Verizon Math Strikes Again!

Just wow! This is clearly worse than my situation, similarly comical but just sad and really bad business:

Verizon Math Strikes Again: Promises 2 Years Of Free Data Access To Chromebook Users; Delivers Just 1

My favorite comment:

"Personanongrata, Jun 25th, 2014 @ 1:29pm
Verizon's New Math

Verizon's new math formula and solution:

Google's 3 year service offer minus Verizon's 2 year service offer equals 1 year of service.

That was easy."

Optimum.net Service Transfer Process Problems

I recently moved from one address to another and attempted to transfer my Optimum cable service. What follows is a transcript from my online chat session with a CS rep. The rep was very helpful but the underlying process is clearly completely broken. What should have taken a few minutes prior to my move turned into a 2 hour install and a long winded chat with a CS rep.

Hopefully someone in management will catch wind of this and overhaul this process as it just doesn't work. As I mentioned to the CS rep, if this is daunting, confusing and time wasting for a technical person imagine how a non-techie and someone who naively uses their included email service would fare.

 Basil S.: Hi, my name is Basil S. and I will be assisting you today.
 George Vaccaro: Hi Basil
 Basil S.: Hello! George, I'm sorry you're having an issue with the speeds, but I'll definitely help you with this.
 Basil S.: George, can you please verify your house address?
 George Vaccaro: I'm not getting Boost speeds, can you check my account is provisioned properly?
 George Vaccaro: ***Removed***
 Basil S.: Thank you, Please allow me just a moment to pull up your account information. 
 Basil S.: I see it in your account but the modem is not updated with the speeds yet.
 Basil S.: Please allow me a few moments while I work on resolving this issue for you. 
 George Vaccaro: ok thanks
 Basil S.: I need to reset your modem at my end. This may interrupt our Chat for just a few moments but once the modem comes back online, we will automatically reconnect. Would that be okay? 
 George Vaccaro: yes, thanks
 Communication with the RightNow Chat service has been lost.  Please wait while attempts are made to restore the connection.
 Disconnection in 45000 seconds.
 Connection resumed.
 Basil S.: Please let me know once you're connected back, George.
 George Vaccaro: im here
 Basil S.: Great!
 Basil S.: Please check your speeds now.
 George Vaccaro: should i check the speed yet?
 George Vaccaro: ok
 Basil S.: Please let me know if there are any issues.
 George Vaccaro: 41 down, 10 up
 George Vaccaro: that's better, still not 100% but I knew boost wasn't active
 George Vaccaro: ok, so i have another few issues
 Basil S.: Sure! please let me know.
 George Vaccaro: 1, can you check that I've been credited for the return of the cable boxes from my prior address?
 Basil S.: Let me check that for you.
 George Vaccaro: thanks
 George Vaccaro: the cable guy brought a new modem despite the fact that I had one, so he took the old one back, and also took the regular digital cable box and the 2nd one which had DVR.
 Basil S.: Your current balance on that account is $8.47. I do not see the boxes credited back to the account yet but at the same time I do not see the charge for unreturned boxes.
 George Vaccaro: ok, do you suggest I check back at some point?
 Basil S.: They should be updated in 7 - 10 days.
 George Vaccaro: ok, great
 George Vaccaro: so the last thing is that he also brought a new optimum router and I can't seem to configure it.  It's also acting a bit strange - I can't connect from my phone with ip address 192.168.1.6 to my notebook with ip address 192.168.1.2.  They are both connected to the private SSID (not the optimumwifi one) so I should be able to connect between them, and was able to yesterday, but it seems sporadic.
 Basil S.: The settings of the router is located in the Optimum website. Please select INTERNET and then choose router.
 Basil S.: But before you go ahead, you do not have any ID's on the account yet.
 George Vaccaro: hmm
 George Vaccaro: I'm logged in with the one from my account, prior to my move.  I guess that won't work or didn't come over?
 Basil S.: You may want to create an ID first and then you should be able to access the router, George.
 George Vaccaro: I'm worried that perhaps that is a separate account and I may still be being billed as well.
 Basil S.: Your old account is disconnected.
 George Vaccaro: ok
 Basil S.: You cannot be billied further.
 George Vaccaro: but I'm still logged in wit it
 George Vaccaro: no way to associate the new address with the old account so I can use the same id?
 Basil S.: The ID may stay active for a period of 135 days.
 Basil S.: I can move the ID over, but you may no longer have access to the previous account through that ID.
 George Vaccaro: do you think I will still need access to the previous account?
 Basil S.: Not unless you want to take a look at the previous billing statements.
 George Vaccaro: hmm, no way to move those over too?  I imagine I may need them come tax time.
 Basil S.: I guess, but you can have it moved afterwards.
