner of a land line. . .
A few days go by and I have a 10am meeting that was going to run 2 hours so decided to dial in with my land line. But when I turned the phone on I didn't hear a dial tone. Tried a few more times and no dice. It worked a few days ago so thought that it must me something wrong with my phone so later that day went to Best Buy to pick up a new one. Got home and plugged it in to charge.
A couple hours later the phone rang. SCHWEET! The phone works problem solved! Answered it, wrong number, no biggie. Few minutes later phone rang again, another wrong number. Still didn't think much about it, then got like 5 more calls that day all asking for the same person. Still didn't think much about it, after all, I just got this number and I may have gotten someone else's old number. Just to verify I called myself and low and behold someone else answered! Now I'm thinking I probably wrote the number down wrong so I better call Verizon to get the right one. . .
Verizon rep answers, I tell them the situation and they say "no problem just let me look up your number", they punch in my telephone number and pull up someone else's information not mine. "Sir it looks like your number got assigned to someone else. I need to look up your account by address" They punch it in. rep: "Sir did you just move" me:"Nope been here for 3 years" rep:"Sir did anyone else live in your house prior" me:"Nope brand new house". . . Turns out they have someone else's info setup with MY address but with different services. NICE!
3 hours later and everything is resolved . . . again. The only fix is that I get assigned a new number and am told it should be working in the next couple hours. 8 hours go by and I still don't have a dial tone. . .
Call up Verizon. . . again . . . and this time was transferred to a tech. Teir 1, 2 then 3. After an hour of getting bounced around they determined that my phone line is "crossed" and requires a technician to come out . . . again . . . to resolve which will take 3 weeks. Not much I can do, so I agree and wait.
3 weeks later a tech comes up and tells me it shouldn't take more then 20 mins. . . 3 hours later and he's still not sure what the problem is and has been on the phone with someone from HQ to resolve. After jumping through some hoops they finally figure out what it was and someone on on the other end of his phone pushed some magic button and it all worked!
But WAIT! There's more. . .
Episode 2: Attack of the Clones
A month has gone by after my phone line incident and I've all but forgotten about the ordeal when all of a sudden everything is turned off: cell phones, land line, internet and TV. When I logged into the browser I'm prompted with a "There is a problem with you account please call Verizon" but with everything turned off I had to go next door to use my neighbors phone to call them.
I call up Verizon, explain to them the situation 3 times to 3 different reps in 3 different departments because each department shows my account as being in good standing. So I lose another 2 hours of department hoping and repeating myself trying to get this resolved.
I finally get transferred to someone who is able to do some digging and finds that for some reason I have duplicate accounts, 1 active 1 delinquent. I hear a great deal of mumbling and confusion and then am placed on hold for an hour while they figure it out.
The rep assures me that it is a problem with Verizon's system and says my tv will be back on shortly and the internet will be up by Monday. Sweet! I spent 5 hours on the phone with Verizon and the problem won't be resolved until Monday. . . Off to starbucks I go.
Episode 3: Revenge of the Sith
Another month goes by and everything seems to be buttery smooth but then my phone rings. . . I get an automated response: "There is a problem with your account please call us back so there is not a disruption in your service". Which is just a nice way of them saying your bill isn't paid and we are going to cut you off if you don't pay us.
I call Verizon back at the number they told me to use and get sent from department to department. . .again. After about 2 hours I finally get to the right department and we proceed with the same conversation / procedures for determining the exact same problem I had a month prior. Confusion and bewilderment ensues on Verizon's side and I'm told everything is resolved once again after another 2 hours.
Episode 3: Revenge of the Sith
Another month goes by and everything seems to be buttery smooth but then my phone rings. . . I get an automated response: "There is a problem with your account please call us back so there is not a disruption in your service". Which is just a nice way of them saying your bill isn't paid and we are going to cut you off if you don't pay us.
I call Verizon back at the number they told me to use and get sent from department to department. . .again. After about 2 hours I finally get to the right department and we proceed with the same conversation / procedures for determining the exact same problem I had a month prior. Confusion and bewilderment ensues on Verizon's side and I'm told everything is resolved once again after another 2 hours.
