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Not to mention that F&^@# Verizon is a crooked company that still acts if it has a monopoly.

How true. I stuck with a dial-up ISP for a couple years because Verizon was taking steps to drop FIOS into my neighborhood. Took them two years longer than we were originally told, and they really did a job on our yard, and out neighbors', cutting it up to drop the fiber lines and associated infrastructure in.

But I figured it was worth it. So first notice we get that it's available I call to schedule an installation appointment. Couple days beforehand I notice that someone's been out and run a fiber cable from the junction box in my front yard to my house. Everything looks good, right?

Install day arrives, and having taken the day off from work I call to confirm that they'll have someone out within the defined "window". They assure me that they will. Window closes, no one arrives, so I call back. The guy who was supposed to do my install called in "sick", but they'll have someone out within an hour and a half.

Hour and a half passes, so I call back. They'll have the "first available" out. I ask if that means they'll have someone out that day, or actually expect me to take the next day off from work too - am told no: that if they can't get someone out before 5pm I'll have to reschedule for a later date. I ask for when the next date will be, and am told its three weeks down the road.

I cancel my order completely (the one thing they were actually efficient about), called up my cable TV service and had a cable modem that I was able to setup myself the *next day*.

Then I cancel our cell phones (iPhone made it easy). And our landline. Am officially "Verizon Free".

So to summarize: Verizon had a happy, loyal customer (I'd been with Bell Atlantic and before that C&P) that was looking forward to a new and unique service they were offering. They were able to get everything in place - all the way running the fiber right up to my house - but could ... not ... provision ... the ... service.

And because of their incompetence they lost that happy, loyal customer. Completely.

Verizon has done worse than that to us and others that I know. They put a ding on our credit for a hundred dollar charge from more than fifteen years ago, but they can’t tell us what it was for or why we were never billed for it. As near as we can figure, the bill is probably from a time that we moved and shut the service off at one house and had it turned on at another. Verizon forgot to shut off the first house for three months, but never sent us a bill. The new people finally felt guilty enough to have the phone changed to their name.

Another friend of mine had an unpaid bill put on their credit for a step son who died. The young man had the same name as his father, but lived on the other side of the country his whole life. Both happened to be Verizon customers.