May 26, 2010
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OMG Month from HELL
May has been the worst month that I can remember in a long time. All month I’ve kind of felt sick. Probably allergies, so not a lot I can do about it aside from rent a bubble. I’ve been having some really weird, disjointed dreams too. It’s either stress, allergies, or allergy medicine side affects.Couple weeks ago, my computer caught a virus, and I was without for three days…. $215. Then the phone company I was using decided to buckle, which meant I had to find a new provider, and hey, just for kicks, let’s change over from dialup to DSL. Since I wouldn’t be paying for the phoneline any more, just the DSL, it seemed like a good deal, shaving $15 off my former phone and dialup bill.
I knew there would problems. I knew it. So I was six days without internet access. Yesterday I called up and gave them an earful and they “kindly” gave me a week of service free. Oh, gee. I’m so impressed. Today it was fixed within ten minutes of the technician showing up. He’d tried to fix the issue on Monday, but apparently Verizon doesn’t feel it necessary to actually staff their offices, and they have people who cover two or more offices a day, driving hither and yon to set up connections. Apparently the man who runs the office nearest me has been sick for three weeks, and there was a huge backlog of people who should have been set up that weren’t. I should have had connection by Saturday but I had to wait till about 30 minutes ago to get back online. But it was actually another issue aside from not being connected that left me high and dry, and the woman who had dealt with the original connection on Monday had switched something that kept me offline for another two days. Just goes to show that the larger a company the less they care, and the harder it is for them to actually get anything done right. Well, it’s good thing for them I’m locked into a year long contract, eh?
As little as I like to endorse nationalism, every person I got on the help line was either Hispanic or Indian. Either way they were very difficult to understand. Yet every person I spoke to in billing and the guy that initially signed me up over the phone was American. Coincidence? I think not. I’m still not happy, not really. I finally have connection and all, but they installed so much crap on my computer and a week of free service hardly seems like customer service, since they’re only covering the time I wasn’t even able to get online. They should have given me a free month at this point simply for my frustration level.
I got a lot of writing done. Though I was kind of hindered by my frustration, and I’m sure there are typos that I just didn’t notice since I couldn’t focus. Thank goodness I had updates for Tattoo cached and ready to go without me, though I still have to manually update the index and the sidebar here on Xanga.
The one bright spot was that my car went in for inspection. And there was nothing wrong, though it cost me $100 for the inspection and oil change/fluids.
Comments (10)
How frustrating!
That entire experience sounds immensely irritating. Even though you managed to get your internet up and running again, it sucks that it took that long–and that much fuss–to get it taken care of to begin with. That’s shoddy customer service right there. :/
Most companies are going to machines to fix things now. Least you got real people.
Verizon has a bad track record for their services…I had my landline, my DSL line & satellite tv all in a package deal that seemed to be a great deal. Uh uh. They messed up everything, overcharged me every freeking month & left the free DVR off my order & refused to correct the situation…so I never received the dvr. It took 2 weeks to receive my modem for the dsl line because they kept sending the stuff by UPS to my PO box (UPS won’t deliver to PO boxes)…then, they sent it to my former home …one I’d sold 4 years earlier…I finally had to find out where the UPS truck was gonna be & had to meet the UPS driver in a parking lot to get my dsl modem, cos he didn’t deliver in my neighborhood.!!!
Needless to say, when I moved , I did not use verizon again.
I hope that you can get somebody at verizon to straighten things out…call & demand to speak w/ a supervisor…& get a free month’s service for all the trouble thy’ve put you thru.
Peace…AbbeyC
My allergies have been especially horrible this spring so I feel you. In other news, Verizon both sucks and blows concurrently.
@ElusiveSoul - Their only saving grace is the fact that the technician was so nice and at least tried to get the problem solved. If they hadn’t swapped him to a different day without warning, he probably would have had the issue resolved by Tuesday.
@NightlyDreams - I got real people…. eventually. lol But there’s a trick to any automated phoneline. If you want to talk to an operator, just press 0. If it would eventually allow you to talk to a real person, the 0 will take you to someone who can speed things along if you’re having problems with the disembodied voice.
@charmd13 - Verizon was my mother’s idea. If my regular internet company offered DSL in my area, I would have stuck with them. I just don’t trust big businesses, especially not ones that outsource. I came to find out even the tech who fixed everything didn’t actually work for the company. He works for a company who provides tech service for Verizon. With all the outsourcing, it starts to look like big business is actually some kind of evolutionary nightmare, some kind of complex organism taking shape right before our eyes with weird vestigial organs that actually do nothing at all aside from consume resources.
@TheCheshireGrins - My throat’s been sore for almost a month now. I really hate summer, especially these summers that are starting earlier and earlier.
I hate when crap like that happens where we have to depend on other (often slow AND incompetent) people to fix things that we need fixed fast. And then get lousy service and have to wait for days. Computers and cars. Its like mechanics and techs know they have you over a barrel because were so dependent on both and basically you just have to hope and pray they dont rip you off or take days or weeks to fix them. I finally found a good and honest mechanic but I have comcast for internet/phone/cable tv and they suck too. They’re just so big there like a monopoly and they just dont care if its down. They get to it when its convenient for them.
Well can you tell I’m in a cynical, shitty, paranoid I hate the world mood?
Anyways glad its fixed finally for ya. I enjoy your writing. Take care….’night.
CK
It sounds much like any other internet service dicking you around. Also, how’d the virus get in? You using a proper anti-virus?
@tatertot1972 - Ah that’s my normal mood. I only am able to function with normal people by writing out my aggressions in fiction form.
I really think once a business goes national or international, it loses its humanity. It starts to think of itself as a country, but forgets that without customers, it’s bankrupt.
@Lord_Wu - I always did have anti-virus but this virus was weird. It popped up pretending to be a windows anti-virus and told me I had cajillion viruses. Now I have my antivirus, a spyware scanner, and more antivirus that came with Verizon. I have so far eradicated two more viruses, Trojans, and I run all three scanners every day. I think a lot of viruses are created by the same people who make the anti-viruses though, so we’re all SOL.
@harmony0stars - yeah you have to be careful in choosing an antivirus. Sometimes the ads for antiviruses are fake, and the “antivirus” will try to use fear tactics to get you to purchase the product. There have probably been cases where the antivirus itself is direct virus/spyware/adware.
Just always do your research before choosing an antivirus and you should be OK.