How to spoil a movie night in one easy step.
Last night, my wife and I decided to watch a movie using Verizon FiOS TV’s video-on-demand (VOD) feature. About an hour into the movie, the audio started breaking up and the video started pixelating. Then this error message appeared:
“Error
A problem has occurred with your request. Please ensure that the wires are securely connected to your set-top box. If you continue to experience problems please contact Verizon at (888)553-1555 and specify code (CL-14).”
Yes, happy Valentine’s Day to you too, Verizon. My wife had fallen asleep on the sofa, so I put on some soft music and used the opportunity to help Verizon debug their problem. I’m such a nice consumer.
Incidentally, in the old days, area codes were optional for local calls, which is why they were put in parenthesis. Most area codes are no longer optional, and toll-free area codes never were, so let’s all agree never ever to put area codes in parenthesis again. Mmm-kay?
I called Verizon and waited 18 minutes on hold before getting to speak to somebody. While on hold, I did what every TV consumer would do in the same situation. (No, not go to the bathroom.) I went to the basement, restarted the broadband router (being sure to leave it off for about 20 seconds), came back upstairs, restarted the cable box (ditto), and tried to access VOD again. No luck, same error message. One variant of the error message simply referred to “Error 14” and didn’t include a phone number.
Guess what the Verizon representative suggested? Yup, restarting the router and cable box. So we did, same results.
“Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”
– Albert Einstein
At this point, my romantic Valentine’s Day evening was toast. Maybe the V-Day Blizzard of ’07 had knocked out a Verizon server? Maybe VOD was getting hammered by all the romantic couples in New England? I asked the Verizon rep where he was. California.
I was on the phone with Verizon for 55 minutes and they were not able to solve the problem. We verified that FiOS Internet service worked fine, Verizon TV worked fine, everything worked except VOD. Sounds like a Verizon VOD server issue to me. Or maybe I was just imagining the problem. Could be either.
I had to ask the rep what Verizon was going to do to make this very patient customer whole. (Hint #1: good companies take the initiative to make their customers happy and actually have their own ideas about how to do this. Hint #2: keeping customers on the phone for 55 minutes to debug a 2-hour movie and then offering no compensation isn’t one of those good ideas.) He asked me to call back and check on the trouble ticket. After my prompting, he said that he’d ask his supervisor about giving a week of service credit (whatever that means). I explained that I had invested 55 minutes of my life on this and was not investing any more time. I said that they could email me to close out the matter. The Verizon rep said he had no means to send email to me. (They should try Verizon FiOS Internet service in California.) “Humor me,” I said, “and enter my email address in the file.” He did. I’m not holding my breath.
Verizon is making Apple TV look better every day.
I have had Verizon for a year now. When I first had the battery backup installed, it failed, due to a bad wire. They promptly came out and fixed it, gave me 3 days credit. I have not had a problem since. I love the service. It’s 10 times better than Comcrap and DirectTV. One intermittent problem I have is that I lose my favorite channel settings once in a while. I spoke to a service rep (within 5 minutes mind you) and was told that they have been having problems with the Motorola boxes and Verizon will be using the new Scientific Atlanta boxes, which is great news. Also, I was told that Verizon is dropping all of their anaolg channels and will be adding 150 true HD channels (not compressed) along with the NFL Package, MLB Package and NASCAR on Demand. I inquired about Howard Stern on Demand, but the rep wasn’t sure. He said (and, yes, I know he works for Verizon) by the end of ’08, Verizon will be the leader in content and the rest of the providers will be scrambling to catch up for years to come. I’ve read alot of horror stories about installation, but have not experienced any problems myself. And from what I hear is coming down the pipe, even if it was a PITA, it’s still totally worth it. Bottom Line : If you can get it, don’t wait, it’s totally worth it.
I’m trying to watch my first complete Red Sox game of the season on NESN (channel 65), but no luck. The channel is pixelating, audio is cutting out, video is freezing, and sometimes the screen goes blank (with a “not currently available” screen). Of course, it’s only happening to NESN. I called Verizon customer support (using the phone number from the front of my bill) and spoke with a helpful CS rep after only about 5 minutes on hold. Guess what? Lots of Red Sox fans have reported the same problem, and it should be fixed in about an hour.
