'Verizon's amazing phone support for high speed internet'

Verizon's amazing phone support for high speed internet

I simply had to post this out of sheer frustration. I think generally speaking, Verizon has a good internet service. Sometimes and sometimes not.

I had Verizon high speed internet installed in my home in 2003. At first, it worked great..no problem at all for at least two and a half years. Pretty good, right? Then in year three the fun began.

I began to experience bouts of inability to access the internet. I checked everything out, made sure no phones were plugged in without filters (which my kids were notorious for), reset the modem, restarted my computer, the whole deal.

Well, finally I decide I will have to break down and call Verizon's tech support and see what the deal was. This was probably the largest exercise in frustration I ever went through (well almost, because their end resolution was better...just wait).

I call up the number and get the lovely voice prompts we all love so much. It asked me various questions to lead me to the right place in securing the answer to my question, which was "Why can't I connect to the internet?"

It asked me what service I was calling about, and it gave me choices. I said "High Speed Internet". Then the question was, what type of problem are you experiencing? To this I chose their selection of "Can't connect to the internet".

Well if you have never tried this personally, you should if you want a good laugh. Right after selecting can't connect, it instructs you to go to their webpage to view more help. Now damn, I don't know about you, but I have a bit of a problem with that statement.

By the third time it went into another round of dumb questions, I was screaming "agent" in the phone. Finally I got some person onthe phone I could barely understand. Of course.

I won't go into the boring details for you but I will share Verizon's final answer to my original question. This is the greatest thing I have ever heard (jokewise). They informed me that they were going to have to cut my conenction speed capability by HALF because I was too far away from their office orginating the signal and it was too weak! So instead of Verizon high speed internet, they wanted to give me Verizon half speed internet (which was currently NO speed internet) at the same price I paid for high speed. Sure, why not.

Oh my God are you kidding me? First of all I KNOW where their office is, which is about two miles from my house.... and second of all it has worked great for two plus years! All of a sudden I am magically too far away? Come on Verizon, get real.

What is the moral of this story, you ask? Well, I am now a Comcast Cable customer. At least when I have some trouble with my signal they actually come and try to resolve the problem, not give me some cockamamie story about the office walking farther away!

Account Number: 315 853 6031 180 257

I subscribed to a Verizon package: TV, Internet, and phone.

Initially I was delighted with the internet speed, now for the last week, something has changed, such that the internet couldn't be slower- it's impossible.

Please immediately offer me a solution to the lack of speed on the internet connection.

James I. Taylor

Well, the solution is simple for you Mr. Taylor. You need to pick up the phone, (since it probably works) and call the cable company and get their internet, tv and phone service package.

Cheaper, and they don't pretend it works when it doesn't work. Beware of Verizon telling you that your home is too far away from their office so they have to cut your speed in half!

I have had Verizon Hi-Speed Internet for a year. Until September, it worked OK - my late wife thought it almost a slow as Earthlink DSL. Since Jan. 2009, I tried to work with Verizon for various problems taking hours of my time & theirs. Seems it was my problem because 18" Monitor too small, HP 4315 not compatible, etc. Now, the Home Page screen cuts off 5-10 letters!