WAIT WAIT WAIT
Erik, you bone head!: you repeated Episode 3. Sadly no. I didn't. Verizon did. . . 3 times now.
Episode 3 has repeated now every month since December with no end in sight. The rep tells me they are really confused, my accounts are in the process of being merged but can't be merged and that I have multiple bills that are consolidated but are all separate and every month my services get shut off for a few hours and I have to spend 2-3 hours on the phone going over the same story again and again every month to have the exact same phone call I get every month.
I've asked to speak to someone higher up and keep getting transferred to the same people who want to help and do mean well but are unable to. It seems like they are powerless over what is happening and there seems to be a total lack of accountability on Verizon's part as they have tried to send me to collections for the duplicate bills and has failed to resolve the issue 4 months in a row.
At this point I'd love to change providers but honestly nothing can really compete with FIOS that I have seen offered in my area. However, I keep wasting time and losing money with Verizon's incompetence.
For those who don't know, I am a consultant and as such bill hourly. For every hour I can't bill because I'm on the phone with Verizon trying to fix a problems they have with my account in their system, is money I'm out of pocket on.
To date, I've spent over 25 hours on the matter and am strongly considering sending them an invoice for the income I've lost.
-erik
Posted by erikbianchi at 11:14 PM | Comments (0)
March 27, 2008
[OFF TOPIC] My Daughter is no Joke!
Whoops! Thanks to some peps from Flashmagazine I found out my previous link to my daughter's pictures where going to a joke of the day web site.
Here is her real link:
http://www.flickr.com/giadabianchi
-erik
Posted by erikbianchi at 09:51 PM | Comments (0)
March 18, 2008
[OFF TOPIC] Where have I been?
Man I miss blogging and getting into various debates in the Flash community. So where the heck have I been?
For the past two years I’ve been working on my own gig as a partner in a new startup. It’s been exciting to be apart of to say the least!
To start with just an idea and move into a real product, building a team, a company, doing some tech / trade shows, promoting the product, establishing brand partnerships, getting funding and now having an active user based (can’t disclose numbers but they are surprisingly higher then I expected since we launched: www.mego.com).
BTW: like my last post stated we are looking for REMOTE Senior Flash Developers!
erik (at) mego [dot] com minus the () and []
On a personal note I also became a dad:
http://www.flickr.com/giadabianchi
So on top of the biz and being a dad, I just become super unmotivated to post because of all the spam I was receiving both email and on this web site. It literally took my web host server down and despite running blacklist and various other filters I couldn’t stop the problem even after 2 weeks of effort.
However, I’m in the process of moving my blog so I can enabled comments once again and hopefully finish a couple of the OSFlash projects ive been working on in my spare time (which hasn’t been much the past 6 months).
-erik
Posted by erikbianchi at 11:54 PM | Comments (0)
May 04, 2006
[OT] E3 or Bust, first born for tickets
E3, the gaming event of all gaming events, is coming up and this year looks to be the best show ever. I’ve manage to make it every year with last year being one of the worst shows and the very first E3 being the best (both the N64 and PS1 debuted at that event and it was the first time the gaming community got a glimpse of the glory of Mario 64).
With both the PS3 and Nintendo’s Wii in playable form this year (surprisingly I am more excited about Nintendo’s system) the anticipation is killing me. However, I’m starting to panic!!!!! My peeps that I normally get tickets from don’t have any extra this year so I'm not sure if I can go.
Anyhow, if anyone has a spare ticket or two let me know, I’d be willing to barter Flash services, first born, etc.
Posted by erikbianchi at 07:31 PM | Comments (0)
October 11, 2005
[OT] Spammers killed comments dead!
Spammers didn’t just kill my comments, they killed them dead! With receiving over 20,000 spam comments a day and over 2,000,000 comments over the past 2 weeks, spam brought my data base to its knees, toppled my server and severely bottlenecked my bandwidth. Due to the amount of spam I’ve received my web host blocked permissions to my cgi-bin (without telling me) breaking comments. I thought I had fixed this issues earlier in the week but after I’d change the permission settings someone else would change them back an hour later.