I Wish Erik T Heels would send these posts to some Verizon executive who has the Ball- to do something about this complele “FAILURE” of FIOS customer Service
I posted on Feb 12th that I had Fios install on Dec 10th 2007. No acknowledgement of who I Iwas etc from Verizon. on Feb 19th 2008, lo an behold they knew me even tho they had been billing me since Dec 12th 2007. Now I could concisely revieve my T V offer in 6 to 8 weeks. Now that that time has pasted, the rules are 10 weeks. It is now April 18th 2008. “NO ONE” should ever believe any Verizon offer!!!!!
We had been thinking about getting verizon fios for awhile since we still had dial up AOL. I have had cablevision for many years and really have had no problems with it. I decided to get the triple bundle package for 95.99/month especially since they were advertising a free 19 inch HDTV which I will use in a spare room. We had it installed on 2/6/08 and everything went well. We had a multiroom DVR which worked well and the internet was great. We had ordered the verizon internet security suite which I installed on 2/10, but becuse it caused numerous problems with my computer including causing it to turn off and go to a black screen I called tech support and after uninstalling, reinstalling and having the same problem, I uninstalled again and everything was fine with the computer. I called billing the next day 2/18 to cancell the VISS and she said she did. The next week I am getting pop-ups telling me that I ordered VISS but it is not yet installed. I called billing on 2/27 and said I had called to cancell but I am getting pop-ups. She said the system is down but she would be sure to make sure it was cancelled when it came back up. March 18 and I am getting a very large pop-up saying to install my VISS again. I billing again and she tells me to call tech support who is very nice and we go through “my account” and manually cancell it on the computer. Now the status says cancelled instead of “active” so I feel as if the problem is really over with. Ha Ha! Needless to say I am still being billed for the VISS and my bill now does not give me the bundle price and is charging me as if I have each service separately. My April bill is $178.00. I call billing on 4/8 and speak to Yvonne. She says she has never seen such a messed up bill and after being on hold tells me she has to send it to an “account specialist” and it would take a few days to fix. She told me she would call me back on Friday and gave me her voice mail number if I wanted to call her. Wow! This seems like progress. I went to work and when I came home I tried the voice mail number. To my surprise it went to “the fiber solution center” and said leave your name and number if you want to order fios or direct tv. My heart sank, why would she offer to give me a fake number, she seemed like she was really trying to help. I waited until Friday and she never called. I even left a message for her at the “fiber solution center” and she did not respond. Why is it so hard to resolve a problem here? Why do they act so nice and just lie?
And now Problem #2. I was told by the service rep and the installer that I would get a letter in the mail for the “free” tv in 3 weeks. I waited and no letter. I called and was told that they are behind and it would be 4-6 weeks. I called back at 5 weeks and was told to wait for my bill to go through. I received my first bill and paid it and called again. This time it was a 2 hour on hold, being transferred, being told about “terms of sevice agreement”, talking to tech support, being told a supervisor would call me and no result. I called again and was told to call a reward center which said I was not in their system. Called again to billing and told to call reward center again. Explained everything to the reward system service rep and he put me into their system and give me a reference # (yea – proof), and says in 4-6 weeks I would get a letter. I never got a letter and called back the reward center. The girl said if you did not receive a letter, you can not call here, call the eligiblity number. ARGH! I call the number she gave me and the woman said that I had done everything right and that there was an error on their part and she was going to fill out some forms and have the TV sent to my house in 6-10 weeks. When I asked for an order number she had none. Somehow I do not believe a TV will ever come to my house, nor will any letter. I feel as if this was just a ploy so I will not call back for 6 weeks.