 George Vaccaro: I'm trying to find the statements now but can't seem to locate them
 Basil S.: You may be able to find them under Pay bill.
 George Vaccaro: it says I don't have access to that section
 George Vaccaro: do you know what my "primary optimum id" is?
 Basil S.: Let me check that for you.
 Basil S.: May I please have the Optimum ID that you are trying to sign in with? 
 George Vaccaro: i know this isn't your job, but I have to say the whole move process has been a lot less than smooth.  If you have a feedback mechanism for management I'd love to send my thoughts over.  This shouldn't be that hard to do.
 George Vaccaro: ***Removed*** - I'm signed in with that
 George Vaccaro: but it must not be the primary id
 Basil S.: That is your only ID on the account, George.
 George Vaccaro: so the system must be confused since it's telling me I don't have access
 Basil S.: Are you able to access the emails?
 George Vaccaro: any way you can just email me my 2013 statements?  Then we can move over the id.
 George Vaccaro: I never used the email service for this sort of reason
 Basil S.: I wouldn't be able to email the past statements, George. I can send via mail. And you can only get the past 6 month's statements at a time.
 Basil S.: I'm so sorry,
 George Vaccaro: online would i be able to get 12 months?
 George Vaccaro: 14...
 Basil S.: You can get the past 18 months via mail.
 George Vaccaro: oh i see
 George Vaccaro: well let's do that, but will it come to my new address?
 George Vaccaro: let me just step back a second.  Is this the normal move process or was something not setup properly?
 Basil S.: It would go to your old address. But it should be forwarded to the new address from there
 George Vaccaro: i see.
 Basil S.: Your past statements would not be moved over to your new account, if that's what you were referring to.
 George Vaccaro: how about my id?
 Basil S.: I can definitely move over your ID after some verification steps.
 George Vaccaro: paperless statements and auto pay?
 Basil S.: You can have access to paperless statements and auto pay after the ID is moved over.
 George Vaccaro: but do i need to set it up again or the old settings will transfer?
 Basil S.: You would have to set it up again, as the address and account numbers have chagned, George.
 George Vaccaro: I think you see what I'm getting at here.  A change of address should not be this complicated.
 George Vaccaro: A new address, and a new router endpoint id.  Should be as easy as that.
 George Vaccaro: I have written systems that do provisioning and remote device cataloging etc.  This process is just plain bad.  I know it's not you job to do that, but someone in management needs to rethink this process.
 Basil S.: I can transfer over the ID, without a hassle, George. I don't think it's a complicated process.
 George Vaccaro: I had to contact about boost which should have been setup automatically, not to mention the tech originally told me he couldn't take my equipment and then did magically, then he said it might not get credited properly to my account, and now I have to move my id over, lose access to old statements and re-setup all my billing settings.
 Basil S.: I see what you're saying, the whole process was not very smooth for you.
 George Vaccaro: if you can send me the complete set of 2013 statements that would be great, but if I'm going to lose that capacity I'll just setup another id, which seems crazy.
 George Vaccaro: I don't think it's just me btw.  Any move would run into these issues.
 Basil S.: Does all your mail get redirected to your new address, George?
 George Vaccaro: btw, if i were using the id for email I couldn't do that option right?
 George Vaccaro: not yet
 George Vaccaro: I can go pick it up though
 Basil S.: You can have the emails moved over.
 George Vaccaro: It sounds like you're describing some more work for me though, not something that is automatic.
 Basil S.: No, if there were email, they would be moved over along with the ID.
 George Vaccaro: but if I don't move the ID, which I may not do since I will lose access to my statements then they won't be moved over right?
 Communication with the RightNow Chat service has been lost.  Please wait while attempts are made to restore the connection.
 Disconnection in 45000 seconds.
 Connection resumed.
 Basil S.: Yes, if you don't request the ID to be moved, it wouldn't be.
 George Vaccaro: yeesh
 George Vaccaro: and I'm in technology.  I can't imagine my Mom dealing with this.  Crazy.
 George Vaccaro: OK, let's just setup another ID and I'll waste my time setting everything up again.
 George Vaccaro: I'm sorry to vent to you.  Again, I know you didn't design the process.
 Basil S.: Thank you for understanding. In order to create the ID, you would have to go to our website,  http://www.optimum.net 
 George Vaccaro: do I need my account number?  I'm not sure I know it yet.
 Basil S.: Here is your account number ***Removed***
 Basil S.: Please type in the account number, instead of copy pasting it.
 George Vaccaro: wow, that's interesting
 George Vaccaro: and convenient
 Basil S.: Do you want me to mail your past statements, George?
 George Vaccaro: well, if I can get my old ID to work I'd rather get electronic ones.  Is there any hope of that?
