What is Digg?101 Comments
- BayAreaKing, on 01/26/2008, -3/+60The word "lawsuit" should be coming right around the corner for Verizon.
- Tanktunker, on 01/26/2008, -1/+44Big company screws customer(s).
NO, REEEEEALLLLY?! - qwertycopter, on 01/26/2008, -2/+25Three things you should have tried (Verizon wouldn't help you, so help yourself):
1. Read their Terms of Service and quote to them the section about your privacy.
2. Escalate the problem by talking to their supervisor, the supervisor's supervisor, etc.
3. Physically go to the Verizon office and demand the problem be fixed immediately. - Thing2, on 01/26/2008, -2/+248 MONTHS?!?!?! That's insanity - why not just deconstruct both accounts - I mean wipe them both totally clean...and build them anew? Is their system not robust enough for even that? Someone with "god" rights should be able to do that fairly quickly....I'm sure there would be a loss of service for a couple of hours...but well worth it no doubt. I can't think of any security system that won't let you remove an account....and if there *IS* one....it sure as sh*t shouldn't be used.
- silentsirens, on 01/26/2008, -0/+21Hey Verizon..."LAWSUIT" Can you hear me now?
- inactive, on 01/26/2008, -0/+14Your call will be ignored in the order it is received.
- Ray_Justice, on 01/26/2008, -1/+14My thoughts exactly, this is one of the few cases when suing actually is a legitimate recourse. Not only are they unnecessarily opening them up to identity theft, they are also blatantly showing that they either don't understand the severity of the situation, don't care, or their system or personnel are seriously flawed.
- healious, on 01/26/2008, -0/+11i used to work for verizon, the problem here is that the people u are talking to don't know what they are doing, the only way to solve this problem, is to do what we called a "baucro", which was a "business as usual cancel re-order", now, when u do this, your going to be out of service for around a month, because the only way verizon can cancel that poriton of the acct is for some reason to totally deconstruct your circuit in the central office, have fun with that... p.s. verizon sucks
- peaceninja, on 01/26/2008, -1/+12has this been reported to the better business bureau? nevermind, who cares about the BBB anymore, how about consumers bond together and create their own wiki to track this sort of crap so the big companies can be held more accountable.
- dannyboy3020, on 01/26/2008, -7/+17Terrrible!! This is unacceptable and should be fixed immediately.
- Maddoktor2, on 01/26/2008, -0/+7"Identity theft anyone?"
more like a gift... - ohcoaster, on 01/26/2008, -1/+7so this is human error, not a problem with their system? from what i understand, the guy creating the two accounts got the un/pwds swapped? Why is there no way to fix it? brutal.
- inactive, on 01/26/2008, -0/+6I too, used to work for verizon and couldn't agree more with healious. Since leaving the company, I've canceled my verizon land line, and will be leaving their wireless business ASAP. They are absolutely the worst company to deal with from a customer service standpoint. They do NOT care one whit about their clients (I was abhorred by their policies when I worked there, and one of the many reasons I quit - I worked for wireless.....started working there before the company that hired me was verizon). They just put fios in my neighborhood, I currently have TW cable, and will stay with it. Next time they call or send a flier, I'll reference this article.
- crapmatic, on 01/26/2008, -0/+6I've tried to nag Consumerist into setting up a real database or wiki so people can research companies, but it's like beating my head on a wall. I guess they've just pigeonholed themselves for all time as a Gawker news blog. I hope someone else steps up and runs with the idea of a real consumer resource. I guess all we've got is RipoffReport.com which is about as high-quality as the Craigslist personals.
And yeah, the BBB isn't gonna do jack. BBB is a trade organization of local businesses, and any consumer protection it offers is tangential at best. Verizon isn't going to be hung out to dry by any BBB. - remccain, on 01/26/2008, -0/+6What's the problem? You received the same standard sub-standard service as everyone else!
