On Fri, 13 Jun 2008, customersupport@verizon.com wrote:

> Dear Turtle,
>
> Thank you for contacting the Verizon eCenter.  I have received your
> email dated June 12, 2008 regarding online bill pay. My name is Vincent,
> and I will be happy to assist you.
>
> If you are currently enrolled in any of the Auto Pay With Bank Account
> or Credit Card options payment from bank account or credit card options
> Verizon will still charge you by that process for your final bill.
>
> Or, you may visit our web site at any time to make a direct payment by
> credit card or through your bank account.  You will need your Verizon
> account number and final bill amount due off the paper final bill
> notice.  To pay your final bill, please visit:

You know, I hadn't regarded this as a "final bill," and we had had no
intention to end our more than fourteen years of service with Bell
Atlantic, later Verizon.  However, having it take you guys nearly two
weeks to fix the phone, then take another couple of weeks to issue a
credit for the outage, and THEN decide this is a "final bill" and send me
on a wild-goose chase to figure out why you won't take my money, well,
we've decided we're going to stop doing business with Verizon.

We don't have Verizon Wireless, and only kept the wired phone line active
in the rare event we needed to send or receive a fax, both things we can
do easily over the internet.

So, bye, Verizon.  It's been amusing doing business with you, but here's
where it ends.

Thanks, Vincent.

Turtle

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1. Rob Darwin06/13/2008 03:32:25 PM

Hi Turtle...I think "final bill" meant final paper bill, but I agree it's unclear, and from your comments in the e-mail I know this was the last straw in a series of issues. Just in case we can still change your mind, I'm forwarding a link to this blog post to our NY region (don't know your real name but I did a little poking around on your site and I think that's your location) to bring it to their attention. Believe it or not, customer service is a really big deal to us (I'm a Notes developer for Verizon, many levels away from direct customer contact but I still hear the drumbeat every day) and I hope the regional people are able to come through for you and ensure that the Turtle continues to MOOO for many years to come.

2. Turtle06/13/2008 03:40:01 PM
Homepage: http://www.weightlessdog.com/shell.nsf

It was a weird situation. We didn't know the phone line was hosed for a fairly long time, since for months we didn't even have a phone plugged into it. Nora went to send a fax, and it didn't go through, so we figured out the line was hosed. Called it in around April 25, they finally got it fixed May 5. We figured we were entitled to a credit at least for the amount of time we knew it was messed up, and after they finally issued it, we went to post a payment online like I've done for years. The system kept kicking back saying "that account number is not authorized" for payments.

Scratched my head over that one, since I've paid online for years!

Finally we figured out that Verizon, after finally fixing the phone, decided that we somehow didn't want the line any more, so what it was saying was, "that phone account isn't actually current any more, so you can't pay a normal bill on it, all we'll accept is payment-as-a-final-bill." That initially wasn't our intent at all, but the more I thought about it, it didn't make sense to keep paying thirty-something dollars a month for a phone line we never use except for faxes. Hell, the only people who ever called me on that number were telemarketers and clueless local people who misdialed the number for the local Chinese place, which is XXX-8888.

it got so bad I eventually had my answering machine say, "if you're calling from Brunswick, Maryland, hang up and dial again, we don't know anyone there." Then I just unplugged the phone completely.

So, don't bust your butt trying to work this out, we're pretty sure we're gonna let the landline go finally. This just sorta sealed it.