Verizon Wireless Can't Seem to Hear Me

I’m relating to you a recent series of events that I had with Verizon Wireless.

 I’d gone on line to view the minutes I used for the month on my plan and how many texts I'd sent and how much data I'd used. Usually my totals come way below the limits that are set for my plan. I was curious as to where they were. I noticed I still had an outstanding balance on the account. I looked in my check book to see if I had paid the bill and I didn't see anything for the month.

I then looked around for the bill thinking that perhaps I'd stuck it somewhere and just hadn't gotten around to paying it, but I could not find it. I started thinking that maybe I hadn't receive the bill at all. I decided I needed to make a payment and after finally finding an address on the web site sent off a payment.

The night of April 25, I received a call from a representative of Verizon stating that I was late with my payment. I said I’d mailed a check off in the past few days. She then asked if I would be paying the rest of the bill on time. I said I would. I thought that that would be the end of it but that didn't turn out to be the case.

 The morning of May 1, I got a text that stated the following: This is a notification of a missed arrangement you’ve made with VZM, please dial #PMT to prevent service interruption or call with questions.

I called the number. I was told that with checks Verizon allowed 7-10 business days for the check to come in. I asked why I received the text saying my service was going to be cut off since the 7-10 business days had not passed. I was essentially told because I hadn’t paid my bill. The representative did say she would add an additional 5 days. Not entirely understanding what that meant it seem to me implication was I had five additional days until my service would be shut off. Rather than have that happened I paid the past due amount of $85 by credit card.

 This experience having left an extremely bad taste in my mouth, I called the main customer service number.

I then learned more about the results of the "conversation" I had with the original Verizon representative. Rather than note that a payment was forth coming by check and in the mail, this representative had put down that I was to have made a payment on April 25. The call occurred at 8:10 in the evening. How exactly was I to have made a payment? How exactly was I supposed to have made the check appear?

So the reason I received the text threatening to cut off my service was because I hadn’t lived up to the “arrangement” made with the original representative. When the fact of the matter was this representative failed to accurately record what had been agreed to in the conversation.

The customer service representative admitted that this was a mistake. That receiving the text about service interruption should not have happened. She added the text didn’t mean to imply that service would be cut off. I disagreed. To me the text says call Verizon or your service will be interrupted. One positive out of this conversation is that the late fee was removed.

The bottom line, as I stated to the customer service representative, is why was I treated this way. More to the point why was I harassed this way. I can understand, if I had a history of repeated late payments, but I don’t. I have been a customer for close to 10 years with Verizon and in that time I do not believe I have been late with a payment. Furthermore, this is how you treat someone who has missed just one payment.

But the best part of the story happened today. I got home and in the mail was the envelop I'd sent to Verizon last week. It had a yellow sticker on it saying: Return to Sender, Attempted Not Know, Unable to Forward. I went back and checked on the Verizon site to make sure I'd put the correct address on the envelope. Turns out I did it right even down to the zip plus four.

So Verizon can't seem to hear me at all and can't seem to even post a valid address on where to send payments on their web site.