But what can you expect when every company pays CSR's the lowest wages and executives the highest? Crappy customer service and a company that ensures poor customer service by requiring every call be resolved in a certain time frame, certain scripts followed, and CSR job security based on a quota or average call time.
But hey, at least the fat exec gets a bonus at the end of the year for increasing productivity! - inactive, on 01/26/2008, -1/+6That means someone would have to do something not taught by the corporation... RUN!!!
- fani, on 01/26/2008, -0/+5Verizon is one of the worst companies existant today. I have had nothing but trouble from Verizon. They once made a mistake and charged me $4500 for a telephone bill. Their billing dept acknowledged the mistake but said couldn't fix as they need to talk to another dept first. No communication at all between the 2 depts. They sent my acct to collection agency inspite of finally ack'ing the problem and crediting money back.
Bastards. I fought with the collection agency for 2 years and then put a stop to it with a lawyer.
I hate verizon. Bastards - moofer, on 01/26/2008, -2/+7pretty cool the way you just read back the entire article to us, in the form of a question. You would do well at Jeopardy.
- akatherder, on 01/26/2008, -1/+6A lot of companies ask for the last four digits of your SSN when you call up. After they have authorized you by that you can get a lot of information. Call up their bank and give the SSN. Reset their bank account password and login. Login to their webmail: "Hey mom, this is going to sound crazy but I lost my social security card, any chance you remember the number?". It opens a lot of doors for social engineering.
- chrisjs169, on 01/26/2008, -0/+4sounds about right. we wanted to change (all) account information, and we had to cancel/reorder. it took several days just for them to get the order in their system, and several weeks before we finally got service.
- SebHughes, on 01/26/2008, -0/+4Does American not have the UK equivalent to The Data Protection Act?
- beerden, on 01/26/2008, -0/+3I think this would be at present legally indistiguishable from identity theft, and Verizon is the guilty party.
- TheKeithD, on 01/27/2008, -0/+3Quick question: What's your reasoning behind not going in?
Also, why the emphasis on ME and THEIR OFFICE? - Livebold, on 02/20/2008, -0/+3I used to work for verizon premium technical support. this thread cracks me up. Verizon sucks hard core. In the call center i worked in we were told to get customers off the line in 13 minutes no matter if we resolved their problem or not. If we couldn't fix it in 13 minutes then lie to the customer and move on to the next call. it was a total joke. There were times when customers would call in and say they wanted to cancel and switch to cable and there wasn't a single time i tried to stop them and i even happily offered that i used a cable isp and was very happy with my service. I hate DSL and i hate verizon even more. ***** technology and a ***** company offering the service.
- Tanktunker, on 01/26/2008, -0/+3You must have absolutely no experience.
- nomadofthehills, on 01/26/2008, -0/+3Why would this guy keep his account for 8 months? After a little while of *****, I would settle for slower internet with a different company. I think this guy wants his identity stolen.
- dhughes, on 01/26/2008, -0/+3 Cancel your account, which would be the other guy's account. He calls to say his account is canceled but he didn't do it, I wonder what Verizon's reaction would be.
- r3z0nate, on 01/26/2008, -0/+3Time Warner gave away my account of 5 years after we upgraded our services. I had everything linked to that account, banking info, all of my business accounts, everything! They acknowledge what happened and even logged into the account to find some kid was using it. Not only would they not fix it, they wouldn't contact the new account holder and forced me to switch over all of my accounts. This isn't new, businesses couldn't give a ***** about their customers and they prove it daily with stories like these.
- shm1, on 01/26/2008, -1/+4Verizon is just a fancy name for the original AT&T. Remember them?