 Basil S.: I'm sending an update to your ID as of now. Please let me know if you can get in.
 George Vaccaro: Still says I'm unauthorized
 Communication with the RightNow Chat service has been lost.  Please wait while attempts are made to restore the connection.
 Disconnection in 45000 seconds.
 Connection resumed.
 Communication with the RightNow Chat service has been lost.  Please wait while attempts are made to restore the connection.
 Disconnection in 45000 seconds.
 Connection resumed.
 George Vaccaro: Basil, I still says I'm unauthorized.
 Basil S.: I'm sorry about that George. I see that the ID has access only to email.
 George Vaccaro: but yet there is no other id on the account?
 Basil S.: That's correct, the disconnection has taken out the access to the statements.
 George Vaccaro: I see.  New information.  OK, can you send me the 2013 statements by mail then?  You had mentioned something about a limit of 6?
 Basil S.: I can send all the 12 statements. 
 George Vaccaro: That would be great, thanks.
 Basil S.: Let me do this for you, please hold.
 George Vaccaro: Thanks.
 Basil S.: Yes, George, I've sent the 2013 statements.
 George Vaccaro: thank you.
 Basil S.: However this is going to your old address.
 George Vaccaro: That's fine.  I'll stop by and pick them up.
 George Vaccaro: The principle bothers me, but that's another story..
 Basil S.: I see that you've set up an ID on your current account.
 George Vaccaro: OK, so last issue, hopefully.
 Basil S.: Please go ahead!
 George Vaccaro: Yes, and I'm in the router settings.  I see all my connected wifi devices yet I can't ping 192.168.1.6 from 192.168.1.2.
 George Vaccaro: the settings in there are incredibly limited unless I'm missing something.  For example I don't see how to allow an inbound port to access a device on the LAN.
 George Vaccaro: I see the advanced settings now.
 Basil S.: Are you able to see DMZ port and port management?
 Basil S.: Sounds good.
 George Vaccaro: So that helps that, but I don't see what might be causing my 2 devices from seeing each other.
 George Vaccaro: I was looking for something like "Wireless Client Isolation" which is designed to keep 2 devices from "seeing each other" on the network, but I don't see anything like that.
 Basil S.: Do you see the devices connected on the network?
 George Vaccaro: yes, both of them
 Basil S.: Let me check this for you.
 George Vaccaro: Thank you.
 Basil S.: How are you trying to ping these 2 devices George?
 George Vaccaro: just from a terminal
 George Vaccaro: it was working last night
 Basil S.: From the terminal to the android device?
 George Vaccaro: yes
 George Vaccaro: from the linux desktop i pinged the android device.
 George Vaccaro: both deices can access the internet via the lan.
 Basil S.: Is the android set to accept connections?
 George Vaccaro: I went to  http://www.whatismyip.com from both and get the same public IP, so the android is on the lan.
 George Vaccaro: well, the ping test is just one of the types of things that's failing.
 George Vaccaro: I usually rsync from it to my linux box and that's not working either "no route to host", same response as ping.
 George Vaccaro: they don't see each other on the network.
 Basil S.: I don't see any inhibitions from here George.
 George Vaccaro: i have a tangential question.  Do I have to use the Optimum router?  Can I use my old netgear instead?  That would at least allow me to eliminate the Optimum router as a variable.
 Basil S.: You can use any router. The router we gave was just part of your package.
 George Vaccaro: ok, if it turns out to be the/a problem can I give it back for a credit, or was it free?
 Basil S.: It's actually free. You're not paying anything extra for it.
 George Vaccaro: ok, can I sell it then?
 Basil S.: No, you can't, just like your modem, it has to be returned.
 George Vaccaro: ok, I'll try the old router and see what happens.  Thanks for your help Basil.  Like I mentioned, if there is any way to get some feedback up the chain I'd be happy to provide details and suggestions as this process has to be especially frustrating for non-technical customers.
 George Vaccaro: not to mention it ties up people like you when all of this should have just worked without needing a CS contact.
 Basil S.: There is a survey at the end of the chat, part of it is my contribution too.
 George Vaccaro: Btw, do I need your help setting up automatic payments?
 Basil S.: No, you can set it up like your previous account.
 George Vaccaro: OK.  I hope the survey lets me bash the process and give you high marks. 
 George Vaccaro: That was the problem with the installer phone survey I recently answered.
 Basil S.: Thank, I'm sure you can do that.
 Basil S.: Is there anything else that I can assist you with today, George? 
 George Vaccaro: I had to give the whole thing high marks as not to bash the poor installer on his 7th install finishing at 9:30 at night.
 George Vaccaro: No, thanks for all of your help.
 George Vaccaro: Thanks Basil.
 Basil S.: You're welcome. It was a pleasure assisting you today, George. Have a great evening!
 Basil S. has disconnected.

