O/T Update.........

For what it’s worth----------

Some of ya’ll may remember several weeks ago I was having trouble with my wireless Internet service and asked for advice on a couple of other options.

Turns out I got my original wireless service fixed. It had been inconsistent with no real pattern. It might operate fine during a 30 mph rainstorm, and act up when it was wind still and sunny. Be working fine when you went to bed, and not be working in the morning. A couple of the company’s field techs came out, played with it until it started working on its own, and left. They basically blamed a couple of trees for interfering.

Last Friday, I happened to have the local manager in my office when the Internet was dead. He hooked up his test equipment and found he had a strong signal coming from the receiver on the roof of my house to a power supply in the system, but---no signal from the power supply to my computer. Had a strong signal to the power supply, but the power supply was not doing what it should to feed the signal to my computer. The Mgr. plugged in a new power supply and “Bingo!”. Almost perfect Internet!. The Mgr. even commented on how fast it was on my computer. Obviously the power supply had been failing for some time. It’s been working fine ever since.

That’s the good news. The bad news is, at one point, in desperation, I tried Verizon’s service. To make a long story short, they sold me a unit that would not work, then insisted on charging me a $70 restocking fee when I returned it. There ensued a confrontation of at least a half hour over why I should have to pay a restocking fee on a unit that wouldn’t work as expected. The salesman I was dealing with went to get the Duty Manager. It didn’t go unnoticed to me that the place emptied of customers while we were having our confrontation.

Concurrently, at the next station at the counter, a young man was complaining that a gadget he had bought would not work. The young lady he was dealing with stated they’d had to replace a lot of those units because they didn’t work. I facetiously commented I couldn’t believe something Verizon had sold wouldn’t work. The young lady flippantly replied, “They were made by Motorola, it’s not our problem”.

Hello? Is anyone home? If you continue to sell something you have reason to believe might not work, it IS your problem, regardless of who manufactured it.

Anyway, the Duty Manager arrived on the scene, and the argument continued. I finally came to realize that the only way I was going to get ANY refund was to pay that restocking fee. Which I did and departed the premises.

Verizon also began sending me bills for $69 for the first month’s Internet service, even though I’d cancelled it within three days without ever having been able to use it. (The salesman had said it would be $49 per month).

I now have a complaint filed with the Better Business Bureau. The BBB must have tons of complaints against Verizon. A lady at the Nebraska Better Business Bureau said their office could not handle all the complaints they were getting about Verizon, and that all the Verizon complaints were being forwarded to a much larger BBB office in New Jersey. Once a complaint is filed against Verizon (or any other company), they have 14 days to respond. We’ll see what happens.

BBB has NO teeth in any complaint . They can post bad reports about a company or reccomend arbitration , but other than that They are there to help themselves prosper .

When I moved into the home my son had th latest ATT internet installed it would be on and off. He spent a couple of hours trouble shooting with ATT on the phone and they sent a new Modem. He installed it and it works just fine. Glad he knew how to handle them. That is one of his jobs. Riding herd over several hundred computers ad servers in AG-BIO Enginering Dept at Oklahoma State University He knew the right question and the right answers.
gitrib

I'm aware the BBB has no authority, I just want to be as big a PITA to Verizon as I can.

I tried Verizon Internet for the house, but ordered the modem and service through their online web site. It was part of the deal that I could return the equipment and cancel the service after I tried it out, if it didn't work for me. It didn't. Verizon sent me a RA and a shipping label, I returned the equipment and was never charged for the service or any restocking fees.

Oh yea, I can understand that . It's the squeeky wheel that gets oiled ,,and I sure would be squeeking ! Reminds me of all the secert warranty deals Ford had and would not cover stuff untill customer went ballistic .

Sorry about the bad info. both of ours have worked great since we installed a cellphone extender. we can also make calls anyplace in the house without dropping them. It makes me think back when i got my first one from alltel, there was a 30day return.

Do tell about the Ford secret warranties. I have a diesel van in right now that has recurring engine problems.

A few months back I was surfing the web and I lost my internet connection on my AT&T 3G USB modem. I did the usual routine I follow: unplugged it, plugged it back in and reconnected. The modem showed the two solid lights indicating a connection, but I couldn't ping anything. Traceroutes seemed to stop after a couple of hops. Neither my home Linux machine nor my Windows laptop would work.

I kept trying of and on for a day or two before I called AT&T and worked my way through to their customer support help desk. Knowing they don't support Linux, I reported it as though it was only my Windows laptop that had the problem. The support agent kept insisting it was my laptop. Following her instructions I ended up completely uninstalling the drivers, which (as I explained to her upfront would happen) left the laptop dead in the water, since the Windows 7 drivers couldn't be reinstalled without a working internet connection.

I then explained to the agent that it didn't work on my Linux box, either. She immediately jumped to the conclusion that the modem was bad, despite my suggestions that the problem was in their network, and that maybe they should check things out on their end. She shuffled me off to someone who was going to sell me a new modem, the catch being that I had to sign up for another two-year committment. Given that I only had a couple of months to go on my contract, I told her to forget that.

The next day I reinstalled the drivers on the laptop at work, and the modem now worked just fine. I left it on for the drive home, and found that it worked just fine the whole way home, UNTIL I got to the tower closest to my house, where it dropped the connection. I then drove back an forth a couple of time, and you could see that when it got in range of my tower, it lost the connection.

I called AT&T back again and explained the situation to them. It took a couple of days after that before they finally fixed their problem.

It seems that their service desk agents are taught to assume that the problem is always on the customer's end, because they sure don't take any steps to confirm that their equipment is working.

Cell phone companies purposely make it hard to get good customer service. They want to concentrate as much time as possible on sales. Servicing customers problems doesn't make them any money. The dollar talks!

When I was in Finland I tired to get into my email here at home but my password wouldn't work. I clicked on the "forgot your password?" icon and when it asked for my email address that wouldn't work. So I called my server from Finland and got the 'all lines are busy leave a message and we will call back' message. Well I left a message, telling them I'm in Finland with no call back number, the time difference is 8 hours between me and them, it's ten o'clock at night, I need to talk to a real person, I have jet lag and I'm not about to stay up any longer, click! I didn't read the emails until two weeks later after I was home. When I finally did there was nothing of real importance, but I was irritated nonetheless. Jim

wife had a magazine company dispute---I turned it in to the BBB with comment that state would be notified of "fraudulent" practices--company dropped their claim in one week. BBB can work at times.

You think dealing with verizon is good for laughs... for REAL fun try "Awful Telephone and Telegraph"!

LOL internet provider was fun when I worked on puters. Customer would bring a puter in says that there was a problem with the modem or net port. Put it on the bench and hook it up and it would work fine. Ask the customer why they thought it was bad.....wouldn't work at home so the called the local help desk and the standard reply was "it's your computer".


So we would call. Then get told the same thing. Finially had to go see the manager in person. I went instead of my boss cause I knew the manager. Explained the problem to him......help dest got canned....end of problem!

Rick

Why not file our complaint with your state's attorney generals office? After all, you're a taxpayer and they're there to serve the citizenry. An inquiry by that office might get fairly quick results from Verizon.

If you paid with a credit card, dispute the charge.

You also need to contact your states public service commission.... If you really want to upset the apple cart, Utilities HATE being contacted by the public service commission, in Michigan it's the MPSC, I don't know what state you are in, but they give Utilities the biggest bite in the rear end as they are regulated by them