Voice mail: For many reasons, root of all evil

[Mercutio]

Tuesday night I noticed I was being billed for voice mail service on my telephone line.

Which is funny, 'cause I didn't ask for voice mail - don't even have a landline phone, and it was costing me $4 a month.

So I called Verizon, my phone company, and asked them to take it off my line.

Then I sat back down to do my usual evening fun on SF.

...only to find that my DSL connection wasn't working.

No big deal, I thought: I'll just plug my laptop in and use its modem.

Except... no dial tone. DSL filter is where I left it... Hmmm...

So I call Verizon's customer service (thankfully still in my cell phone's memory): "Oh. You don't have service with us any more!"
"Well how do I get service back?"
"You have to talk to someone in our billing department!" (Verizon's customer service reps all sounded like overly cheerful 8-year-old girls)
"Can I do that now?"
"Nope, they're closed until tomorrow!"

So yesterday afternoon I called their billing department: Was told I had cancelled my service the day before. Did the CSR I talked to about voice mail misunderstand me?
Didn't matter. Verizon wants $90something to reconnect my service. I say I didn't ask for it to be shut off. Doesn't matter: $90something. Can I at least not have voice mail that costs $4 a month? We can't give you free voice mail. I don't *want* voice mail. Do I have to take it? Silence. Fine. I'll take the #$^%$^ing voice mail. My verizon CSR tells me it'll be 12 - 24 hours for service (that they can instantly disconnect) to be restored.

So I get home last night: Guess what? I've got dial tone! Yay! But no DSL service! Boo!

Today I had to call back Verizon to get my DSL turned back on: They routed me back to Billing, who asked me to pay a past due balance of... $0. Back to customer service: "Oh. We just forgot to switch it back on."

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGHHHH

When I get done typing this I'm going to spend a much time as I have to arguing with whomever that I shouldn't have to pay to get my service restored and in fact that Verizon probably owes *me* something for all this shit.

 

[CityK]

I hear your frustration. It is almost inexcusable that one should have to tackle trivial & stupid problems that never should have arisen in the first place.

I actually think that this is an issue that is taken too lightly, and whose costs are overlooked. We often see estimations of the amount of money lost because of costs associated with this or that new virus. I imagine that the costs borne by incompetence dwarf such figures many times over.

Sadly, I think the consumer who has to endure such an experience pays more - lost time, lost energy, lost money, lost opportunies to persue other agendas, loss of personal productivity, frustration, ....

Nonetheless, we certainly shouldn't dismiss the costs that businesses encur because of employee incompetence. Having to expend time and effort to resolve these customer problems is certainly a detraction from the companies available resources and focus.

 

[sechs]

Verizon is stupid. Well known fact.

Back when DSL was new (and I was living in Pennsylvania) I got it, with the 30-day money back guarantee. Decided at the time that it wasn't worth $50 a month and cancelled on the last day. They said that it would be off in two to three days. A month and a half later, it was actually off -- two and a half months of free DSL. Even my PPP account was still good.

A couple weeks later, Verizon called me offering a slightly better deal. Heck, why not? It's on in less than a week. Slightly less than thirty days later, I cancel. DSL is on for two more months.

Just to tempt fate, I order DSL again. It's on in less than a week and cancelled in less than a month. I have no idea when they turned it off, as I moved three months later and transfered the number to a friend of mine who was taking over the lease.

Minus the $50 I paid for a router/modem, plus the $80 I made selling the NICs and microfilters that they kept sending, Verizon paid me about $30 to have DSL, off and on, for nearly a year.

 

[blakerwry]

heheh... That sounds like a pretty good deal. but I'm sure it's at the expense of the peopel that verizon rips off.



My gf recently went pretty low in her checking account... then she was charged a fee by the bank (for something she never signed up for) and it pushed her into the red... causing a fee of about $30.

Thankfully the bank(capfed) handled the situation well and rembursed her for both fees and set things right.

 

[sechs]

Ah, but did it come off of her record? I've heard of situations wherein the fee was refunded, but the mistake in the credit record remained.

 

[blakerwry]

it was a checking account, so i dont think it goes on a credit record or anything.

 

[sechs]

Think again. I bounced a check once, and it was in my credit record for several years.

 

[blakerwry]

hmm.. bouncing a check to your own bank....

maybe I'll mention it to her so she can check up on that.

 

[Pradeep]

Think again. I bounced a check once, and it was in my credit record for several years.

Usually the creditor will resubmit the check in a few days and if it goes thru I don't imagine they will place it on your credit reports. If it does a hard bounce they prob would. As for your own bank, I'm not sure.

 

[sechs]

Better safe than sorry.

Credit is a very fickle thing, and a bitch to fix.

 

[Tannin]

In Australia, you would call the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman. I think you have a case.

 

[EdwardK]

Better safe than sorry.

Credit is a very fickle thing, and a bitch to fix.

