When I moved from the city out to this place in 2011, one thing I never considered (stupidly) is internet access.  In the beginning, and for probably 10 or more (sorry memory fails me) of those years I used satellite internet from Hughesnet.  It worked fairly well, except whenever it snowed, and I had to get out there with a broom and clear it off, on a rolly chair in the driveway in winter.  It had a data cap of 40 gb per month, which isn’t very much if you watch streaming.  The price was over $100/month.  Beggars can’t be choosers.

Then came Verizon’s internet hotspot, cheap at $30/month.  The Android phone that was also on the plan gave me a monthly bill of around $125.  The hotspot gave 50gb and the phone another 50gb.  The hotspot was cheap, but the inconvenience of it, having to watch the battery drain then die quickly meant always watching the bars and plugging and unplugging it, was tolerable because again, beggars can’t be choosers.  Oh, I also had to buy the hotspot for $300, paid for at $7 a month tacked onto the bill.  The phone service was fantastic so no complaints but the price.

I’d checked periodically at Xfinity/Comcast to see if/when fiber optic cable would come to my rural area.  My road has had a growing # of McMansions built out here in the last 5 years, so the owners of these McMansions need internet.  I was on a mailing list to be notified if their service was coming out here.  

Last year, I got an email saying yes, they were headed out here with lightning fast fiber optic cable.  I watched them methodically prepare the area, planting flags, replacing spindly power poles with sturdy, girthy ones, adding mysterious boxes and cable covers along the pole, etc. while clearing mega noxious underbrush away — thank you, Xfinity!  During one of these work crew work bees, I asked one the drones for the scoop.  He said this road was one of the first being worked on and I might have it by December.  That didn’t work out, but… in March of this year, I got the hookup!  Yes!  Now I have a white box about the size of a toaster turned on its end, plugged into an outlet.  No cables or wires needed beyond that.  Never needs to be charged.  Unlimited data.  Comes with free phone service for a year (I brought my own phone) and the monthly cost is $60/month for both, with internet price guaranteed for 5 years.  Call me a happy camper.

You may be wondering why Verizon is the title of this post.  I got the new service in the first few days of March. (My verizon service cycle ends on the 28th of the month.)  Once older son helped me transfer and activate everything with Xfinity and I “saw that it was good,” older son got on live chat with Verizon and made sure everything was set with them.  That night I got back on live chat with Verizon and said I wanted my internet hot spot and phone service canceled immediately.  The phone was already working under Xfinity at this point.  The customer service rep said they would cancel but it was already into a new billing cycle and that she couldn’t stop the billing that already happened, but I would get a refund on the days I didn’t use it (28th of the month is the service date, so let’s just say a credit for the 3 weeks.)  

A couple of weeks ago, I got an email from Verizon, saying I owe them $40.  This was followed by a snail mail bill saying I owe them $40.  To get this sorted out, I went to their website and tried to sign in with my login and password.  It gave me a message, “You seem to have stepped away from your computer.  Please try again.” (paraphrased)  So I tried again.  And again.  Each time getting the same message.  So, I went to the live chat that son and I used for everything else, to get this sorted.  The bot asked for a subject.  I said billing.  It said sign in.  Same rigamarole.  I closed out of the screen, went back, and this time typed “live rep.”  Up pops the sign in request.  No luck same bs.  Closed out the page again.  Went back to verizon, this time going for “buying something.”  No luck.  They’ve covered all bases.

The snail mail letter was vaguely threatening, something about do I want my credit dragged through the mud for not paying the $40.  Sounds like extortion to me.  

Potential buyer of services and products from Verizon, BEWARE.