TEDxAFS - Justin Solonynka, Big Numbers, and VerizonMath

Justin Solonynka a 7th and 8th grade teacher at Abington Friends School in Jenkintown, PA recently gave a presentation on big numbers for their independently organized TED event TEDxAFS.

Justin used a couple of VerizonMath clips to help express the importance of math on our daily lives. He goes on to give a great presentation about probability and some entertaining ways to help make math more approachable and interesting to students. I even learned something very interesting that I had never realized, but I won't mention it as not to spoil it. It was the part about the Milky Way.

Thank you Justin for including my clips in your talk, mentioning this blog, and for making strides to help reduce innumeracy.

Watch it here:

World Science Festival Discusses VerizonMath - Continued

The WSF Website has recently been updated with their discussion on The Illusion of Certainty: Risk, Probability and Chance, which includes a few clips from my now infamous Verizon call.

It was very interesting to see and hear the panellists' and audience's reaction to the clips. I imagine this was the largest gathering yet of folks that could truly appreciate it, all in one place.

Thank you Leonard Mlodinow for choosing to include this in your discussion. By the way, as I watched this I made kind of the same anxious expression you did while waiting for the audience to hear the "punch line". :)

Speaking of probability, I never could have imagined back in 2006 when I originally recorded this CS fiasco that it would wind up being used in such an interesting context, incredible.

Here it is for your nerdy enjoyment:



If you don't want to listen to the whole talk (though it's much less painful than my full recording), the panellists start to discuss it at about 29:00.

World Science Festival discusses VerizonMath

Tonight during a session called "The Illusion of Certainty" clips from my call with the call center reps at Verizon will be referenced. It should be interesting how they work it into the talk.

To watch live visit The World Science Festival website or watch below.

Edit: Broadcast has been delayed. I will update when a new date/link is available.

Watch live streaming video from worldsciencefestival at livestream.com

Verizon to issue Tens of Millions in refunds for erroneous data charges.

As reported on CNN.com Verizon will be issuing tens of millions of dollars in refunds to customers that were erroneously charged for data usage that they did not initiate.

This has nothing to do with the VerizonMath data rate quoting issue that I was involved with, but is very interesting nonetheless.

I've often wondered about the implications of software glitches, and this one is a doozy. It's probably been hurting Verizon's bottom line for some time even just in customer complaints, customer service calls and customer dissatisfaction (assuming individuals were not able to get the charges reversed). It is tangentially related to my situation in that the CS feedback should really be a priority that is investigated and reacted to early, such that these types of problems are handled when the costs are low (nip in the bud) rather than the typical brush it under the rug and hope it will go away mentality. I can't help but think that if this problem had been caught when the refunds would have amounted to a few million that Verizon's net costs would have been significantly less. Administering millions of refunds has to be a costly process. I wonder if they will issue the refunds including interest.

PS: thanks to Chris for bringing this to my attention.

The Gregory Brothers

If you haven't yet heard/seen the magic of The Gregory Brothers, you should really check out their youtube channel and their more serious music "Meet the Gregory Brothers" available from online music retailers (google it for a free preview at amazon etc.).

Their auto-tune the news creations are absolutely brilliant, very catchy and hysterically funny. I have reserved a location on my featured "ads" area in the upper right to hopefully drive some traffic and enlighten people to their amazing creations.

New York Times Blog Covers VerizonMath

My brother sent me a link today to an article on The New York Times Blog that references my experiences with Verizon. It's an interesting article, if you are a math nerd like some of us clearly are :).