I am not sure about the USA but here in OZ, we don't get good credit rating. We either get bad credit rating or none at all. Once you get a bad credit rating, you can kiss goodbye trying to get a loan and credit cards. Not only that, it is very hard to remove the bad credit rating.

 

[blakerwry]

in the US you seem to get punished for having good credit.

 

[ddrueding]

In the US it is a very strange system, I think made intentionally more confusing to prevent the consumer from understanding how much they are being screwed.

Bad credit - Very easy to achieve, prevents upright financial institutions from working with you, doesn't stop cards/loans with intrest bordering on extortion. Even cell phone companies will refuse to offer you a plan.

No credit - Almost impossible in this day and age. If you are over 25 this is as bad as Bad credit.

Good credit - Difficult to achieve, impossible to maintain. Besides allowing you to do all the things normal people consider mandatory, it causes many mortgage / loan companies to call during dinner.

 

[sechs]

A guy that I know wants to buy a condo, but can't because he has no credit history! He has no credit cards, makes plenty of money, and was lucky enough to have his parents pay his way through college.

So he ended up buying a car with a loan (which is apparently far easier to do with no credit). Mind you, that, not only does he not need a car (due to the ease of taking public transit), but he also has enough money on-hand to buy the car outright.

In about six months, he expect to have made enough on-time payments for the car to get the mortgage.

 

[ddrueding]

A friend had no credit, so he went out and got a credit card and a merchant account (for processing credit card orders).

He then continued to "buy" things from himself, to the max of the card on a regular basis, and then use the money in his merchant account to pay off the card. It did cost him 3% on every transaction (they got large, as he kept requesting a higher limit/maxing/paying off/requesting higher limit/etc) but it was probably cheaper than a car, and got really nice credit in about 8 months.

 

[sechs]

The car is an investment with utility... not *just* sending money into oblivion.

 

[Pradeep]

How did your friend get a credit card with no existing credit history?

Right now I'm stuck with a Sears card and a secured credit card. Never mind that I have an Aussie Visa card with a hefty limit, no use for proving yourself here. Apparently after about 6 months of on-time payments on the secured, I should get a few unsecured offers.

 

[blakerwry]

I got a credit card offer in the mail with terrible interest and a really small limit. Once I was aproved for the card I got plenty of offers for better cards. (My address was aparently given out to everyone because the offers came in like a flood)


This was after applying for a target and a paypal credit card and being refused because I had no credit history.

 

[Pradeep]

Yeah I got knocked back for the Paypal one too. I thought I was a prime candidate for the <$300 limit and 25+% interest rate

I still can't figure out how I was approved for the Sears card (Citibank).

 

[sechs]

Should have gone to college in the US. They hand out credit cards like candy on campuses.

 

[Pradeep]

I prefer the "free" uni education in Australia. The government will defer payments until you make over a certain income level, then they take a small percentage out at tax time. Cost me about US$1250 for tuition per year. At that time medical students payed the same rate as well, now it's up to about US$4000 per year.

 

[Mercutio]

...but wait! My situation got better:
Because the billing date for my DSL service (a different bill from my telephone bill) occurred during the two-day period when my line was disconnected, now I have to completely re-order the service. That's right: Verizon's data service support people couldn't even tell me that was my problem, and when they did figure it out, they didn't call and tell me, they sent me an e-mail.

So, I'm going to be a half-month without internet service at home because some fucktard with a "disconnect service" button on her terminal thought that was a better idea than actually fixing my problem.

 

[Pradeep]

Merc: I'm afraid you have brought this thread back on on topic. I must leave now....

 

[its.fubar]

Here in Sweden it is very Simple you have credit or you do not you can only lose your credit rating if you do not pay your loans and your creditors have to take legal action through credit recovery companies you stay black listed and without credit for three years and then you get your full credit rating back again .

 

[Will Rickards WT]

I'd be finding whoever is the head of their customer service or their ceo and sending a certified letter. They should definitely be crediting you for at least a month of service and waiving all fees.

Of course if there is no competition in the area to motivate them...

 

[mubs]

If you have a Public Utilities commission there, you need to write them a formal letter. They do act on incidents like this. Verizon owes you money, an apology and some free service. Don't let them get away with this. They're doing this to you because customers in the past let them get away with it.

 

[Mercutio]

But wait, there's more!

Turns out, I can't even order new service for 3 days until my DSL account - still active - is closed out by Verizon, since it wasn't closed at any time before I called and specifically closed it. So I'm now looking at mid-April before I get internet service at home.

 

[mubs]

Sheesh, the way you keep saying "But wait, there's more!", you sound like a pitchman for a TV infomercial.

You're not going to take this lying down, are you? Contact your PUC, the FCC. Give 'em hell.

 

[Mercutio]

That's because it gets worse every time I get a different person from Verizon on the phone.

 

[sechs]

Considered changing local exchange carriers?