Problem # 3. Finally, I recieved a letter explaining about their go digital campaign and a number to call for free digital adapters if you call before April 30. I called on Saturday 3/29 since I have 3 TV’s without a box. I was told I could get 3 free adapters. She put me on hold while she went in to order. I was on hold for 20-30 minutes (this total call took 2 hours), she came back and said there was a lock on my account and that they could not get into it and to call customer service on Monday and that 3 people including a supervisor had tried. I asked to speak to the supervisor and she said that they can not see that I have fios TV, only the phone (no internet either). Well they seem to know that I have them for billing because not only am I charged for them but they are not giving me the bundle price, but they are charging me separately for $178.00. She tried a few things and finally said she would call me back either the same day or Monday by 3pm. She never called! I called Tuesday 4/1, and started from scratch. This girl put me on hold 30 minutes and came back and said I will get 3 digital adapters coming by UPS in 3 to 5 days. Wow! Yea! 2 weeks went by and nothing came, I called again and had to explain everything that had happened so far, she put me on hold (this call was 1hour 45 minutes), she came back and said they can not get into my account and that it only shows I have phone service, but that she did believe that I had fios TV and to call customer service. I asked for a supervisor and got Emily who I had to explain the whole story to again. She was very enthusiastic and really wanted to resolve the problem. She put me on hold and called customer service. They can not see my internet or “video”account either. They told her to call tech support which can see everthing (finally some validation that I exist), but they are unable to order anything from their screen. The tech support tried to help her but to no avail. Still they can not order the digital adapters because they can not get into my account. Emily goes to her supervisor and comes back to tell me they will have scrub or wipe out my account and then put it back correctly and then everything should be fine (Oh my god! This seems like it cause even bigger problems). She tells me that Clemente her supervisor will call me back by 3pm and everything will be fixed. Well 3pm and no phone call. I went to work and I called and asked for Emily. I had to explain to the woman who answered the phone everything again. She put me on hold and came back saying that Emily said she had done whatever she could do for me and that Clemente was in a meeting and would call me at my job before 9pm. He never called but the nice woman who took all the messages did and told me they were working on it and not to call until next Thursday, and that they can not order the free adapters until this problem is resolved because they can not get into the account. SCREAM! I spent hours on the phone for digital adapters and nothing! I am only able to spend so much time calling because I work 4pm-12am! There has to be someone who can take care of this. It seems that if this problem is fixed then maybe I can get the free TV, my bill be be correct and I would be able to get the adapters. The adapters should have taken a phone call of 10 – 20 minutes tops. No one wants to take care of anything there and they refuse to give me a name of a higher manager or executive to talk to. They just push it off to someone else and then you have to call again and start from scratch. I feel like I have accomplished nothing and I have no proof that I called countless times and spents hours and hours with no results. I am still at square one! Can anyone help me! The only address I was given is a customer relations office in NY, but with no one to address it to and no phone number. At this point I just feel defeated. I don’t know what else to do. I have called so many times. HELP! My email is Cattin24@aol.com if anyone has any suggestions
Burned in Oregon: Please contact me at fchrist[at]maccor.org. I work for the local government and regulate Verizon’s cable services. I’d like to talk with you about your experience.
Verizon told me that if I switch to triple play FIOS I would receive a 19 LCD TV free. I switched in Jan 08 and today after many phone calls they said it was a mistake and they are not offering the TV. These guys are criminals and someone has to stop them.
Sat down last night, March 30 2008, with some friends and family to watch the Wrestlemania PPV. The PPV does not come on and FIOS is almost impossible to reach. After more than 90 minutes I am able to reach someone, won’t tell you how many times my call was cut off, who informs me it is a network wide issue, they don’t know what caused it, and don’t know how long it will take to fix. You would think Verizon, an hour into the problem, would have more information.
Everybody hating Fios with so many problems. I have had all services for 2 years with no problems at all. Picture is superior to cablevison, internet speed is 4 times faster then cablevision and the phone is as clear as when it was copper. just signed up for 2 more years
We had Direct TV and loved it. We have had FIOS for over one year and hate it. The VOD is useless it freezes up so much. DON’T SWITCH TO FIOS!