In other news, there is hope for nerds to find love, I got hitched last weekend! Good luck fellow nerds, there are women out there who appreciate us :).

Mythbuster Adam Savage Has an $11,000 AT&TMath Moment

I'm a little late to the party on this one, but a few readers have brought this to my attention recently (thank you!).

It appears Mythbuster Adam Savage has run into the same sort of issue I had with Verizon, with his provider (and now mine) AT&T.

According to Adam's tweets, due to him very quickly getting a following on twitter (50,000 or so), he seems to have already resolved his issue. It sounded like the service he received from the AT&T reps was significantly better than in my case, consistent with my experiences with AT&T CS in general. FYI, no one pays me to say that, I just like to give credit where credit is due.

I wonder if he was quoted over the phone like I was. Actually I hope he was, otherwise he should have been able to do the math. That said, these companies really need to start quoting in $/MB as I had suggested in the aftermath of my debacle. They might also want to start negotiating and charging more reasonable roaming rates. It's hard to believe that while AT&T charges $60/month for "unlimited" data, (which translates to 5gb magically) in the US, it has to charge $75,000 (1,250 times as much!) for the same amount of data if you cross the border into Canada.

Surprisingly, on Verizon, that same 5gb of Canadian roaming data (in my case) would only have cost $10,000 - quite a bargain by comparison ;). Also interestingly, had I had my problem back in the day with AT&T instead of Verizon, my $71.79 vs 71.79c would have been $538 vs. $5.38 - yeesh. Remember, that was about 35 megs, or equivalent to 10ish mobile mp3/iTunes downloads.

Now of course not everyone with that plan uses the whole 5gb, a fact that I'm sure the actuaries at AT&T and Verizon have worked out. So if for example we us a more conservative assumption, like perhaps the average monthly usage is 400mb/month, that would still cost $6000 with AT&T and $800 with Verizon, as roaming data vs. domestic. Something still seems out of whack.

Follow Adam here: https://twitter.com/donttrythis, and check out the comments here: https://twitter.com/#search?q=donttrythis.

Also, this event has prompted me to setup a verizonmath twitter account. At this point I don't know how much twitting is in order, but maybe you'll see something new up there now and then.

As a side note, Adam, if you are reading this, I'd jump the first plane to SF if I ever had the opportunity to have a beer with you and/or the rest of the amazing MB crew and/or a couple of birds! One can dream :).

Failblog Verizonmath Youtube Video hits #45 of all time in Comedy

It looks like via failblog.com my call (in condensed form) has reached over 1.8 million people, and ranks in the top 50 of all time in terms of user ratings. Not too shabby. :)

Verizon refuses to activate missing man's phone for Sheriff unless he pays overdue balance of $20

Wow. You can't make this stuff up.

And for a measly $20, or 10 megs of roaming data ;).

Receive SMS updates about the Swine Flu

A reader has submitted a link to her sms based swine flu update service. According to the article, it will only cost you the same as your usual SMS messages cost.

Get SMS Updates about Swine Flu

Ex-Customer: Why I will never use Verizon again

Submitted by a verizonmath reader/ex-verizon customer:

My experience with Verizon is like the song, “Hotel California”….”you can check out any time you like, but you can never leave…”

I am no longer a Verizon customer – having cancelled my service five years ago. Verizon seems to think that I owe them over $400 in unpaid bills – and it has taken their stellar billing department five years to figure out that they applied my payments to the wrong accounts. Mind you, my records indicate that they owe me money, so go figure.

My repeated attempts at resolving this situation since 2004 have proved fruitless. No one at Verizon can tell me how they arrived at the dollar amount owed, probably because all invoices attached to my account have been paid in full. I was assigned a Customer Service Rep in their Accounting Dept. who would not provide her last name, identification number, or phone extension. I even offered to drive to Providence, RI & meet with them to review the account – and they declined my offer. So I would have to call the 1-800 number and ask for this person in Customer Service, hold for 30-45 minutes at a time, then leave a message for her. She only returned one of my calls – and left me a voicemail without her phone number. Eventually, Verizon stopped sending me letters and one of their Customer Service Representatives told me my balance was $0. I thought they had finally got their accounting act together & found their billing errors.

