jozjozjoz.com :: brain barf

to hell with 'modern conveniences'

do you think anyone will read this over at verizon?

---letter begins here---

I cannot even begin to express how disappointed I am with the ongoing issues I'm having with your billing department.

I became an Airtouch customer in 1998, and have had continuing service ever since. I did not complain when Airtouch was swallowed up by Verizon, nor did I say a word when my customer service hours were cut, my nights and weekend hours were reduced, and my paper statements were halted in lieu of online ones. I felt that these things were small in comparison to the benefits of having cellular service.

My view has somewhat changed in recent months, however, with the onset of monthly calls to and from your financial "services" department, informing me of payments that were overdue or credit cards being declined. I should note that I have participated in your auto bill pay service since June of 2001. In November 2001, I received my first letter stating that my credit card was declined for payment. I called and made a payment over the phone and thought nothing more of it.

I continued to have my payments debited from my account successfully until this past May, when I received another letter stating that my credit card had been declined. When I called to confirm that the correct card was being billed, I was informed that they could not verify the card number, only enter a new card number and pay the balance using the new credit card. What an absurd notion, the financial services department unable to verify the number of my credit card?

But I was then informed that it was not in fact my card that had been declined, it was a problem with the whole auto pay system, and that everyone who was signed up for auto pay had been somehow booted out of the system that month. I accepted this reasoning and then made my payment.

When VZServe was brought online, I signed up, thinking that this would make my life easier, being able to see my usage online and keep track of my minutes. I signed up and received a letter confirming that I’d reset my PIN. On July 14, I received a phone call from customer service stating that I’d not made a payment since May, which I thought strange since I had my confirmation number for the payment. I was now almost 2 months overdue and there was a chance that my service would be halted. The woman I spoke with said that she was unable to verify that I was indeed set up for auto payments, and that I should go online and verify that all of my information was correct. In a panic, since in my work it is imperative that my clients and my co-workers are able to contact me on my cell phone, I immediately checked my account online and saw that I was signed up for auto payments.

I called customer service again, and was told that I needed to contact financial services and was transferred to them. I was promptly disconnected and had to call customer service again, this time getting the phone number for financial services before I was transferred and then disconnected. By the time I was able to get through to financial services, more than 45 minutes had elapsed and I was now ½ an hour late for work. I spoke to a woman in customer service who insisted that I was not on your auto payment plan, and that I should sign up for it if I wanted to have the bills be automatically debited from my account. Or, if I wanted to insure that my payments were debited from my account, then I should fill out a request form and send it back. Not fully understanding her reasoning, I nevertheless agreed to send in a form and made my payment over the phone.

When I was going over my bank statement two weeks later, I found that my account had been debited the amount that was due on the 14th, $109.30, and again debited on the 17th, through the autopay service. Incensed, I phoned customer service and was transferred to financial services, disconnected and had to call back. I then spoke to an infuriating woman who was nice enough to put through the request for a refund, yet said the only way to prevent this from happening again would be to remove myself from the autopay system entirely, or not to make payments over the phone, because apparently there are two separate billing systems in place, and one cannot distinguish if a payment has been made on the other. In short, I was damned if I did, damned if I didn’t.

I then spoke to this woman’s supervisor, and after being on hold for 25 minutes, he explained that the system had once again failed and that for the month of June everyone on auto pay had been booted out of the system. He assured me that this was a rare occurrence and that I should not worry about my payments being made. Still somewhat disgruntled and more than an hour late for work, I accepted this story and hung up the phone.

Today, I received another letter stating that my account was past due. I tried to view my statement online only to find that I am unable to log into my account. So even if I wanted to make a payment, I am stuck until your system comes back online or customer service hours are in effect, whichever comes first. What will happen, I assure you, is that when I do have to call customer service, and have to be transferred to financial services, and get disconnected, and have to call back, I will be mean and nasty to whomever is unfortunate enough to be on the other side of the line, and I will make sure that his or her supervisor is brought in on the conversation, and I will not get off the phone until this situation is resolved, once and for all, else I choose to go with another carrier, who will charge me less money for more services and who will, in my estimation, be glad for my foolhardy loyalty to a substandard level of customer service, website functionality, and unwillingness to change my phone number, because they will seem like bloody saints in comparison to my opinion of verizon at this moment.

Posted by yoshi at August 24, 2003 01:38 AM | TrackBack