Frontier is the worst phone company on the planet.

[Brigid]

It just took me 45 minutes just to get my service cancelled and get my bill paid up to date. :banghead:

Post your customer service horror stories here.

[OriginalGeek]

1. One of my branches moved

And we transferred some of the phone numbers to the new location.

One of the numbers had a voice-mail box from the phone company but when we tried to check the messages the recording said the account was not a valid voice mail account.
So we call customer support.
The recording can't help and it directs us to a website.
We go to the website and none of the options for fixing our particular problem were listed BUT as we were trolling the website hoping to catch a glimpse of a link that gets us to a real person a chat window opens up with an offer to chat with a real live tech support person.
We jump on that and explain the problem to tech support person.
After waiting a while she comes back and says "yes, we can fix that but you will need to call this number"
It was the number we had originally called. The recording directed us to a website.
:|
Believe it or not, it took almost two hours to get back where we started. (I left out a LOT of waiting and listening to crappy hold music.)
I finally got the chat tech support person to find an account representative and she was able to look up our account and get us to the right person but it took entirely too long to get there.

[csziggy]

2. Verizon beats that!

My parents power, phone and cable were knocked out by a fallen limb last year. Power was restored in 45 minutes, cable temporarily restored in two hours. Verizon, which provides them with land line and DSL was a complete hash. It took a day and a half for their phone to be restored. Three days after it was interrupted I called Verizon to find out why their DSL was not working. The trouble ticket for both land line and DSL had been cleared when the land line was restored.

Before I go any further, take note: Every single call to Verizon had a minimum of 45 minutes on hold before a live person was reached. Every single transfer from one "service" representative to another human took at least 20 minutes. Some of the calls to Verizon took nearly three hours.

When they put in the new ticket for the DSL to be restored two days later, someone in the main office disconnected their land line. The next day, I called to find out why their land line was not working. They voided the service call for the DSL and hooked the land line back up. The day after when the DSL technician did not show up as promised previously I called back to find out that the ticket had been voided.

By this time, both my sister and I were on our cell phones calling Verizon. We finally got the ticket escalated by telling them - for the fourth time - that my parents are elderly (90 and 88) and that they have no cell phone. Their telephone is their only reliable way to get in touch with people. Mom has had to call for an ambulance more than once when Dad has had medical issues. They live alone. Dad is profoundly deaf and his only contact with relatives is by email.

Verizon FINALLY sent out a technician that night, but he still could not get the DSL working. He came back the next morning and spent several more hours before he found the problem which was not related to the fallen limb. He found that their DSL modem was not working at the correct speed - it had probably been damaged by a power surge at some point. By noon of that day, Mom & Dad had a working land line and a piss poor DSL signal. The technician could neither replace the DSL modem or order one as a replacement.

So I went back on my cell phone to get a new modem for them, to replace their five year old modem. Verizon wanted them to pay for them modem - I maintained that since my parents had been good customers and that Verizon had been derelict in the way they handled the repair. Verizon should give them a new modem for free. Of course, this had to be escalated to a supervisor. After some arguing back and forth she finally agreed. Then she had to switch me to the Order Department to actually ORDER the damned modem.

I'd already been on the phone for over two hours; it took Order twenty minutes to pick up my call. Then I had to explain the whole thing AGAIN, they had to check with the technical support supervisor for verification that she had approved a new modem for free. I verified the shipping address (the same address my parents had lived for thirty + years and gotten service from Verizon as long as Verizon has been in business) and finally got off the phone.

I'd spent at least one entire day's time on the phone during my visit to my parents, instead of getting to spend more quality time with my parents.

But this was not the end. A month later, my sister called to ask about the modem - my parents had never received it. She called Verizon and they claimed it had been returned as undeliverable. When my sister checked the shipping address, it turned out that Verizon had shipped the modem to an old business my parents had owned which has been closed for over ten years. That business' phone account had NEVER been associated with my parents' home address in any way. They had NEVER used the business address for shipping or billing for anything to do with their home services. Verizon was not even doing business in that town when that business closed.

It took two more weeks for the modem to arrive, another week before one of the grandkids could get it hooked up. I should have called Verizon again to make them give my parents credit for the substandard speed they had for nearly two months while they waited for the modem, but frankly I NEVER want to call Verizon again for anything EVER.


The other terrible customer service was trying to reach T-Mobile to tell them my land line is not associated with some deadbeat they keep calling for (same last name, same first initial, which is how my land line is listed). T-Mobile had NO way to get to a human being. I've tried every choice in their voice menu and not one ever gets me to a live person. Now, I do not have a T-Mobile cell number or account number to use as an "Open Sesame" but even when I select the choice to buy service, I cannot get a human being. Their bill collectors just hang up when I try to tell them the person they are seeking is not here. I have no chance to tell them to not call this number again and that that person will not be found at this number.

[OriginalGeek]

3. lol I wasn't gonna name names

but mine was Verizon as well.


The reason I wasn't gonna name names is this was a pretty isolated incident - it just happened yesterday so it was fresh in my mind when I saw the thread topic. Usually I get good response from them BUT I _usually_ deal with my mobile account rep. We have very few land lines with them but they have all our mobile phone business (some 500 cell phones and another 50 or so air cards for various portable applications) and our mobile phone account rep is pretty quick to deal with anything that might cost him business. But the land line department is apparently a different animal. And I was out of town dealing with this without my contacts easily accessible.

[csziggy]

4. I would not have thought too much about it

If every single call did not have at least a 45 minute hold before the first human came on the line.

I guess I am spoiled being in a smaller market. And until the Republican governors emasculated the Public Service Commission, those of us living in Tallahassee could easily get hold of them and put in complaints. Now, the PSC is pretty useless and will not handle any telecommunications complaint for bundled services. Those go to the Consumer Service Bureau which has no teeth and has hold times nearly as bad as Verizon!