I might have made $8/hour
November 6, 2008
I’m finally victorious after months and half a dozen hour-long calls.
No joke, I’ve probably spent more time on the phone with Verizon and their DSL branch of the billing, customer service, technical support, and cancellation departments in the last several months than I’ve spent talking to my own relatives.
Sheesh.
Long story short: We had problems with our Verizon DSL service several months ago, and after fighting with technical support (“We have a problem.” “No, you don’t, it’s fine.” “Yes, we do have a problem, we have no internet.” “No, you’re fine.” “NO, it’s not fine!” etc.) my family decided to jump ship by cancelling the service, and switch to another one without telling me.
Since I had originally reduced the price of our service ($15/month) just by asking, and had been told there was no contract and no Early Termination Fee, I was just peeved that they switched to a more expensive service without checking with me first.
Then I was royally ticked when I found out that Verizon was charging me an ETF.
Fast forward several months, and several painfully long, fruitless calls later, I had my final bill with the ETF ($79!) in hand, and got through to the cancellation department. After another 45 minutes of very patiently explaining the situation, a supervisor finally finally finally waived the fee.
It’s a good thing I’ve had all this time to simmer down before talking to the person who could help me out because I was mightily grumpy on all the previous calls. It might have been the holding for 25-30 minutes at a time, or being transferred no less than 4 times per call only to find that what I’d been told by the previous CSR was completely untrue, or you know, any number of things. Whatever the case, it became a crusade not to pay those liars their $79 when I’d been explicitly assured there wouldn’t be any such charge. And I’ve finally completed my quest: ETF has been waived.
It’s not the amount, it’s the principle.
FB: Pretty much! I don’t like being lied to.