Then in 2007, I started getting calls from multiple collection agencies. Each time I receive one of these lovely letters, I have to dispute the validity of the bill in writing, via certified mail/return receipt, and copy/include three years worth of invoices and proofs of payment (about 35+ pages of documents). I even provide them with a easy-to-read spreadsheet showing them the invoice amount, payment date, amount paid, check number, etc. None of this is enough to appease the collection agencies. According to them, proof of payment via bank copies of cashed checks was not enough proof. If that’s the only method I used to pay my invoices, how can I provide additional proof? That’s all there is! I quickly came to the conclusion that collection agencies aren’t there to help me resolve my situation, they just want the amount of money listed on the piece of paper, and they will resort to whatever nasty means necessary to collect it…wrong or right.

In 2008, I received a particularly nasty phone call from one of Verizon’s collection agencies, and finally did what I should have done years ago: I contacted the Attorney General’s Office. Initially, Verizon told them that I shouldn’t be receiving calls from collection agencies. A few months later, they admitted I didn’t owe any money. Since I was still being hounded by collection agencies, I requested that they send me something in writing stating this – so I could share it with the collection agencies in the future. Their response was that it was against their company policy to provide anything in writing. Finally, they relented, and sent me a letter stating my balance was $0 --- but they put the wrong account number on it, so it was absolutely useless. We requested they send us a revised letter, but never received it. My rep at the Attorney General’s Office left his position, so I had to start all over with a new rep there (who has been wonderful). He has contacted Verizon, and he has to start the whole freakin’ process ALL OVER AGAIN. Apparently, they couldn’t just open my file to review the history and the incorrect letter and make a simple account number change. Five years after the fact, their rock star billing department is finally figuring out that they put some of my payments against the wrong account.

Verizon lost my wireless business, online account and regular phone service – and I’ll never use them for cable either. This comes to about $150/month or $1,800/year – which certainly adds up over time. I don’t want to work with a company that puts me hold for 45 mins. every time I need to speak with a Customer Service Rep. I don’t want to pay a company a monthly fee when you can’t get a Billing Specialist who returns your calls --- or a person’s name, direct phone number or email address, for that matter.

These days, Comcast gets all my business, even though it costs a bit more --- and I couldn’t be happier with my service. I never have to hold more than a few minutes to reach a Comcast Customer Service Rep, they provide speedy on-site technical support and every person I speak to there is terrific. I've never had a billing problem, either. In addition, anytime my elderly mother’s phone service goes on the blink, they are at her house the next day!

After all they’ve put me through, I have not received an apology letter or a check refunding me for the overpayment I made to my account. Up until recently, I received several “Come back to Verizon” letters every month. I contacted Verizon several times & asked them to take me off their mailing list, to no avail. Welcome to the Hotel California... Then, I started returning them to the sender with “VERIZON SUCKS. TAKE ME OFF YOUR MAILING LIST” written in bold black marker on the marketing letter. That seemed to do the trick.

Verizon’s Billing Mistakes: $400+

The Amount of Business I Cost Them By Sharing My Experience Online: Priceless

A Petition for Accountability and True Responsibility

A friend over at Paper Economy has come up with a brilliant idea. If responsible Americans are going to be footing the tab in terms of either tax dollars or deflated savings, how about the recipients of the bailouts having to give what they can too?

Please visit this story here and please digg the story here to make sure this get's the attention it should.

Where's My iPhone?

Past VerizonMath reader David Gouldin, now fellow dissatisfied wireless customer has written to inform us of a problem he has been having over the past week or so with AT&T. He appears to have ordered a refurbished iPhone with intentions of developing iPhone apps. Unfortunately the package that should have contained his shiny *new* iPhone contained instead a shiny white AT&T bag, a packing slip (referring to the bag) and nothing else.

Check it out over at wheresmyiphone.blogspot.com.

Good luck David! Please keep us posted.

PBX Hell: 50+ Hacks Get to a Real Person in 10 Seconds or Less

A reader sent me the following link and it seems like it might be very helpful to those of you visiting this blog as a result of your own customer service nightmare:

PBX Hell: 50+ Hacks Get to a Real Person in 10 Seconds or Less

Good luck!

Hello AT&T

So, about 1 month without a cell phone was all I could stand.

I really wanted the iPhone, but I wanted gps too, and since the iPhone doesn't have it yet I went with the Blackjack II until the next gen iPhone comes out. I assume Apple will add gps and 3G next time around.

The phone is really great and I purchased the unlimited data plan with tethering, so I can supposedly tether whenever I need to, and even potentially download without caps (unlike Verizon's supposedly unlimited plan which has a 5GB cap).

So far I'm very happy with the phone. Its thin and fast, and I've been getting away with google maps for mobile as gps software. I've tested the bandwidth, and gotten as much as 1MB/s down and 200KB/s up.

