Verizon Confusing FiOS Customers Under Contract

Why is it always news when Verizon does this kinda thing? It's their business model. Has been, will be for years. And no matter how much it's pasted here.. main media won't pick it up (too much advertising dollars at stake) so they will continue to "stick it" to the little guy with over inflated price's, poor customer service (no from my experience but many blogs claim so) and they will still get rated TOPS by it's customers.

People were arguing with me on the Verizon FIOS forum when I posted how I would not use Verizon.

I am sticking with Time Warner Cable which will upgrade its infrastructure and raise speeds in the future.

You are re-writing history. The debate had nothing to do with this, you were insisting that TWC has better infrastructure, will have more speed, etc.
You never once said you wouldn't use verizon because of billing or the emails. In fact, you were arguing it in the "Fios to all by 2014" thread.

I said Time Warner Cable has infrastructure on par with Verizon FIOS as far as the end user is concerned once Docsis 3.0 is implemented. Both systems are fiber optics based with different headend, billing and provisioning.

Yes I was saying that if Verizon FIOS was more money for the same speed, people would be choosing FIOS cause of Verizon's marketting department.

Verizon locks into year or multiyear contracts and keeps pushing contracts which have expensive penalty fees for non compliance. Time Warner has no contracts and will also improve upon speed.

These comments yet again confirm I will be staying with Time Warner Cable for service.

I am planning on getting the new Lenovo T61 replacement with the Montevina chipset so I will have my WiMax wired solution connected to my Time Warner Cable for wired.

Time Warner Cable is going the right way here.

If you believe that cable connections which are shared and terminate at a node instead of a home is better, that is your opinion that you are entitled to, however, it is not fact.
Everyone locks into multi-year contracts. I left Comcast, and they are STILL trying to get me locked in for 2 years. That is nothing at all unique to verizon, and yes, others do charge termination fees.
You have given TWC credit for so many things they haven't even done yet, while telling everyone all the things Verizon wouldn't do.
After being asked several times, you have avoided the issue of caps in the future with TWC.
It's fine to be happy with what you have, but there is no need for you to troll everyone else.

Let's be fair- passive optical networks as currently deployed are also a shared medium, though with far more bandwidth than coaxial cable networks.

It is theoretically possible to use wavelength division multiplexing to provide each house on a PON Fiber-optic network with a dedicated connection, but the technology isn't cheap or feasible for home deployment yet.

This is a continuation from trolling from another thread, no one said that GPON wasn't shared either. However, 32 vs. well over 100, maybe a lot more, plus all the other advantages, is the point.

I'll also add it is a little humorous to see those who want to contact every lawyer in the country, even though no one has said their rates were changed unfairly.

Maybe so, but will anyone on this board live long enough to see it?

although it's not really news, it is amazing and entertaining to see how many different ways they screw up customer service (or anything customer related for that matter).

I also think because Verizon currently seems to be going in the opposite direction of all the others (not thinking of filtering, not disrupting applications, not talking about caps and overage charges), there is an irrational hope that maybe they are improving.

It's always good to have a reminder that once a giant, unresponsive telecom, always a giant, unresponsive telecom.

at least verizon seems to be less evil; they just can't seem to cure their in-bred incompetence.

I fell for the letter and paid the price. I was among the first FIOS subscribers in my area and I decided to turn to the dark side and switch back to Cablevision partly because of these letters. There were some things I liked about Cablevision, but I ultimately switched back because their TV was vastly inferior (Cablevision's Phone and internet were slightly inferior but more than satisfactory and their customer service was much better than Verizon). I am happy to be back to FIOS but I sure hope I never need their customer service.

Unfortunately, my experience with Verizon Support and Sales has been for the most part a pretty pathetic one.

When I first signed up for service (4/14/08), I was given the run down and there were no issues. However, upon receiving service, and calling Support / Sales, and one hand wasn't talking to the other...I received 4 different responses about why speeds were not provisioned where they should have been (ranging from my current "plan" did not support the speeds to "You can upgrade your account online at dslstart.verizon.net").

