BE VERY CAREFUL WHEN EXTENDING YOUR CONTRACT WITH VERIZON!!! I called Verizon about my contract as it was due to expire. I wanted to find out my rate as if it was going to go up a lot as I was going to switch companies. The person that I spoke with said that my bill would only go up $5.00 per month and he could give me a better internet speed. In addition, he could continue to give me a $30.00 credit that I was receiving and free movie channels for 6 months. This rate would lock me in for 2 years which I didn't care because that just meant two years I didn't have to worry about dealing with increasing bills for my internet/cable/phone. Well, I got my bill and it went up $38.00 a month plus taxes. I am having to pay $13.01 for the movie channels instead of FREE, only getting a $20.00 credit instead of $30.00 and my package rate when up from $109.99 to $124.99. Not to mention that when I changed my internet speed it did something to my internet for two months and it was slower than dial up. I have now been dealing with this since January. I talked to numerous employees two of which stated they found the mistakes and yes I was getting over charged. When they try to give me credits for these bills they get denied. It is very fustrating. At this point, I am going to just cancel my Verizon service which is going to cost me over $300 in an early termination fee. But at least the $300 is better than the over $900 that they are over charging me for the next two years.

For more Verizon complaints, check out FiOSComplaints.com where this blog and other sites give the gory details of how Verizon treats customers.
As for me -- Fraudulent and deceptive business practices, slamming my bill with things I didn't order, and general run-around concerning a shocking over-billing. We called to check on our phone service, and were told that we could add features, plus ad cable/internet service, and with a new phone plan, actually reduce the overall bill. They installed the new services, removed my land line and installed a battery-back up system, and when the bill arrived it was well over DOUBLE what we were told it would be. Countless calls, all the way to the executive offices of Verizon, have not budged the bill at all. The person who was supposed to be on their "task force" to correct these problems, suddenly is AWOL and her phone mailbox is FULL. Mind you, someone at Verizon has a non-working phone. To date, there has been no resolution, even after 3 months.

I not complaning about the product I love it just the idoit customer service in late march I finaly got out of contract with T-moble@ home service which worked fine for phone but did not work with my fax machine so added the phone to our existing package of TV and internet which sould of been easy but no
next day I got 1/2 my channels cut and my unnowingly intenet speed cut from 25/25 to 5/15
I even had QVC blocked which everyone gets finaly after 12 hours of calling geting tranfered to wrong people and flat out geting disconected before I got the chanels back that I was paying for as the idot put me on la conectia after geting all my pay for channels back i found out that I was on 5/15 so another 6 hours to fix that and I thought all was finaly fine after the 10 days of screwups which they refused to comp me for and today i found they have the acount still screwed up as i seem now to have 2 acounts so after a month still screwed up and I the one who has to deal with there problem as it up to 19 hours so far and still not fixed

Here's the text of an email I sent to Verizon's complaint division:

To Whom It May Concern,

I'm writing to advise you of the horrible experiences I'm having with your billing and customer service personnel and practices. There are a lot of details I have to share with you. In the interest of being as brief as possible, I've done bullets below to provide an overview of the situation, with these three objectives/requests in mind:

* First, that your billing department acknowledge and expediently resolve a long-standing discrepancy of approximately $520 on my FiOS bill.
* Second, that you allow me to make payment arrangements on the amount that is not disputed
* Third, that Verizon take serious, demonstrative steps to correct the serious problems in its billing system and the level of professionalism, diligence and skill set in your customer service department.

The following summary of my current experiences with Verizon's billing and customer service provides context for these requests:

* According to your records, my bill as of today is $1, 152.47, of which you are demanding $823.69 to avoid our service being disconnected by April 8.
* Of that $823.69, the approximately $520 amount has been in dispute since around January of this year, when I informed your billing department that my payment records and your billing statements didn't seem to mesh. The rep agreed to start an investigation into the amount and acknowledged that a response would likely take about a few weeks to a month. In the meantime, he said, I would not be responsible for the charges, only what I owed for the current and following months.
* From October of 2009 through December 2010, I've made payments on our FiOS bill totaling $3, 415.94. Since January of 2011, I've made payments totaling $548.35. Before I made both payments - one in January and the other in March, I confirmed with the billing rep that the disputed amount was still under investigation and reaffirmed that I didn't have to pay that amount unless I received notice that the investigation found that the charges were legitimate. I confirmed this once again when I called in March to determine how I can lower my bill in the immediate future. The representative I spoke with at that time was very helpful in changing my service to ensure that my bill would be lower by the time the April bill would be issued.
* Despite the above-mentioned assurances about the investigation, and the fact that I had not received yet received notification that the investigation has concluded, I received a disconnection notice from Verizon dated March 28 for the $823.69.