I want to avoid requiring user logins or having to monitor post because I think this hinders commenters and active discussions. So, until I am able to figure out a solution, my comments are killed dead. Thanks Spammers!
-erik
Posted by erikbianchi at 11:36 PM | Comments (0)
July 09, 2005
[OT] The Best Video Ever
(Work Safe)
Same Movie, Different sizes:
http://www.bluetights.net/qt_small.html
http://www.bluetights.net/qt_medium.html
http://www.bluetights.net/qt_large.html
-erik
Posted by erikbianchi at 04:39 AM | Comments (137)
July 07, 2005
[OT] London Terrorist Attack
My sincerest condolences to our brothers across the pond. After hearing about the attacks I immediately thought about some of our (as a community) and my Flash friend’s such as Peter Hall, Guy Watson, Aral Balkan and Mike Downey (who is there on a business trip).
My thoughts and prayers go out to those affected by this tragedy and hope that our shared wounds can only help but bring the UK and US closer together.
-erik.
Posted by erikbianchi at 05:09 PM | Comments (182)
June 30, 2005
[OT] Electronic Arts is Stealing from Customers!
Electronic Arts is overcharging on taxes slipping in an extra 25 cents or more on the cost of your video game purchase!
A very good friend of mine recently purchased Battlefield 2 from Electronic Arts directly and realized that they charged him too much on tax.
California state law says (paraphrasing) "when an item is purchased online but from within the same state that the taxes paid is based on the purchaser’s address and not the sellers". However, Electronic Arts is refusing to credit him the 25 cents they overcharged him as they charged him their districts tax rate which is higher then his. They are offering to refund his purchase if he returns it but he no longer has the original packaging which means he would have to pay for shipping.
To clarify, California State Tax is 7.25% and then each county / district adds their own tax on top of that. San Francisco Bay Area is 1% while Orange County is only .5% which makes Orange Country’s total tax rate 7.75% and the San Francisco Bay Area 8.25%. If the item was purchased in Orange County but was shipped from San Francisco only Orange County’s tax rate of 7.75% would apply.
Granted, 25 cents isn’t much but say that 100,000 people where over charged. That total comes out to EA making an extra $25,000 from “taxes” that they are not held liable for (and I wonder where that money goes). Bottom line, what EA is saying is that he either has to deal with losing 25 cents or he has to cough up the shipping charges. Which is very unethical and a deceiving business practice.
I would think that a company as large as EA would act more responsibly to their customers, know how the tax laws work and have better customer service training (or at least have their reps read each others responses). As you’ll see in the support incident below some responses from EA reps are completely inaccurate and contradict what the other rep had just said or what they themselves had said in a previous response.
Support incident below. Names, emails addresses and other private information have been edited out:
EA Online Support
Customer 06/22/2005 06:28 PM
Dear EA Support,
I was charged too much tax on my Batllefield 2 purchase. I was charge 8.25% and tax here in Orange County (CA) is 7.75%
Thanks,
[Customer]
Response ([EA Rep 1].) 06/24/2005 04:29 PM
Hi [Customer]
Thanks for contacting EA Online Support.
Please be informed that following is the sales tax that applies to California: CA - 8.25%
Also, tax will be assessed based on customer's shipping address. We will collect tax on the subtotal amount of the order.
If there is anything else we can do to help, please let us know.
Thanks for your interest in EA.
Take care,
[EA Rep 1]
Customer 06/26/2005 03:51 PM
8.25% is not the standard sales tax rate for all of California. In fact in some counties they have a tax rate of 8.75%. I live in Orange County, so my tax rate is 7.75%
CALIFORNIA AND NEVADA SALES TAX RATES:
http://www.biz2bizonline.com/13ge2_02.htm
please send me a check for a tax refund.
Thanks,
[Customer]
Response ([EA Rep 2].) 06/28/2005 11:00 AM
Greetings,
Thank you for contacting Electronic Arts.
Tax is charged based on the location of the EA Office in the State, not the shipping location. Our office is located in the Bay Area so that is the tax rate that is charged for any orders within California.
If you have any further questions or concerns, feel free to reply to this email. Our Quality Service Representatives are available Monday-Friday 8:00 am to 5:00pm PST.