The people at the AT&T store were unbelievably different than the Verizon store folks, although, my Verizon store experiences were in NJ while I got the blackjack from an AT&T store in California. I suppose that could account for a difference in mentality and mental capability on its own, but being a Jersey boy I'm thinking its the companies, not the states ;).

The last thing I'd like to tell you all that I found out that might be of interest is that since I really ultimately wanted an iPhone I asked a lot of questions about it. As it turns out, while I received my Blackjack II at a discount for signing with AT&T for 2 years, were I to upgrade even today to an iPhone I would still be able to get the normal iPhone new subscriber price and would not have to break my contract on the Blackjack II. So this means I get all the benefit of having a new phone with GPS and 3G data in the meantime while Apple get's their act together, and when the new one comes out (as long as the policy doesn't change) I can upgrade to the iPhone without paying any penalty other than the $100 I paid for the Blackjack II (after $100 mail in rebate).

This seemed to me to be a great policy and a great deal, at least for me with my sights on the iPhone. Otherwise I might have gone with a prepaid phone or perhaps bought a cheapy phone on ebay and simply signed up for a contract free month to month service. So now I've got the best of both worlds.

Thanks AT&T - so far so good!

PS: the one thing that is interesting, not that I'll be roaming to Canada anytime soon, but AT&T's data rates there are $.015/KB compared with Verizon's now well known $.002/KB. So AT&T comes in at $15.36.MB - which seems outrageous compared to Verizon's $2.05/MB - so you folks on the border, make sure you do your math before making the switch like me.

PPS: I transfered my old Verizon number to my broadvoice account, since I was trialing AT&T and didn't want to hassle with the number portability thing (back and forth) should I decide to cancel. This worked out great as I use Broadvoice's simultanous ring feature so that should anyone call any of my old numbers, it will ring on my new phone. Then if and when I decide I will keep this phone I can either port my older number over to AT&T from Broadvoice, or just keep it in my Broadvoice account for less than $2/month. I'm really happy with their service. Anyone going over their monthly mobile minutes who also spends much of their time in front of a PC might want to look into Broadvoice. I use the free X-Lite from www.counterpath.com as my PC SIP client and make calls right from my computer. For anyone not familiar VoIP I can make and receive calls to and from any phone, and I also get unlimited calls to the US and many other countries included, all for about $27/month (including taxes). Remember too you can make calls from other countries for the same rates - as long as you have reasonable internet access (about 150KB/s up and down). Check out www.broadvoice.com.

Bye Bye Verizon!

How much more does it cost to acquire a new customer than to keep an existing one? This age old concept is part of any basic marketing or business curriculum anywhere. I guess Verizon can't be bothered with questions like this. Today they could have kept a customer, me, for the cost of a mere refurbished phone, instead they lost me and my $125/month annuity. It would have seemed to me to be a quick decision that would have paid them back within the first 2 weeks at most. Once again, the true meaning of the new word "VerizonMath" is again reinforced by their insightful policies.

I bet many of you are saying to yourselves "it's about time", but I stuck with them for a couple of reasons. 1) They do have great coverage. 2) I had a smart phone with unlimited data access which was convenient for connecting to my home machine, checking email etc. OK, so literally a couple of reasons, now that I look at it, its not that compelling.

My PDA phone has been acting up, shutting itself off right in the middle of calls, which my last one had done, and the one before that as well. It seems like every few months I needed to replace it.

I went to the local Verizon store, and I only wish I had recorded this experience as it was similarly comical to the famous call. First I explained to the greeter that my phone was acting up and I'd like to replace it with some basic phone, even a refurb.

I was "transfered" by the greeter to tech support since the fundamental issue was that my current phone was broken. The apathetic tech called my name, "Mr. George", I also noticed that another similarly enthusiastic tech called "Mrs. Kathy" around the same time. It seemed to me they might have had either a training issue or a software issue, but clearly a case of at least mild retardation all around. I mean, "Mrs. Kathy?" WTF?

Anyway, I explained the situation to the "tech" who explained that since I had insurance on my phone I could call Verizon and have them send me a new phone for $50. Great, except I didn't break the phone, it's mint, but defective. I had actually dropped one of my previous phones and used the insurance to get a new one so I was familiar with that process. I felt this was not a great option considering I have had many problems with this model (Audiovox XV6600) and didn't really want another one. I just wanted a simple phone and I could lose the PDA functions (to carry me until I found a better carrier/phone combo). He couldn't help me, so he "transfered" me to sales.

