the underblog

I tweeted earlier tonight that I emailed Verizon to ask when my contract is due to expire. They sent an email back telling me the date — August 7 — but it included a line I bet they wish they’d left out:

Is there any particular reason that you are inquiring about your customer agreement end date? I show that you have been valued customer since January of 2006 and I hope we can continue serving your wireless needs.

I’ve actually been a valued customer since July 2005, and an irate one since August 2007. Since they asked, I told them — in detail. I thought you guys might find it interesting.

Thank you very much for the prompt answer, it’s greatly appreciated.

As you asked, I’ll explain why I want to know, though I expect you’ll come to wish you hadn’t asked: I will be waiting on T-Mobile’s doorstep when they open that day.

I have been with Verizon for several years, and for the first two, I was a very happy customer. I came to Verizon from what was then still Cingular because I was consistently treated in a rude an unacceptable manner by Cingular customer service. I was pleased with my phone service, I liked my equipment, but I refuse to be treated rudely. And so I switched to Verizon, at the nearby Verizon store on a very hot day in July. I have returned to that store for all my needs for the last four years, despite moving some distance from it, because they provided excellent customer service, and I value that above all.

I stayed with Verizon through two moves. In 2007, shortly before my contract was due to expire, I purchased an LG VX9900 - the “enV” - and paid the full $500 price for it (I think there might have been a $50 rebate, but it was certainly much more than the two year contract price) specifically because I didn’t want another contract. I have a tendency to move somewhat regularly, and I didn’t know if I would find myself in a Verizon service area in two years.

I discovered a few hours later that Verizon does not have service in the area I live in, and although my shiny new $500 phone could take phone calls, and I could use the shiny QWERTY keyboard to send text messages (through the extended network), it was unable to use any of the data-related features it promised unless I drove 100 miles north or 100 miles east. I wasn’t able to use it for the purpose I purchased it for until six months or so ago, and I learned then that all of the phone’s features had been disabled or gerryrigged to force users into paying $2.99 a month plus data usage for any application they might want to use.

In August, I found my usage increasing dramatically because of business use of my phone, and after a particularly large bill, I called to increase my plan. I was informed that, having spent $450 to avoid a contract, I would now be forced to either continue paying obscene bills for over-plan usage, or submit to a new contract in exchange for the privilege of paying Verizon twice as much per month. As my account no doubt reflects, I was furious at being forced to choose between having a $500 brick, because phones are locked to companies, or having a contract I’d paid to avoid. Verizon paid my cell bill for several months after that because I insisted on being reimbursed for the difference between the phone’s contract price and what I had paid. I have not forgotten, nor will I.

I am quite aware that contracts help subsidize the cost of phones, and that coupled with promotions like “New Every Two,” they serve to avoid the need to retain customers by any other means. However, when I pay, out of pocket, an obscene amount of money to avoid a contract, my phone hasn’t been subsidized, and there is absolutely nothing about a customer service rep clicking two buttons to increase my monthly minutes that rises to the level of requiring a new contract. It is purely a matter of putting greed above customer satisfaction, and as I said above, I refuse to be treated in that manner.

It may well be the case that contracts provide for customer retention for every single one of Verizon’s other customers, but not for this one. It should be common sense that if you force a customer who has gone to great lengths to avoid one into a contract, they probably won’t stay with you past its end. I told the representative that day that Verizon would lose my business the day that contract ran out, and I intend to hold to that. My contract expires on August 7, and on the morning of August 7, the T-Mobile store in town will find me standing outside when the doors open, Visa card in hand, ready to pay the no-contract price for the HTC Dream/T-Mobile G1, a Google Android based, and by extension, Linux based phone for which I can write my own applications, and which has an application store filled with free applications that require nothing more than a data plan to operate. I checked some months ago that they offer service in this area and that their data network has coverage here.

I have been asked by more than a few people what I thought of my Verizon service. I have told each that I always received excellent customer service, that I have been very satisfied with the hardware, though I have been rather disappointed with the network coverage. I have also told each that I could not in good conscience recommend Verizon due to their contract practices, and that I would be leaving as soon as the one I was forced into expired. I will continue to recommend as much to anyone who asks me.