 

[e_dawg]

I feel your pain, Merc... well, sort of. I have had my share of problems with customer service and accounts people over the years, but I can honestly understand how some of these problems happen. I was dealing with some customer information problems at my previous job, often caused by moving (address change), getting married (name change), or different spelling (Steven Smith vs Stephen Smith vs Steve Smith vs Steven M Smith vs S M Smith, etc) of the same name/person (or different person with same spelling). If you keep those name and address problems in mind and add the fact that people often have multiple products/services with the same company (various deposit/investment/lending accounts with a bank, various communication/media services with a telecom/cable company) stored on different billing and separate CRM/contact center/trouble ticket mgmt systems/databases, it's not at all surprising that things like this happen.

Now of course, things like this shouldn't happen, and Merc, your's is an extreme case, but budget restrictions, poorly planned IT strategy, unplanned growth/expansion/mergers/acquisitions, dysfunctional organizational structure, and nightmarish migration/backwards compatibility problems with aging mega-patched and kludged legacy systems have often become the scary reality that many companies are now struggling to deal with.

 

[mubs]

That's because it gets worse every time I get a different person from Verizon on the phone.

I'm not yelling at you, Merc. It just the way you announce each new problem - with apparent glee even though I know the actual situation is the opposite.

e_dawg, companies like this are not poor by any stretch of the imagination. A decade ago, CRM was the hottest thing; it promised to provide a unified view of the customer, no matter how many different services he was buying from the provider. These companies spend many millions on IT. Where the hell are the results? Having run IT in smaller companies, I cannot understand how these big company CIOs get away with spending millions and not addressing core problems like the one Merc is experienceing and that you have described. If I performed like that in my small company job, I'd be fired within the week.

See the paragraph titled And Thanks For Your Support near the bottom of this page for an example.

 

[e_dawg]

Having run IT in smaller companies, I cannot understand how these big company CIOs get away with spending millions and not addressing core problems like the one Merc is experienceing and that you have described. If I performed like that in my small company job, I'd be fired within the week.

Well that's it right there. You work at a small company where it is a LOT easier to deal with IT strategy, implementation, and most of all, change. A large, publically traded corporation has plenty of difficult issues to deal with, and the hindrances to planning and delivering on a successful IT project are much more abundant. For example, the article you linked to describes just a handful of the issues and hindrances I alluded to: IT strategy/project governance, sponsorship, and project management. Add to that the:

• ridiculous politics and power plays between various groups
• hundreds of millions invested in existing legacy applications and systems
• many millions invested in training and managing the performance of your knowledge workers
• crucial transactional nature of vast amounts of data
• existence of dozens of systems and databases from different eras and vendors, designed with different goals in mind, not really designed to communicate with each other
• operational and business risk of making significant changes to people, process, and technology and management's low tolerance for said risk

Making and implementing enterprise-wide IT plans and strategy that:

• satisfy corporate-level needs and department-level needs alike
• satisfy almost all of the stakeholders
• receive uncompromising and unified support from each one of your sponsors in light of conflicting interests
• have robust governance practices
• can implement very significant change throughout the organization's people and processes to go along with the new and poorly integrated technology
• is championed, communicated, and accepted at all levels
• has a tolerable level of risk
• can be done in light of severe time and budget constraints
• are in alignment with executives' and management's compensation
• follows technical and business best practices
• delivers on the promises spewed forth by consultants/snake-oil salesmen

among many other things is practically impossible in the morass that is the IT environment of many a large company.

It's far easier planning/implementing IT strategy by yourself or with a small team. It's far easier when you're dealing with a small amount of systems that are still relatively new and from the same era. It's far easier when your sponsorship/governance/stakeholder structure consists of a handful people that are more or less on the same page (as opposed to dealing with the corporate IT version of the Middle East peace process in a large corporation). And it's far easier when you don't have to deal with the short-term performance at the expense of long-term viability mindset shareholders demand and compensate their agents (managers/execs) for.

 

[Mercutio]

33.6k dialup via MSN now. 802.11 in car wasn't very comfortable.
Hopefully this counts as good karma, or something.

 

[Pradeep]

Can't you use a directional antenna to poach from your neighbours without leaving the house? Or is it too far away?

 

[timwhit]

I was thinking about some kind of repeater. I'm not all that farmiliar with wireless networking, but couldn't you put an antenna in the car, hooked up to a laptop that would then forward the signal to your house where you could somehow wire it into your own AP?

 

[sechs]

You'd just need an access point to act as the signal repeater.

Completely not worth while, but it should work.

 

[Mercutio]

sechs was right. Verizon is home to the world's biggest morons. I'm so angry I can't even rant properly.

I got my DSL activation date confirmation.

But it's for the wrong telephone number.

Mine is xxxyy06. The phone number for which DSL service will apparently start on April 6th, and for which I shall be paying is xxxyy60.

Anyone want to guess whether or not this will be an easy error to correct?

 

[sechs]

Good times. Sure you don't want to change LECs?