Big Companies Suck
2006-01-16 12:36 - Rants
So, here's my story. I moved here just over two years ago. I was lucky enough to get free phone and DSL service from my employer at the time. I had just moved, and didn't have any, and they wanted to be able to call me / have me work from home on off hours. That service actually continued for free long after I worked for that company. Great so far.
Then, December 16th came around. I got home, and I had no internet. I picked up the phone, no dial tone. Completely dead. I walked out to a payphone and called the phone company, called them up, and expected to hear that the line was finally cancled. Nope, there was a problem, and they'd fix it. After a week, with no progress, I gave up on them and decided to order service for myself.
This is where things started already to get tricky for me. I had been used to a nice, although not terribly fast, connection. I had a static IP, all ports open, etc. After shopping around, I discovered that would cost me quite a lot. Eventually, I settled on service from Verizon, cause it was fast and cheap. I started setting up things like my mail server elsewhere, no longer run from home for me.
On the 20th of December, I ordered phone and DSL service from Verizon. The phone actually came on time. After another week, though, and still not a peep on my DSL, I called up wondering what was going on. I was told that there was a problem with the line, and I couldn't get DSL service until the 17th of January. Suckiness. But what could I do at that point? So I waited. The 10th of January rolled around, and I still hadn't heard anything. I was supposed to have gotten status emails, and a modem in the mail. So I called up.
There was a delay, but the modem will arrive by the 13th at the latest. More waiting. But again, what to do? I wait. The 13th comes and goes, no modem. I call, but it's too late, the right office isn't open, I have to wait until Monday to call. Today.
So I call, and I'm told that the order I've been waiting a month for isn't happening, because I can't get DSL where I live. "What?!" I ask, of course I can get DSL! I placed this order a month ago, I've had DSL here for two years, and it's supposed to be active tomorrow! The lackey on the phone can't do anything for me, so I get the supervisor. He looks at my account and doesn't know what half of it is, takes my number so he can talk to people and call me back. Great, I think.
So he finally gets back to me, and says that someone in Verizon dropped the ball, and they cancelled my order on the 6th of January. What the heck, I called more than once after then, and noone mentioned it. All I can do is place another order. ("What, and wait another month?" I think to myself...) So he puts me on hold while he gets sales on the line. After plenty more waiting, he comes back to explain he's finally discovered the underlying detail:
My central office has closed. DSL service isn't available where I live anymore. He says he thinks it might be related to an equipment failure, and can't suggest when it might be repaired. All I can do is find an internet connection from somewhere else. How pathetic is that? Just cut off a big slice of Brooklyn from the internet? Pssshhh.
Now, I get to continue suffering with unreliable borrowed WiFi, or pay $50+ a month for cable it seems. Sigh. And along the way, I got to spend hours on the phone, being told different stories by different people along the way. At one point, I called up DSL support, to be transferred to sales, to billing, to my local office, who said they couldn't help me and transferred me back to DSL support! ARGH.