In the end, it was the generous support staff here at the Verizon Direct forum that were able to solve the problem.

I do not have Verizon DSL service any longer...and I guess it's because my Cox Cable line has spoiled me in the speeds, powerboost, and overall reliability / latency. For most servers, I was getting 80-100ms (on the East Coast), where Cox would provide me with 40-60ms.

I didn't know reading here might encur Taxes & Fees!?!

Well at least they don't have a cap... Yet...

"you've got a company that can't communicate clearly with customers, can't fix communication errors, and clearly can't track which customers they've already locked up under long-term contract."

Still not worse that Flashcom. In 18 months of service they never sent me a bill! They even helped to take down Northpoint.

Thank you for posting this so we know what to expect.

Otherwise, my budget would be screwed up if I ever lived in a FiOS area.

Most of it I can know from the FiOS forums, but the main point that the contract is still good is informative enough.

I'd probably jump to the forums if I was about to buy, to check to see if you can try it before getting into a contract.

If you read the TOS, you typically have a 30-day "trial" period before you agree into a contract. However, during that 30-day trial, if you change your service (or change the term in which you originally agreed to), then you have now accepted the contract and the "trial" period is now over.

I was fortunate that I had someone from a cancellation department who waived the fee for my DSL service (since I did upgrade my contract to a 2-year just to see if I could be provisioned at the 3Mbps/768Kbps service) -- however, it should not have gone that way.

The telephone companies offered subscriptions to certain services which included regulated and non regulated pricing elements. The non regulated elements could be placed under contract the regulated elements could not. Most customers did not realize that. When the cost of the regulated elements increased the customers would get angry but because they were tariffed there was nothing the customer could do. Unless there is a clause in the contract excluding pricing for internet access, pricing should remain the same for the duration of the contract.

Time to contact them if Verizon doesn't meet its contractual obligations.

Now that's funny. The AG isn't/can't do a thing that VZ doesn't let them? Remember, they are in like flint w/the Govt, FCC loves them and CR says they are the best. No AG would even dare mess with those folks..

There's a very easy way to make sure that Verizon doesn't screw up your bill- have connections in upper management, and use them frequently... Ah, corporate corruption...

Just contact your local Attorney General - also file a complaint with the BBB. If you feel so lucky, tell verizon customer service, you would like to speak with presidential appeals.

Its time for Verizon to add a "we can increase your price upto 75% each month over the last month for the duration of the contract" clause to the contract and be able to do price increases under contract. Hey, you signed/agreed/IVRed it right?

"[A] company that can't communicate clearly with customers, can't fix communication errors, and clearly can't track which customers they've already locked up under long-term contract."

Yep sounds like the same old Verizon we've always known and loved. Nothing changed just because they got a technically superior product. Don't know why anyone expected it to. Customer service is not, never has been, and never will be in Verizon's DNA.

}Davoice

competitors who may be in verizon's footprint:

cablevision
comcast (former adelphia included)
time warner
cox cable
rcn
charter

Everything with verizon is a mess. They have horrible billing and customer services. I have verizon fios since last year August and every month I see my bill change, this is without additional charges. On my last bill I saw $50.00 off-WELCOME BACK OFFER which was very strange since I had fios now for 9 months.

You have to be on verizon back because I know during the past months they have been cheating me out of money and those untrained representatives know nothing.

What kind of evil megacorporation would make a contract that prevents the company from raising their prices for the duration of the contract? Bell Canada's contracts, for example, do not rule out price hikes, and specifically say as much. Of course, those price hikes also give you an out of the contract...

Never got my 'signing bonus' discount when first hooking up FiOS, gave up trying to get Verizon to honor their offer. I still get mail every week asking me to sign up for their DSL - which they couldn't hook up if they wanted to, seeing as how the copper is no longer hooked up to my house. Verizon only does marketing, delivering products is way down the list of things they do.
Trying to figure how to drop the POTS but keep the FiOS. The less business I do with Verizon the happier I become.