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You're Wasting My Fucking Time:
Preparing to pay my (not yet disconnected) landline phone bill Sunday afternoon I noticed 13 Toll Charge calls itemized on there that I didn't make. I haven't used that line in two or three months at least. Blew the dust off a handset and discovered that I have no dialtone. It took 10-15 minutes of navigating voice mail menus in the billing system to discover they were not open on weekends and I didn't feel like starting with the repair people, figuring I'd deal with that today.
Finally got to start with Verizon around 15:30. After explaining the problem, a records check to see if there had been a note of the line being released for reassignment or porting, being told I needed to talk to both toll charge office and repair office, given a phone number to call back the toll charge people if I was disconnected, I was transferred to somewhere. Got through the "name/phone number/ account number foryoursecurity" bullshit with Verizontal employee #2, he was pulling up my records and we were cut off. Called back the 1-800 number I was given and got Ray. Ray doesn't work for Verizon. Ray is an elderly small business owner somewhere in Oklahoma who, by his reports, gets 5 or 6 of these calls a day because Verizon call reps keep giving out the wrong toll free prefix. We had a brief chat (he does small engine repair or something and is otherwise very bored and underemployed), I disconnected and tried all the other prefixes since he couldn't recall which one was the "right" one. Attempt #3 being successful (1-877) I get a Verizon office who can give me numbers but cannot transfer me.
Back into Verizon voice response menu hell. Long story short (I was almost 30 minutes invested by now so ppphhbbblltttt) I'm talking with Danielle in toll charges who starts a process of wanting to go call by call through the list of 13 charges. After one on-hold/she calls the number/reports back to me "it's a cell phone so we do not have any information" I explain the no dial tone and call-my-number-and-get-a-parking-garage problems whereupon she explains that I'll first have to talk to repair and once they report they've corrected any problem the toll charges can be removed. Great. Transfer to despair.
New Verizon voice who mumbled her name works through the script, runs a line test (which shows up clean), starts into the "plug a phone into the NID" bit when I interrupt and ask, "Have you called my home phone number? Please do. You'll get a parking garage. My phone won't ring. I can even hold the phone up to my cell phone headset if you'd like to listen." She puts me on hold for a bit and comes back claiming that someone answered but it wasn't me. "Great," I think, "that should cut through the BS and they can fix this without further prompting from me." I am such a fool.
Nameless voice picks up the script with plugging a phone into the NID. I explain that I all I have readily available are cordless phones and there's no power plug out there so there's a bit of a problem doing that. She gives me a bit of patronizing patter about how I need to reset all of my "phone devices" and I can pick up a cheap phone at Radio Shack for these circumstances and that they can roll a truck but I'll be responsible for the service call if the problem isn't in the network. I'm flabbergasted at this response. "Wait a second. Didn't you just call my home number and get a parking garage? How is it possible that a problem in my house wiring could connect callers to a completely different location?" "Equipment interference." GMAFB.
Moving on, I get the repair number to call back to, which I'm assured is a direct number, cobble together a wired handset and test at the NID. No dialtone. Big surprise. I call the number I was given and get the same goddamn start-from-first-principles voice menu system I got every other time I called a published service number for Verizon, but one with the added benefit of preventing you from actually speaking to anyone once progressing past the point where it indicated it found my open case file. My only option for moving forward was a Thursday truck roll, "between the hours of 8am and 7pm" with a requirement that someone be here to give them access to the premises regardless of the fact that they can check the NID without anyone being here.
Now I'm stuck having to have Verizon admit to and correct their cross-connect or switch programming fuckup before the ever-growing number of incorrect charges on my phone bill can be reversed so I can just get the damn thing disconnected.
Preparing to pay my (not yet disconnected) landline phone bill Sunday afternoon I noticed 13 Toll Charge calls itemized on there that I didn't make. I haven't used that line in two or three months at least. Blew the dust off a handset and discovered that I have no dialtone. It took 10-15 minutes of navigating voice mail menus in the billing system to discover they were not open on weekends and I didn't feel like starting with the repair people, figuring I'd deal with that today.
Finally got to start with Verizon around 15:30. After explaining the problem, a records check to see if there had been a note of the line being released for reassignment or porting, being told I needed to talk to both toll charge office and repair office, given a phone number to call back the toll charge people if I was disconnected, I was transferred to somewhere. Got through the "name/phone number/ account number foryoursecurity" bullshit with Verizontal employee #2, he was pulling up my records and we were cut off. Called back the 1-800 number I was given and got Ray. Ray doesn't work for Verizon. Ray is an elderly small business owner somewhere in Oklahoma who, by his reports, gets 5 or 6 of these calls a day because Verizon call reps keep giving out the wrong toll free prefix. We had a brief chat (he does small engine repair or something and is otherwise very bored and underemployed), I disconnected and tried all the other prefixes since he couldn't recall which one was the "right" one. Attempt #3 being successful (1-877) I get a Verizon office who can give me numbers but cannot transfer me.
Back into Verizon voice response menu hell. Long story short (I was almost 30 minutes invested by now so ppphhbbblltttt) I'm talking with Danielle in toll charges who starts a process of wanting to go call by call through the list of 13 charges. After one on-hold/she calls the number/reports back to me "it's a cell phone so we do not have any information" I explain the no dial tone and call-my-number-and-get-a-parking-garage problems whereupon she explains that I'll first have to talk to repair and once they report they've corrected any problem the toll charges can be removed. Great. Transfer to despair.
New Verizon voice who mumbled her name works through the script, runs a line test (which shows up clean), starts into the "plug a phone into the NID" bit when I interrupt and ask, "Have you called my home phone number? Please do. You'll get a parking garage. My phone won't ring. I can even hold the phone up to my cell phone headset if you'd like to listen." She puts me on hold for a bit and comes back claiming that someone answered but it wasn't me. "Great," I think, "that should cut through the BS and they can fix this without further prompting from me." I am such a fool.
Nameless voice picks up the script with plugging a phone into the NID. I explain that I all I have readily available are cordless phones and there's no power plug out there so there's a bit of a problem doing that. She gives me a bit of patronizing patter about how I need to reset all of my "phone devices" and I can pick up a cheap phone at Radio Shack for these circumstances and that they can roll a truck but I'll be responsible for the service call if the problem isn't in the network. I'm flabbergasted at this response. "Wait a second. Didn't you just call my home number and get a parking garage? How is it possible that a problem in my house wiring could connect callers to a completely different location?" "Equipment interference." GMAFB.
Moving on, I get the repair number to call back to, which I'm assured is a direct number, cobble together a wired handset and test at the NID. No dialtone. Big surprise. I call the number I was given and get the same goddamn start-from-first-principles voice menu system I got every other time I called a published service number for Verizon, but one with the added benefit of preventing you from actually speaking to anyone once progressing past the point where it indicated it found my open case file. My only option for moving forward was a Thursday truck roll, "between the hours of 8am and 7pm" with a requirement that someone be here to give them access to the premises regardless of the fact that they can check the NID without anyone being here.
Now I'm stuck having to have Verizon admit to and correct their cross-connect or switch programming fuckup before the ever-growing number of incorrect charges on my phone bill can be reversed so I can just get the damn thing disconnected.