“Titling at Windmills”

by grafixworks

I never thought I would be one of those people on social media, “titling at windmills”, but that’s exactly what I’m doing with this blog post. In many respects you could call this a “social” experiment. I’m asking one question, “Do businesses really care what’s said about them on social networks?”

Many businesses and organizations hire “specialists” in social networking.  I wonder aren’t these specialist just specialized customer service people at the mercy of front line customer service reps? Let’s test the power of social media and see what it can do. Which brings me to the main thrust of this post.  I’m hoping my social group, and their social groups can get action for me from Verizon.  Let me give you the details that brought me to this.

More than ten weeks ago I cancelled my Verizon/Fios bundle subscription because of price. No problem right?  That’s what free enterprise is all about, a consumer voting with their pocket book.  By my accounting I was entitled to a refund for approximately 18 days of unused service which I had paid for. So I waited. December, I receive a bill showing a smaller than expected credit with a charge for a secondary phone line that had been cancelled years ago.  And we recently notice that, more than 5 years ago, we were being charged for a phone line that we no longer had, Verizon agreed and gave us a credit equivalent to 1 year of phone service for that line as compensation. We enjoyed several months of credits on our monthly bill. Fast-forward 5 years and only after closing our Verizon account, we discover they never canceled that line and have been charging us the entire time.  Shocking? Just wait it gets better.

I called Verizon/Fios to bring this to their attention. It took 10 minutes to navigate their horrific phone tree and be connected to a customer service person. Bottom line, the rep told me that the phone line is some sort of “ghost” and she can’t close it either and will need to get IT on it.  Okay dokey. I wait a couple of weeks and contact Verizon again and this time I got a service rep with an attitude. I asked, “is the phone line cancelled”, and she said, “no” but she would cancel it. I pointed out that I was told this for years and yet the line continued. This is when she got testy as I to say that I was doubting her abilities and that I can be assured that the line has been closed this time. Riiiiiight.

This January and I got a bill, for you guessed it, the “ghost” line. So much for it being closed. Now I was really annoyed and posted on both Verizon’s and my Facebook pages about what’s going on. I got a Facebook message from Verizon asking how they could contact me.  I messaged back my contact information. Nothing! So I tried again. Nothing. Now I bumped this up to corporate and get a woman who wanted to do an audit of what happened. She said she’d call me back in a couple of days. I heard back about a week later. Her “investigation” indicated I had been erroneously charged for service I did not get for a very long time. I’m thinking now we’re getting somewhere. She offered me $800.00 which includes the 18 days service I didn’t get when I cancelled my service. They actually owe me $1200.00 but I agreed to the $800.00. I just want this nightmare to end. That was more than 2 weeks ago. I have not seen a check.

BUT I did get an email notification on January 22nd that my bill is ready.

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