Verizon doesn't want my hard-earned money

(picture related)

Like Dolores Claiborne used to say: "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on you."

I guess since this is fool me thrice, it's the part when Dolores pushed her husband down the dry well.

They did it again: one more time they scheduled to come here and finally pull down the fiber into mine and the three condo units above.

Once again, they didn't show up.

This time I let myself believe they would do it, so I ordered FIOS again. My order was put on hold by the website, and was asked to call them directly.

This is a straight report of the calls I made to Verizon yesterday without any kind of success:

The report is missing a 40 minute call I made in the afternoon, where basically I had to redo my order.

Most of the time spent on the phone in the morning was either on hold or being bounced from office to office. My record for staying on hold was one hour.

So, what happened? Simple, their web ordering system allowed me to request my current landline number to be transferred to Verizon, something that they claim it shouldn't do.

Fine, I said, give me a TV-Internet bundle.

"No, I can't. Bundles must include phone service. You'll have to pay for both of them at regular price." Ouch. The idea was to drop the phone part of the order until the FIOS equipment was installed, then order an upgrade to the triple bundle. Still not the end of the world.

The problem is that my install date is next Tuesday, and the wiring guys did not show up on Friday, so I already know I won't be getting FIOS on Tuesday. Fuckers.

It really makes you wonder what is the point of competing against a company that is so big that they can afford to push around people that are gladly trying to commit to $150 worth of monthly services over 24 months. I wonder how many people are having the same problem?

By the way, here is the mystery of the wiring: I own a condo, and I am on the lowest floor. Our wiring goes top down, starting at the attic and running down each unit's HVAC closet. In order for them to give me FIOS, the fiber runs through my three neighbor's HVAC closet. This means that the condo association management company sends out a memo so all four owners know that a service person will enter their unit on some date for the specific purpose of pulling that cable. If they miss a date, they have to send another memo with enough notice so people can make arrangements in case they can't be around.

This of course could had been avoided when Verizon contracted to have all of our 300 units setup for FIOS. They paid for the work and did not bother to send somebody to make sure that the work was done.