Are all telecom companies evil?

We've had a relatively good experience with 3 years of Verizon.

I've had major issues with the old GTE (1st phone bill was $770 because they didn't give me the int'l plan we signed up for... $3.50/min calls), and VoiceStream was horrible too, 8 months of the 1 year we had them we would have to call and have mis-billed calls adjusted for our plan rate.

I think there's a general telecom scam going on where they skim by overbilling with an intentional error rate that would make a Japanese operations manager puke.

 

Verizon is a great example of the right hand not knowing what the left hand is doing.

On a calm, quiet Friday afternoon last summer, my office syddenly DSL craps out. Hard reboot of modem doesn't fix it. Pick up the phone to call Verizon, and no dialtone. Step outside to use my cellphone to call them, and I instantly figured out what happened. A construction crew was augering post holes for a wroght-iron fence being installed around our building's parking lot. I walked over there, peeked in a hole... they cut the trunk. It looked like spaghetti.

So I called Verizon and told them what had happened, and that we were without DSL and telephone service. They said they'd send someone out, but it might be awhile. A couple hours later, there's 5 trucks and 12 guys standing around repairing the trunk. The foreman told me we'd have service Monday if we were lucky.

I had the office phones forwarded to my cell, and took the rest of the day off, cause from an operational standpoint, we're castrated without an internet connection. As I was walking to my truck(3 hours after my initial call to verizon), here comes a service guy that had been to our office before.

"Did you schedule a service call on your DSL?"

 

ouch Rob, I hope they do the yard & wall repairs.

 

LOL! Those aren't terrorists!

It's a landscaping crew in a $40,000 truck........

Yep, all are evil......spawn of Satan........the whole industry is a shambles.....

 

lol! this past monday morning I was super-productive.

 

Yes

 

Couldnt really give you a good comparison from the Wireless side.
Ive always had Sprint PCS for about 7 years now.. I have frequently went to other sites.. cause i always play with the idea of leaving but never do.. these guys are making a TON of money off of me.

I will say I had Verizon DSL when i lived in Plano and I couldnt stand it. Speeds were so inconsistant it was horrible.. and it would always "go out".

I then switched to purelyonline.. www.purleyonline.com which is kind of a "local" highspeed wireless service that only services parts of allen and plano. GREAT service. but they were limited in Bandwidth.


So Im at Comcast Cable now.. and this is honestly the pings if iver gotten. I did up grade to their fastest speed. (which is costly but hassle free).

 

Rob, per drop calls, could it be due to your new house??

After moving to the current house in 2003, my Sprint hardly rang, and kept roaming inside my house. I complained, but Sprint had no intention of adding antenna tower for my area, so I switched to AT&T, then to T-mobile. I have only few drop calls a week now. (considering drop-callers are leaving a message)

 

Verizon has good technology, but their business office is so fouled up that I fired them and went with Covad. (3M/768 for the price of Vz's 768/128. (Business class / static.))

That multiple call thing is from call center "peformance metrics": Every time you call Verizon, they "need" to "transfer you to another department" -- which dumps you back to that annoying voice menu. This (a) shortens "resolution time" and (b) increases "call volume" on their statistics.

And the customer winds up with no help at all.

Alas, the "last mile" wire (literally one mile) on my Covad service is from the local loop (Verizon), and, debugging the line dropouts on that 50 year old loop, they've taken to looking for phantom interference signals (or bad karma) rather than putting a line tester on Verizon's wire -- they don't want to deal with Verizon either.

Verizon is an example of philosophy that evil is merely the absence of good.

 

I've found them quite good for my needs. I use them for land line, DSL and wireless. They are in the process of installing fibre optics in my area and will soon offer TV through Direct TV. Apparently they will have a very attractive package deal if you get phone, DSL(or whatever fibre optic will be called) and TV at the same time. I can't wait. My phone is an unlimited calling plan which includes long distance, including Canada. Verizon wireless is the best service for this area. So, thumbs up for me. The one thing is if you need to call customer service for whatever reason regarding a credit you better put your boxing gloves on

 

Verizon put a $100 termination fee on my final bill. I complained, and they acknowledged that it was in error.

(Doesn't hurt to try, eh? -- Many people will just pay it, and there's always the "mistake" excuse. Gah.)

 

Pure evil = Nextel

Avoid them like the plague!

 

I had dropped calls all the time with both sprint and verizon. I think all CDMA service has those problems. SInce GSM finally came to the states I have had great service. I use AT&T GSM, now it is Cingular. Since the merge my service area became much larger. I have never had a cell phone that gave me less problems until this. Every city I have gone to I have had great service. If there is no cingular tower, which is rare, I can switch it to a T mobile tower. It works in Europe with no problems it just bills to the normal account; no more getting an unlocked phone and prepaid sim cards. The best thing is I can use basically and GSM phone I want and just put my sim card in it.

I used Sprint and Verizon for years. There were always updates that I needed, dropped calls, with sprint no service in many buildings(i'm told this is b/c they use 1900mhz cdma that can't penetrate anything), 4 or 5 tries before my calls would actually connect with both services, and other little annoyances.

 

Short answer: YES.

That's an adhesion contract, and it is generally (check with an attorney in your state if you care) not enforcable in a court of law. I never pay those, and I tell them if I see any furthur attempt to collect this illegal alleged debt that I dispute, I will seek legal action.

I've been though most of the wireless companies, and guess what, nothing ever comes!

They are all the spawn of Satan. Nextel is the only one with an actual unlimited useage plan, for friggin $200/month! They're all I seem to be able to use.

 

Heck, Verizon already hit my credit rating. Seems they '"forgot" that they had already received (and deposited) a $300 payment (about 3 months worth) and turned my account over to a collection agency. It took about five months to get that straightned out with the business office from planet stuupo. That was a year ago, but the hit is still on my credit report. (And they managed to knock down my DSL for three weeks when they "restored" my phone account.)

If you're talking about a credit card -- would you trust people that dumb with a direct pipe to your money? I'll stick to checks, thank you.

 

GREAT! That's not only a civilly actionable item, but a crime to boot! I could use the money I get from suing them under the Consumer Credit Protection Act (15 U.S.C. 1601 et seq.) as ammended "Fair Debt Collection Practices Act."

and possibly TU/Experian/Equifax if they fail to delete under the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), 15 U.S.C. § 1681 et seq.

Small claims court in your hometown is generally considered jurrisdiction for these suits.