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AwayWeGo

TUG Review Crew: Expert
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Grandview At Las Vegas

[triennial - points]
My brother recently moved locally -- from this county to an adjoining county, to a nicer house with a shorter commute to work. He didn't have to change phone companies, because Verizon provides local service in both jurisdictions. For cable TV, he had to change companies because Cox has the franchise in this county but ComCast has it in the next county. Or, he could have stayed with Verizon for phone & Internet, plus TV service via "Fios" where that's available or via Direct-TV, which is marketed by Verizon where "Fios" is unavailable.

After mulling over features & rates, etc., my brother decided to go with Verizon for Internet & telephone & satellite TV. The order was placed. The telephone number was assigned. Then a Verizon representative called to say that, because my brother had not paid his final Verizon phone bill at his old address, he would have to pay a substantial up-front deposit before Verizon would hook him up to phone & Internet & satellite TV at his new address. The unpaid bill wasn't overdue, mind you, just not yet paid -- in fact, it had not yet been received in the mail.

In the face of that piece of customer-service doofusness, my brother did not even argue with Verizon or bother reminding Verizon that he had been a Verizon customer in good standing for years & years. He simply told Verizon adios & good riddance & went with ComCast for phone & Internet & cable TV -- not that ComCast's customer service & installation performance are all they should be, either. (But that's another story.) At least ComCast filled the order. The phone dials. The phone rings. The cable box brings in plenty of channels with crystal clarity. The Internet connection is quick.

Today my brother received an envelope from Verizon via USPS snail mail. Inside was a refund check owed to him because of overpayment on his former account at his old residence before he moved -- the account Verizon "customer service" thought was unpaid, leading Verizon to cancel a triple order & causing my brother to move the account to a competing company. Sheesh.

In the words of Lily Tomlin, "We don't care. We're the phone company. We don't have to."

-- Alan Cole, McLean (Fairfax County), Virginia, USA.​
 
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tlwmkw

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Had a similar stupid experience with Comcast.

We have a DVR with Comcast and recently they turned it off because their "Auditors" noted that we have a non-DVR cable box as well (for the TV in the basement)- these geniuses thought that because we have a non-DVR cable box we therefore do not need DVR service. The fact that we do have another box which is a DVR seemed to escape their clever auditing. Needless to say we missed recording a bunch of shows and then had to sit, on hold with muzak blaring, for many hours to get the system working again. Apparently they could turn it off with a mere flick of the switch but to turn it on again took many hours of effort and re-booting the DVR. At one point they even tried to say it was somehow our fault which it most certainly was not. This is a typical problem with the cable companies and their "excellent service". AAAAAAGGGGHHHH.
 

Nancy

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Verizon

I cancelled my Verizon phone at our condo and went with Vonage because of their lack of service. Our phone intermittantly would not work, etc. They would make appointments, miss appointments, change appointments and then show up when we didn't have an appointment (and weren't home) and send us nasty messages because we weren't home. Of course the problem was outside and they didn't need us home! We finally got fed up and after last call told them they weren't the only phone company and left them.

Unfortunately for them, we also cancelled our home phone service and went with Vonage. If they had taken care of the problem at our condo, we'd still be with them both places!

When are companies going to bring back customer service?

Nancy
 

KarenLK

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My brother talked to someone yesterday who is selling DishNetwork. We have had DirecTV for years and we have 4 DVRs at this time.
I can't imagine any reason why I would want to switch, unless some of you can convince me. My brother said we would get Cinemax for 1 dollar. Right now we have no premiums.
 

tmartin1

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We attempted to switch our phone service to Time Warner Cable a couple of years ago. We had lived in the house for 10 years, so keeping our phone number was important to us. They assured us that we would keep the same number.

The installer came out on a Saturday, didn't speak English (which I thought was interesting), and when he left gave us a piece of paper with our new telephone number. I called the customer service # and they told us that they messed up, but since they had already released our old phone number back to the phone company, it was gone forever. We spent 5 hours on the phone with various Time Warner supervisors and a very patient AT&T phone company representative - all telling us it was too late to do anything about it.

Finally, the AT&T rep noticed that 'something' didn't look right with the request and found out that it hadn't been processed correctly. So our number was still intact.

The supervisor drove out to our house (I told him I wanted someone who spoke English) and flipped some switch and we had our old AT&T phone service back with our old number. We then told Time Warner to NEVER contact us ever again with a phone service offer.

Theresa
 

easyrider

TUG Review Crew: Elite
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We had Dish satellite tv for 5 years with a premium plan and when the dvr acted up dish wanted another $280.00 to replace it. I told them I would switch to direct when my contract expired. I called dish the last month of my contract and they still wanted $100.00 so I cancelled and went with direct. Direct gave us free premium channels for 3 months plus the Sunday Ticket to all of the NFL games plus a $75.00 gift card. As soon as the direct installer finished setting up our dvr, dish customer service called and told me we could have the new dvr plus other services, but it was a little to late.
 
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