I have had Verizon DSL Wireless internet for almost 4-year and like others described it worked great until about 3-months ago. In February, I could not connect on any of the three computers that I have in my home. I could not connect either wireless of by using an hard wire cable. I called Verizon Tech support and enjoyed the same problem with the voice prompts as the eariler reviewer. After almost 45-minutes a finally got through to a person who could barely speak english, and was obviously reading from a script and could not answer any of my questions. Several time I ask to speak to a supervisor or someone who could answer my question with out reading from a script. The Verizon Employee continued to tell me that she was here to help me solve my connection issues. We went through the usual stuff that I had alread done, unplug and reset the the device, power down and reboot the computer. Still no help. She finally told me that there did not appear to be a problem with the Verizon devices but rather a problem with all three of my computers even though that I had tried to explain that I had used 2 or the three computers to connected to the internet earlier at work by using both a wireless connection and a hard wire connection. She continued to insist that the problem was with my computers and stated that she could not help me until I contact the company that made the computer. I tried to insist on speaking with a supervisor or another tech. support representative but my request were refused. After almost an hour and half with this person I hung up. I waited until later in the day and called a different verizon customer service number in an attempt to voice my frustration with their internet tech support. After spending about 15-minutes going through all of the voice prompts I finally got through to a person who could actually speak english. She listened patiently to my concerns and finally advised me that she would connect me with a tech support supervisor. For the next 3-hours various tech support people tried to guide me various ways to configure and reset my modem. Finally the last of the 4 agents that I talked with was able to get one of my three computer connected to the internet but kept insisting that the problem was with the other two computers. Finally I gave up and took the two remaining computers to a local computer repair place and spent $80.00 per computer to get them to re-configure my internet connect configuration. They came out and ensured that I was able to connect and advised me that some of the thing that the Verizon Tech Support had instructed me to do had misconfigured my computer and made it impossible for me to connect to the internet using any connection device. After my computers were reconfigured they work great unitl last night and the same thing happened again. Could not connect to the internet with any of the computers. After spend another 40 minute going through the voice prompts I got to talk to a real script reading person who was no help. I am still not able to connect to the internet at home but am everywhere else. My days as a Verizon Customer will be coming to an end as I will no longer pay for somethng that I can't Use. I will be switching to ComCast or another internet provider.

Two or three years ago I went online to Verizon's website and put my phone number into check on DSL availability. It came back that it was available. Great! So, I ordered it. I Was looking forward to getting rid of dial-up. The equipment came, I hooked it all up and...nothing. Called Verizon only to find out that no, it WASN'T available on my line. I was too far away from some office. So, back the equipment went and I continued to live with dialup. Can't get cable because we are too far off the main road according to Comcast. They say you have to be w/in 300 ft. and we live back a 1/4 mile lane, so.... I could have done satellite but it is so expensive and unreliable and every person and computer repair person I talked to said DON'T DO IT. One did suggest and air card but again, pretty pricey.

Fast forward to this past Nov. (2008) I was on the phone with Verizon restructuring my phone bill and discussing my 2nd phone that was only for my dialup line when the rep asks if I knew the high speed was available for my line. I asked if she was sure because I had tried that before a few years ago and it ended up not being available. She said she was positive, that Verizon was always expanding their service area and that there were 3 things she could check and all indicated that it was available. So I decided to make the switch.

Got my equipment, got it hooked up with a little bit of trouble, but got it up and running. It was awesome but coming off dialup and a 50.6K connection, perhaps my viewpoint was skewed. 5 days later I had no internet and no landline and had to wait 2 weeks for a repair person. Finally got back up and running and really enjoyed the DSL for a while. Had an issue that required a call to Tech Support and was told that I was only getting a speed of around 768K but my plan was for 3M. He said that customers had to get at least 80% of the speed they were paying for and scheduled a tech to come check my lines.

The tech arrived, very nice man btw, and checked on a few things and then informed me I would NEVER get 3M speed. He said he knew it as he was driving out to my house based on how far away from the office (or whatever magical location it is). He said the best I would ever get was 768K. He suggested I call in April, as that was the month before my free 6 month deal was up, and downgrade to a 768K plan, which I guess is cheaper. I was actually cool with that as that's what I had been getting all along and videos loaded up great and large emails came through quickly and downloads came through quite nicely. And it still beat 50.6K with dialup.

Flash forward to April. I make the call. The change goes through and they rep did tell me that I might notice a little change, that things might seem to slow down a bit. Um, yeah. Now, my speed averages 256K, based on their own online speed test results

(http://infospeed.verizon.net/speedtest/speedtest500k.asp, videos no longer load up without interruption and my connection frequently stops for about a minute at a time.

I'm very disappointed with it but try to remind myself that it's still better than dialup. I'm thinking about calling Verizon again because I'm not getting 80% of 768K plan but I'm not in the mood for a run around. Eventually I'll get irritated enough, though.

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