- tendonut, on 01/26/2008, -0/+2Not entirely on topic, but I had a pretty bad billing glitch that Cingular refused to fix. They really don't give a *****. The billing algorithm was causing me to be billed for every minute I was entitled to, every minute I used, my total accumulated rollover minutes, and would double the balance due every 4 days and tack on a late fee. So for example, out of a 800 minute plan with 1,600 rollover minutes accumulated, lets say I used 400 minutes that month. They would bill me for 800 minutes (as if it was overage), plus 1,600 rollover minutes plus the 400 used, so a total of 2,800 minutes in overage. Now receive a new bill every 4 days that appears to be another month's bill with an due date of 30 days before I received the bill itself. Week after week of complaining and Cingular just telling me we should just pay the $12,000 final bill and be done with it, we ended up getting legal help. That was the only way were were able to get them to look at the error and correct it. People wonder why we switched to Verizon after 7 years of being with Cingular/Cellular One...
- ennTOXX, on 01/27/2008, -0/+2amen best comment on it yet
- tendonut, on 01/27/2008, -0/+2I believe it has been shown that even Christians believed in reincarnation until the church took out those passages when modifying the bible.
- Articmonkeys, on 01/26/2008, -0/+2Not all Indians are Hindu's you *****.
- Mysk, on 01/28/2008, -0/+2wow.. just ***** wow. I'm a hobbyist in the field of Internet security and privacy, and this story just blows my ***** mind. Considering the time frame I would be all over a lawyer with this *****.
I'd have also long since called my bank, credit card company, and the 3 major credit bureaus (Equifax, TransUnion and Experian) to let them know what was going on. Whether you trust the other person who's in this fix with you or not, that does not guarantee (in my mind) that yet others can't see it. Anyway, it's a good idea in this scenario regardless. - Genevera, on 01/26/2008, -0/+2I don't know what it's like in this customer's area, but all my local news stations run segments about consumers being ripped off by various companies. They report on stories just like this one and try to get the customers' problems resolved by contacting the companies in question. If I were this guy, I would be going to my local news station. Bad publicity and potential sales losses have a way of lighting a fire under big business.
Verizon's other customers need to be made aware of this anyway, just in case the company is being that careless with their info, too. - akatherder, on 01/26/2008, -0/+2Depending on how they key you in their user database, you might end up with the same exact issue when you open a new account. They probably don't delete old users and wipe them from the face of the earth in their records. They likely just disable them.
You might have to pay an early termination fee if you are on a promotional price contract and pay them to come out and set it up again. It's worth the money to keep your information safe but the point is Verizon should fix it. - 0rthogonal, on 01/26/2008, -2/+4Wouldn't a very simple fix be:
1. Delete both accounts
2. Recreate accounts - Strokemouth, on 01/26/2008, -0/+2All FiOS support is US-based.
- Tanktunker, on 01/26/2008, -2/+4128k downstream EAT IT.
- Qchan, on 01/26/2008, -0/+2I have to agree with all of this. I once worked as a Verizon Customer Support Analyst for their FIOS department. They even confuse and switch employee information as well. I was given someone else's personal employee information before I was hired. The name spelling on the employee's information was very similar to how I spell my name. I figured it was a spelling mistake. Corrected it and sent it back to start work 3 weeks later. Walk into work on my first day and the guy whose name I corrected because I thought it was mine sat right next to me. Oh sh*t!
When I tried to get it corrected by HR, I was fired behind it! They claimed I falsified a document. Huh?!
However, this situation sounds familiar. As a matter of fact, I think I may have been one of the reps that spoke with this particular person. His account (strangely) had information of his neighbor who didn't live that far from him. His neighbor had his information. I checked a system at Verizon called CAD and another web tool to check his account. When I put in his Verizon ID, his neighbor's name came up with his email addresses (plural). When I put in his neighbor's information, the customer's information popped up. Now, the way things work, we at the FIOS Technical Support can't do anything about it since the account information is cross switched on the servers. So, what we have to do is contact the IDSCRUB guys who actually have access to the servers to do all the switching. However, these guys are both slow and stupid. Many of us would send several requests to get it switched and they would take their sweet time and do whatever. What they're supposed to do is call the customer back and verify the switch. What ends up happening is the customer calls back and complains that nothing was done.
