Oh look! I has Internets! How nice.

Well, just finished our third Verizon T1 outage in the last month... Each time the connection has gone down between 4pm and 6pm, and not come back up until some time the following morning. Quite impressive... Meanwhile, not a hiccup from $50/month AT&T DSL line at the other office.

Further reflection on the Verizon Business Checkbook Credit

I think this is one of those rare instances where a small business has an advantage over a large, or even medium business.

Think about it.

You've got a company of, say, 50 employees. The controller/COO/VP ops/whomever signs a contract. Payables gets a copy of it and references it when the first bill comes in. VP, probably not going to concern himself with riding herd on a vendor for three months over $50. Payables? Probably too overworked to make more than a passing note of it.

*Maybe*, 3 months later they think to call and complain when they don't get their credit. So they get stonewalled.

By the five month point? Nobody's gonna remember that shit. Probably somebody has come or gone in one position or another. This bill's the same as last month? Pay it.

Unless your company is really watching every penny, and/or the people paying the bills have a personal stake in the corporate finances, Verizon Business is gonna gitcha!

I wonder just how much they make on this in a year?

Have to see if there's an "Income Derived from Grifting" line on their Annual Report...

So does anyone know if the Francis Shammo at 12 Monica Court in Branchburg, NJ is the same as the Francis Shammo who acts as President of the Verizon Business unit? Or maybe a son or something? Doesn't seem like a common name, but it also doesn't look like a bigwig's pad on Google Maps...

"Checkbook credit"

So our quote included a "checkbook credit". I asked a bunch of times and never really got a good explanation for exactly what it is, but it essentially allows VZN to give a lower quote than you'll actually be paying, with the promise that you'll get some of it back eventually without interest. Specifically "in the third month following the effective date" of the contract. Ok.

So, service starts in March, come May I get a bill for March, April, May, and June (service months #1, 2, 3, and 4), and look, no credit. I call (this being prior to, and of course support for, the written-communication-only policy).

I get some excuse about how the "third month" is actually the "third monthly invoice", so I won't be seeing a credit until I get an invoice in July (which, for those keeping track at home, will be covering my sixth month of service).

We get to explain to our corporate office why the service still costs 10% more than the quoted price. Yay.

So come July, still no credit! What a surprise. Honestly, I'm lucky the shock didn't stop my heart.

So, on Tuesday we open up ticket #6 (keeping in mind, I've barely had online account access for a month).

Thursday I get an email telling me that someone has "taken ownership" of the problem.

Friday, I get an email telling me that the new owner has decided that it's an account setup problem, not a billing problem, so my ticket is resolved.

Whaaaaaaaat?

Boy, I just can't wait until it's time to fight to get our deposit back from these guys...

Current status:
Verizon email folder: 123 items
Days remaining in contract: 251

Fine.

Fine. You win, assholes. I've changed my fucking phone number.

Now I'm off to tell my friends and family that I've got a new phone number, because it was the only way I could get fucking Verizon to stop harassing me about a bill for something that I wasn't supposed to be charged for.

Congratulations.

And incidentally, "The New AT&T" can also suck a dick for refusing to block a phone number unless you pay ANOTHER $5/month for "parental controls".

Damnit

They're calling again. This is at least the third time they've called and left 10-15 seconds of silence on my voicemail. WTF?

What have I done to deserve this?

I can't recall desecrating any temples lately.

Is it all the coveting? I've been trying to cut back...

Keyword recognition: Fail.

So, in light of my love note from Collections, I sent in the following request:
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I have received a collections letter dated 6/22/09, signed by Sylvester Jones.

It says that a past due balance of $1131.30 must be received by 7/2 or payment will be suspended.

The June bill (half of that past due amount) was paid via credit card on 6/20, as was the July invoice.

The below email was sent 6/12, confirming that the erroneous $500 equipment charge would finally be removed.

All of which means that as of 6/22, our total OPEN balance should have been the disputed invoice and shipping charges totaling less than $30.

This is very, very tiresome.
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I submitted that around 8pm on a Thursday. 2 AM the following Tuesday, I finally get a response-

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I have been assigned to work on ticket 1-1825855437 for a request to cancel charges for paper media. Based on my findings I have found out that your account has been enrolled to e-billing as of 6-15-2009. Therefore paper billing will be removed within 1 to 2 biling cycle. This ticket is now subject for closure.

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I can only guess that because I'd already opened two tickets in two months regarding the paper invoice charges, they just assumed that this one was for the same thing.

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On the plus side, my internets are still working... for the moment...