Thank you,
EA.Com The Place to Play
Customer 06/28/2005 01:53 PM
Dear EA:
California State tax law says that sales tax will be charge according to where the resident lives not where the item purchased was shipped from. (http://www.boe.ca.gov/pdf/pub44.pdf)
A good example of this is set when an individual lives outside the county or city. State sales tax is only 7.25% county tax is added to the resident for which he or she resides in. The BAY area adds 1% tax for sales to residents in their county. Orange County only adds .50% sales tax. So the total tax should have been 7.75%
It would be best for EA.com to try to resolve the issue with a single customer before this becomes a statewide class action.
Please forward this to your management
[Customer]
Response ([EA Rep 2].) 06/29/2005 05:03 PM
Greetings,
Thank you for contacting Electronic Arts.
What I listed is how I believe it works however it may be different. The Item was not shipped from our location in California so it is not charging you based on the shipping location where it was sent from.
We can not submit a Credit Request for the Tax listed, however if you would like a refund please return the package to UPS and ask them to return it to the sender. Once we receive it the Charges will be returned to the card used to order . You can then re-order it or get it from a local retailer that has your standard tax rate.
So given EA Rep 2's latest response where did this magic 8.25% tax rate come from? 8.25% would be the tax rate for SF Bay area as he had stated in an earlier response. However, his latest response now says that the tax rate was not based on where the item was shipped from and there is not much he can do.
Unfortunately for EA they have no way of issuing a refund for an over tax so they must bare the burden of having all that extra cash.
-erik
Posted by erikbianchi at 05:14 AM | Comments (53)
December 30, 2004
[OT] Fly Eating Robot Powers Itself!
Woa!
Via CNN: "The EcoBot II uses human sewage as bait to catch the insects. It then digests the flies, before their exoskeletons are turned into electricity, which enables the robot to function.
Bacteria in the sewage eats the flies' soft tissues, which releases enzymes that break down the hardened shell.
Sugar molecules released from the broken-down shell are then absorbed and used as energy by the bacteria."
http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/12/27/explorers.ecobot/index.html
-erik
Posted by erikbianchi at 08:54 PM | Comments (534)
December 21, 2004
[OT] Weird MovableType Caching Issue in Firefox
I've been using Firefox for the past 6 months or so with a few minor hiccups here and there (I'll take that over the issues I had with IE any day). Today however I noticed that there's a really weird caching issue that just started happening with Firefox and MovableType comments.
For some reason every time I get a new comment on my site I have to clear my cache to view it. Doesn't matter how many times I hit refresh, restart the browser or restart windows. I’ve even tried reinstalling Firefox to no avail.
It was fine a few days ago. The only thing I can think of is that I recently downloaded some Microsoft updates. Could be totally unrelated but still makes me wonder . . .
Has anyone else had the same problem?
-erik
Posted by erikbianchi at 08:47 AM | Comments (353)
November 11, 2004
Server Meltdown
Well, I'm recovering from a total server meltdown that corrupted my database and most of my files. I'll be working on the site the next couple days to get it back to 100%. I’m also in the process of migrating from MovableType 2.6 to 3.1.
If you come across any broken links or general weirdness, let me know and I'll fix her right up! =)
-erik
Posted by erikbianchi at 12:16 PM | Comments (546)
June 19, 2004
[OT] We're Going back to Cali
After nearly 2 years of living here in Atlanta, my wife and I have decided to pack our bags and head back to California.
Having grown up in California our entire lives we came out to Georgia for a change of pace and to try something different. It was a wonderful life experience for the both of us but we miss our friends, our family and the Californian life-style just too much to ignore.
We are and always will be Californians at heart. We grew up eating In & Out burgers, snowboarding in fresh powder without jackets on, taking weekend road trips to Vegas and hanging out at the beach in shorts and a t-shirt year around.
There is a lot we are going to miss about Georgia: the warm southern nights of spring, the tress in October, the amazing housing market, the cost of living, the southern hospitality and some of the most wonderful people we have ever met but home is where the heart is and our hearts never really left California.
-erik
Posted by erikbianchi at 04:05 AM | Comments (277)