What I suggest you do is call and demand to speak to a supervisor (they're called escalation). Don't talk to a rep since they have limited power. Talk to a supervisor and stay on the phone with them. Don't ever get off the phone with them since the call volume can go up to 2 hours in hold time! If they can't help, contact the corporate office and speak to the main guys in charge. Complain to them and threaten to go public. Also threaten them with a lawsuit. Not only will they fix it, they'll compensate you (money). - alansky, on 01/27/2008, -0/+2Personally, I would like to see thousands of Verizon anecdotes like Qchan's suddenly appear on the internet. Would Verizon care? I don't really know. What I do know is that I can't help hoping that sometime, somewhere, at least one of these big, arrogant, incompetently-run conglomerate's would be so badly embarrassed by the stories circulating on the internet that they would actually consider (gasp!) doing something about their pitifully inadequate concern for their customers.
My Verizon story is not about my personal information, or even about Verizon's general incompetence. It's about a company policy that rewards new customers by prorating their early-termination fees but charges long-term customers the full early-termination fee no matter when they cancel their service. In my own case, I had been a Verizon customer for over five years and was just three months from the end of my current two-year contract when I switched to AT&T. When Verizon adamantly refused to lower the termination fee—after repeated calls to various departments, including the "Loyalty Department" (I kid you not!)—I simply walked away, having already spent far more time and energy on this issue than I wanted to. The thought of spending even more time and energy appealing Verizon's decision to some corporate dude (who might or might not redress my grievance) was almost as repugnant as the thought of buying my way out of Verizon's little extortion racket. They'll put a ding on my credit report, but I can't be the only one who has walked away from a Verizon bill in disgust. I can live with the credit hit much easier than I could live with the knowledge that I had given in to their unreasonable demands. Spread the word: Verizon sucks big time! Enough is enough! It's time for Verizon's customers to rise up and refuse to take this kind of service in exchange for the hard-earned money we give them each and every month. - digjam, on 01/27/2008, -0/+1thats good to hear but i would think u should have atleast gotten back ur legal fees
- 0011002, on 01/27/2008, -0/+1LOL I work at Network Solutions as Tech Support in PA. I know all about the "Zed". First few times i heard it I went WTF!? Your right about the people calling in being pretty dumb too but It's nice to get someone who knows what they are talking about when they call in. It sucks sometimes to be on the customer support side of things when you KNOW they have a problem and you KNOW there is nothing you can do except escalate it and giving the person your assurance it will be taken care of when you have no real way of following up to see if it was. Luckily my job doesn't have scripting I get to do my own troubleshooting to see what the problem is and if it's explained well enough and I have a good idea whats happening I can generally narrow it down really fast from there. I hate to call other customer support and have to wade threw their scripting when I've already told them I went threw those steps. It's pointless for me to ask you to go threw them if You just told me you did Your calling me cause you need help with advanced stuff not stuff you already seem to know.
/rant - ennTOXX, on 01/27/2008, -1/+2and you are in the identity theft biz? from your post i assume you don't shred potentially important documented information. i totally understand now why you must think this person is about 16yrs old. considering your way of thinking was far more complex at that age, then again maybe not...
- tendonut, on 01/27/2008, -0/+1Well we aren't complete American douchebags, so we just wanted to walk away with them paying our legal bills (very little since they caved quickly) and wanted our bill back to what it is suppose to be. We weren't looking for any money for our "pain and emotional trauma". Just wanted the problem resolved.
- OBKenobi, on 01/27/2008, -0/+1FACT: Verizon is a piece of *****. As is AT&T and every other telecom company I know of. Have you EVER seen a benevolent telecom company? So why the surprise? Why aren't you doing anything about it?
- OBKenobi, on 01/27/2008, -0/+1We must band together and stop these *****. All of them.
- ennTOXX, on 01/27/2008, -0/+1actually, we all are ANONYMOUS, step up & do your part for change...
- ennTOXX, on 01/27/2008, -0/+1and then again, which version of modification are you referring to? i'm not even sure the bible was a complete book for modifying as we know it today... but 7 yrs of private school says it was, 31 yes of life says it wasn't 8
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