* I contacted Verizon billing this morning to explain that the cut-off amount could not be correct, given the disputed amount being under investigation. The representative said she did not see anything on my account indicating an investigation/disputed amount. After my insistence, she and I went through my payment history (which, she said, she could only see as far back as October 2009.) She listed all the payments I made and I verified those with my bank statements, which happen to only go back that far, as well.)
* I explained that, in December 2009, I made an arrangement to pay my bill in full with two payments totaling $683.62. This, from what I was told by the representative at that time, would bring my account current. After making the payments, I confirmed my account was, in fact, current after I made a payment on December 30, 2009. I subsequently made payments between February 2010 and November 2010 totaling $2, 297.62 The payments she listed and that I confirmed with my back statements, verify this amount. She then advised me to call Customer Care to resolve the issue, adding that they close at 6:00 p.m. EST.
* I got in touch with Customer Care at approximately 4:45 p.m. today (April 5). The representative I spoke with (Brett Dey, Employee #2405649) was very courteous and helpful. He agreed that there appeared to be a dispute and confirmed that the $520 amount has been under investigation since January with no resolution. I told him about the difficultly I've had in resolving this and he shared that he would forward the matter to a specialist who would move the investigation along and get back to me within 2-4 business days. When I shared my concerns about my service being disconnected for what is, in large part, the disputed amount, he advised me to speak with a representative who could make payment arrangements for the undisputed amount. He also noted my account to indicate that the $520 remained under investigation and transferred me to the next representative to make payment arrangements on the balance.
* This is when my customer service experience went, once again, from one in which I felt like I was being treated with respect and concern (from Brett) to a highly unpleasant experience. I spoke with a rep who later identified herself as "Alison" and gave her employee number as "740836."
* I explained, yet again, what was happening with my account and, while she at first denied that she saw any amount under investigation, she finally informed me that she did, indeed, see that the $520 was in dispute. She advised me that, in light of this, the amount I owe to avoid disconnection would be approximately $303.69.
* When I asked her if I could have until April 15 to pay this amount, she advised me that I would then owe a total of over $600, reflecting "past due" and "new" charges. At this point, after all I'd been through that day and previously in trying to resolve this issue and keep my service, I asked to speak to a supervisor. I also felt that she showed no interest in the additional concern I now had that my bill would be so high, given that I had modified our service for a lower bill (as indicated above.)
* "Alison" put me on hold for approximately 20 minutes. When she returned, she told me that her supervisor was not available but would call me back in about four hours. Now, feeling completely disrespected, I began to rant. I complained about being on hold for so long only to be told that I couldn't be helped by a manager. I pointed out that I was aware that her department closed at 6:00 p.m. and that I wasn't as stupid as what she thought. I also asked for her name and her employee ID, at which point she said that I should stop talking if I wanted this information, and sarcastically began spelling her name and giving me her ID number s-l-o-w-l-y. At my boiling point, I advised her that she won't think I'm so stupid once she finds out about the letter I planned to write to the Better Business Bureau and Verizon corporate. I then slammed the phone down.
* I redialed the number I dialed to reach Brett and was transferred back to "Alison's" department. I then, yet again, explained the situation and tried to make a payment arrangement. This time the representative insisted that there was no notation on my account about a disputed amount. After some insistence that she look more carefully, she then claimed that there WAS a dispute but that it was resolved at the end of December and that I did owe the full $823.69 to avoid disconnection on April 8. At this point, I felt completely helpless, frustrated, confused and cheated. My recaps of the previous conversations I'd had that day and my pleas for her to re-check the notes on my account fell on deaf ears as she talked over me and refused to make an arrangement that didn't include this disputed amount. I shared with her my thought that "Alison" may have altered my records to delete the note about the investigation as payback for my outburst. I, once again, asked to speak to a manager. Once again, I was put on hold--this time for more than 20 minutes, way past 6:00 p.m., when that department was closed. No one ever came to the phone. Of course, when I tried to call back, no representatives were available.

This is, by far, the absolute worse customer service and billing experience I've ever had. It absolutely amazes me how Verizon can have such great product offerings and fail so miserably at customer service. Just to see how prevalent Verizon's customer service problems are, I Googled "Verizon FiOS" with "poor customer service" and got approximately 26, 000 results (when I searched "Verizon" and poor customer service, " the number jumped to well-over 43 million.) Even if you factor out hits that don't directly talk about Verizon's issues -- including your shameless ads within those results -- this is still a shameful testament to the experiences consumers have had with the Verizon brand.

I implore you to get to the bottom of my situation and, in general, to bring your front-line people and billing operations up to par with your products. Please don't make the mistake of thinking because you lead the industry as a result of your product offerings, you can treat your customers like crap. Your competitors are ready and waiting and their products are catching up every day -- not to mention their reps are courteous and competent...and have basic math skills.

I was mislead by online verizon sales representative into a $75.99 p/month for 12 months with no term contract, sound very good deal, I signed up, here my nightmare began. When I received my first bill, it was not what as promised and with 2 years contract. Tried numerous times to contact verizon's billing department to solve my problem, no one can help, wasting my time on hold, my call got transferred till dropped. I am so tired with this situation, decided to cancelled all services(phone, internet, tv) but they just cancelled my phone service and continue to billed me for internet and tv. I am helpless and hopeless, I ended liable for a big bill from verizon and want me to pay early termination fees. Verizon doesn't bother to solve my case and get debt collector go after me. Please think twice before you want to deal with VERIZON.