When I got home from work yesterday, Stephanie told me there was a message on the answering machine from Verizon, calling to confirm our “recent order”. She left it, because it mentioned a phone number, and she didn’t know if I had changed our phone or DSL service and just not mentioned it. I listened to the message, and while the computer’s voice sounded kinda like the Verizon voice mail tree, something seemed odd. A quick look up of the 1-800 number did show it was really them (1-800-VERIZON, or 1-800-837-4966, is their new all-in-one support phone number) so I called them back. Took a little while to get through voice mail since the system had no idea where to send me, but eventually I got someone who sent me to a CSR to answer my questions. After a little digging they figured out what the mysterious call was about. Somehow an order to upgrade us to FiOS was placed, and the call was to confirm it. Interesting since we can’t really do that; my job pays fo my DSL access so I can work from home if needed (to fix things on off-hours without having to get to the office) but I don’t think they’d want to pay for my landline and TV service too. Plus I’m quite happy with DirecTV, not to mention we’re constantly debating getting rid of the landline and either using our cells or getting VoIP. So this person sent me over to “the elite team” to cancel the order. I explained to her what happened, she offered to see if a TV and phone bundle was available, and when I said we were happy with our TV service she put in the cancellation right away, no questions asked. Everyone was very friendly and helpful.
So why does the title of this article ask if Verizon is scamming people? Because about two weeks ago, in the rain, some guy was coming door to door trying to sell FiOS service. Of course he knocked on our door too, and doing so woke up Emily – therefore Stephanie already wasn’t happy when she opened the door. When he started the pitch, she said no and started to close the door. He then tried to keep selling to her, and argued when she said we couldn’t bundle our Internet service with phone and TV (her and I had just talked about the problem a couple days before when a mailed postcard from Verizon gave her the idea). She just about had to slam the door in his face to get him to leave. Then a week or so later we’re magically signed up for FiOS? Sounds quite a bit fishy to me; wonder if anyone else in the area had similar experiences – if they even know that they are signed up for it, or will find out before a tech shows up with the equipment to start the changeover. Now I’m debating if I want to spend the probably close to an hour on the phone to find out where that order originated, and bring to the attention of someone with firing power that it didn’t come from us.