At this point the "transfer" process started to feel familiar yet very strange considering I was physically there in the store as opposed to on the phone.

I cut to the chase with the sales guy and asked him for a quote, full retail on the cheapest phone they had. He told me $189, and then looked into my account to find that I had a "credit" of $100 from Verizon's "new every 2" program. This was another bit of comedy. Since the cheapest phone they offer costs $189 (before $100 credit), "new every 2" really translates to "new every 2 at your cost of a few hundred for an equivalent phone or $89 for the crappiest phone we have, oh and by the way, we gotcha for another 2 years." Wow, thanks for that. How about I just cancel my contract since I'm past my 2 year commitment? Then I could conceivably just resign for another 2 years as a new customer and get more than $100 off a new phone. But that's what I get as a loyal Verizon customer, nothing.

I chose to cancel and walk. They suggested I cancel on the phone, but I wanted these idiots to personally experience whatever pain Verizon might dish (if any) to them for losing a customer. Honestly, I would have been happy paying $50 for a used crap phone.

So, I'm "transfered" again to customer service where I met the biggest gem of them all. I should have gotten his name. This guy, said "gnome sane" at least 10 times, which was baffling because he hadn't said anything that needed to be explained. I took my receipt for the cancellation and left. Fun times. See ya Verizon, it's been fun.

At any rate, I'm now without a cell phone. However I do have a BroadVoice VOIP account where anyone who has my old cell number, which I've had for years, can reach me as long as I'm in front of my computer. I can have my calls at that number routed by broadvoice to any other number for free - that's my version of number portability without all the hassles of the handover between cell carriers. I've been through my share of those - not fun.

I do have to get a new cell phone within the next month or so, and I wanted to ask for people's opinions. I travel very frequently so I can't go with a carrier/plan that has roaming charges or spotty coverage (I think that rules out T-Mobile (the spotty coverage part) - but that might have changed in the time since I had my account with them). I'd like 3g data, preferably DUN access so I can get online with my PC in the rare case when I'm not near a WI-FI hotspot, however this is not too important. I'd like a smartphone so I can send/receive emails, and preferably one with GPS (non subscription) since I used IGuidance on my PocketPC phone pretty frequently. Also, if it had WI-FI and a SIP client, that would be great too as I could use my BroadVoice account when I was home on the handset and not eat my airtime minutes, and not be stuck in front of my computer (as I am now with my PC based SIP software).

I'm thinking the iPhone would almost do what I want, sans the 3G and the GPS, but I hear from the Apple rumor mill those might be getting solved early next year with the next gen iPhone.

I did have a MOTO RAZR on a recent trip to Australia, and I loved the battery life - not having to charge the phone except every few days was amazing considering I usually had to have my pda phone plugged in whenever I was home and it'd barely last 8 hours on standby.

Anyway, if any of you have ideas, opinions about carriers and service and phones, I'd appreciate the insights. For the first time in over 10 years I don't have a cell phone, it feels a bit strange.

Alternatively, if AT&T want to send me a next gen (or current gen) iPhone or Nokia N95 and treat me like a king with a free subscription for a year just to prove how great they are, and really rub it into Verizon's face what a horrible company they are, that sounds good too.

In the meantime I'm just happy to be rid of those idiots. Honestly, I have never dealt with a company that valued its customers so low, and expressed it so clearly. "Worry free guarantee", "new every two" - my ass. So much for "in" - I'm out!

Verizon is still quoting in fractional cents per KB...

On my February 12th post here I reported that it appeared that Verizon had finally cleaned up their act with respect to quoting in fractional cents per KB instead of a more reasonable and understandable $ per MB.

It seems that the site I reported on was a b2b site (business to business). Well during some recent random searching on VerizonMath (I know, get a life) I found this.

It appears that while Verizon has cleaned up their quoting practices for b2b, they have not done the same on the consumer front.

The Main Problem with American Politics

Compromising one's scruples in the pursuit of one's self interests. Putting themselves before their constituents and country. Exchanging ethics for power.

Please visit and if you agree digg this post so that it gets the exposure it deserves:

http://digg.com/politics/Video_Harry_Reid_LIES_about_contribution_to_record_setting_eBay_Auction

It is in my opinion one of the most clearcut examples of what is wrong with our government and our media, both which were designed and claim to serve us.

Please have your mind opened enough to see the truth and understand what's at stake.

Thank you very much for your time.