That is why I inquired about my contract end date - I don’t want to miss my opportunity to be standing outside the T-Mobile store that morning. The only remotely funny part of it all is that, had I not been forced into a new contract at what amounted to gunpoint two years ago, I would still be a happy Verizon customer. As I said, I value good customer service above all, and I have never received anything but superior service from any of Verizon’s representatives. It is greed, plain and simple, as codified in Verizon’s corporate policies, that has lost it what would have been a lifelong customer and advocate.

If I believed that large companies had the capacity to learn from their mistakes, I would hope that Verizon would learn something about treating customers with more respect. I don’t believe they can, however, and I fully expect that Verizon will go on doing the exact same thing to other customers. They won’t, however, do it to me. If I had the choice between going back to rotary-dial phones plugged into the wall or staying with Verizon, I would be looking for a Western Electric Model 302.

Yours,

Justin

Let me say, I have no reason to be upset with the customer rep, and I’m not — he was just doing his job. I’ve always gotten very good service from their customer reps, and have no complaint about them whatsoever. Regardless of how angry I am with the company, I don’t take it out on the poor guys on the front line. I know it does no good at all to tell them, but I do hope it gets bumped up in front of someone sufficiently senior to have it stick in the back of their mind the next time they have to deal with a situation like I went through two years ago.

There are a few things that don’t often happen when it comes to me. Among them are being rendered speechless, being stunned and shocked, and being profoundly hurt.

All three have happened tonight.

You guys may or may not know that I’m a huge fan of Alton Brown and his TV show Good Eats. When I say fan, what I really mean is superfan. I’ve seen every episode of the show at least a dozen times, and I have some on DVD — one is in my DVD player right now. I was just thinking last night that I should buy the $500 54-volume set of every episode of the show to date. I’ve made more than a few recipes from the show, I have his first two books — I even have his salt cellar, and was incredibly excited to get it. I’ve bought cookware, utensils, and appliances because of his recommendation.

I know that, despite perpetual declarations on his show that “the only unitasker in my kitchen is the fire extinguisher,” he actually does have another unitasker — a green-bean frencher — because they’re one of his favorite foods. I know that he doesn’t use cue cards or a teleprompter on Good Eats, but rather records his dialogue beforehand and listens to it while filming, much like music artists do in concert. I know where his tattoos are. I know that his grandmother, Ma Mae Skelton, who appeared on several shows and reminds me eerily of my grandmother, passed away in 2001. I know that most of the extras on Good Eats are actually members of the show’s crew, but that Vicki Wong, who plays snarky, sharp-tongued kitchenware-expert “W,” is not the manager of a Bed, Bath, & Beyond store — she’s Alton’s chiropractor.

I know that Alton didn’t start out as a chef — he was a cinematographer for a number of years. I know that he got into cooking after watching cooking shows to alleviate boredom during shoots, and was dismayed by the quality. I know that as a cinematographer, he was one of the cameramen for Spike Lee’s film School Daze, and was the director of photography for the music video of The One I Love by R.E.M.
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<@JustinRyan> “What are you thankful for?” “That the Fates used as much lube as they did.”

Not this time — they probably tried to buy it at Walmart.

My family have been big fans of Walmart for years. We’ve always shopped there, and my brother worked there at one point — he even found his second wife there! We’ve spent a ton of money — as has just about everybody else — and have generally been pretty satisfied.

Anybody who has lived in a fairly small town knows that there isn’t usually much to do. If you’re trying to do your doing at two in the morning, there’s even less to do. Most often, the do to do is Walmart. As I tend to be up and doing at two in the morning, I find myself at Walmart quite often, at least once per week, sometimes more. I actually like going at night — there isn’t the madcap demolition derby that goes on during the day. Also, they’re either in the process of or just finished stocking, so anything I want is on the shelf. I have a little routine — yes, an obsessive one — of how I go through the store, and I can spend two or three hours in there just wandering around looking at what there is to look at.

Given this, you might say I’m a bit more attached to my Walmart than the ordinary person. You can imagine, then, my horror when they announced they were going to renovate. The (slightly larger) town next to us has a Walmart that was renovated not too long ago (ours isn’t that old, so this is its first time up on the renovation schedule) and it’s absolutely horrible. It looks like it was laid out by a drunken monkey, with product selection contributed by a comatose llama with acid reflux. I can’t stand to have to go in there.
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So, it’s going to do what, drink my liquor and leave the toilet seat up?

What were you expecting, Shawn Powers?