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How to Cancel Verizon DSL, by Consumer Avenger
This site was set up by a consumer activist called ConsumerAvenger because so many people are having problems with their Verizon DSL service. Some have problems canceling the service, others getting it set up, others with the billing and charges. Others have technical problems. These problems are widespread due to incompetence and greed on the part of the company. To be fair, certain problems are more widespread than others. Difficulty canceling seems to be the most universal. Everyone who has Verizon DSL is not disatisfied with the internet connection itself, and some didn't find it hard to set up (although many do). Quality of the service may vary by region, proximity to an urban center, neighorhood, or relative location to the needed cables. Ask people in your area how they like their high speed internet provider before you chose one.
CANCELING VERIZON DSL
CANCELING VERIZON DSL THROUGH THEIR REGULAR CHANNEL IS AN OBSTACLE COURSE YOU SHOULD NOT GO THROUGH
Verizon DSL's regular "cancellation process" is beyond belief. It often takes people a year. Yes, a year. You read that right. It may take twenty or more hours of your time. After that time you may still be receiving bills for charges you don't owe. For confirmation, check the postings at Scott Manning's To Hell With Verizon DSL pages and the article in the Oregon Herald (see links below) There is no way a company can ask its customers to spend twenty hours and a year to cancel a high speed internet connection.
THEREFORE CONSUMER AVENGER RECOMMENDS THAT IF YOU WANT TO CANCEL IT, YOU CANCEL VERIZON DSL BY A FIRMLY WORDED LETTER OR E-MAIL TO THE CEO.
That legally obligates them to cancel your account and not charge you further.
MAILING ADDRESS FOR THE CEO OF VERIZON:
Ivan Seidenberg
CEO
Verizon Communications
1095 Avenue of the Americas, 36th Floor
New York, NY 10036
VERIZON'S NATIONAL CORPORATE HEADQUARTERS PHONE NUMBERS (SUPPOSEDLY)
Phone: (212) 395-2121
Fax: (212) 921-2971
(I'd still recommend writing over calling)
Some people will want to add a letter or complaint to their Public Utilties Commission, or the Attorney General of New York where Verizon's headquarters are.
Contact Your State's Public Utilities Commission
Complain About Verizon To New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer
When your letter or e-mail is received at Verizon, their President's Appeals Office will most likely start the process of canceling your account.
PROCESS OF CANCELING MY ACCOUNT?
Even if you go through the Verizon's President's Office, it may still take four months to complete your cancellation of Verizon DSL. Four months is better than a year.
There may be twists and turns and unexpected charges as seen in the Scott Manning site below:
To Hell With Verizon DSL Part Freakin' IV
To Hell With Verizon DSL Park III
To Hell With Verizon DSL Part II
To Hell With Verizon DSL Part I
The way to deal with all of these is to send another letter or e-mail to the CEO, or at the very least the CEO of your local Verizon office. This will be the easiest way; a few hours and four months as opposed to a year and twenty or forty hours, much of it spend on hold. Do not call any of Verizon's numbers for customers. If you aren't getting the proper results, write complaints, threaten to write complaints, etc. Don't put yourself in Verizon's voice mail jail. That way customer service people are more likely to be calling you.
THE PREPAID LABEL FOR RETURNING YOUR VERIZON MODEM MIGHT OR MIGHT NOT ARRIVE, EVEN IF THEY GIVE YOU A CONFIRMATION NUMBER. Verizon is the only company I've ever known that may not honor its confirmation numbers. If they do send a label, it will probably be sent by first class mail (so you know how long to wait). You may have the option of returning the equipment to a Verizon location in your area. BE SURE TO GET A RECEIPT, BECAUSE (drumroll) :
VERIZON IS BILLING PEOPLE FOR MODEMS THAT ARE ALREADY RETURNED. THEY MAY ATTEMPT TO DEBIT YOUR BANK ACCOUNT FOR A MODEM THAT IS ALREADY RETURNED IF YOU HAVE AUTOMATIC PAYMENT. If this should happen to you, again, make them go through their own incredible obstacle course. Write the letter, e-mail, or complaint and hopefully someone from the company will call you and spend the hours on the phone to correct it calling the relevant offices.
HAS VERIZON SENT A COLLECTION AGENCY TO COLLECT MONEY YOU DON'T OWE?
Some people are having this experience. By federal law a debt collector may not contact you after you send them a letter asking them to cease and desist. Tell them that the debt is disputed and invalid and that you are invoking federal law to ask them to cease and desist from contacting you. Tell them they will be sued if they put any negative information on your credit report. After that they can contact you one more time to acknowledge receipt of the letter, but no more.
Should you wish to confirm this, I'd recommend that you consult the book "Back Off" by Benjamin Dover, a definitive work about collection agencies, credit, and debt. You may find it in your library, and it is also being sold at Amazon and another website.
INSTALLATION
HAVING TROUBLE GETTING GETTING YOUR VERIZON DSL INSTALLED AND TURNED ON?
A number of people have had this problem. If you still want to do this, my advice would be the same as for people trying to cancel. Write a letter or e-mail to the CEO and possibly a relevant agency.
I don't have the capacity to help you with your technical problems, but you can see customers and Verizon Techs discussing them at Scott Manning's site.
To Hell With Verizon DSL Part Freakin' IV
To Hell With Verizon DSL Park III
To Hell With Verizon DSL Part II
To Hell With Verizon DSL Part I
HAVE A ONE PERSON PROTEST OUTSIDE YOUR LOCAL VERIZON OFFICE AND CALL THE MEDIA.
Get some poster board and make a sign or sandwich board and walk up and down outside your local Verizon office. You can hand out leaflets you've made, or chant your grievance. Call the media to let them know about your protest.
I've been in the media dozens of times and this is how you do it. Call television stations with news departments, ask for the newsroom, tell them you have a news tip. Call newpapers, ask for the editorial department, ask for the city desk or tell them you have a news tip. This will all take some time and some work with your phone book. Allow the time for it. It's a bit confusing but ask for the proper departments.
Doing this the day before is a good idea. Don't send a press release, phone calls are best.
Legally you are allowed to demonstrate on public property, like a sidewalk, unless you are blocking foot traffic. On private property that is open to the public, they will probably have to ask you to leave before they can arrest you for tresspassing. That is the probable legality of it. You have a right to protest. Freedom of speech is enshrined in our constitution.
Have I done this? Yes, I have. Not with Verizon, but I have staged one-person public demonstrations on consumer matters. Politically I've attended and organized many protests and been in the media many times, as I said.
If you do appear in the media, I'm guessing that 500 or 1,000 people would chose not to get Verizon DSL because of that. That's a lot of power.
COMPLAIN TO YOUR STATE'S PUBLIC UTILITIES COMMISSION
Some people are reporting positive results from filing complaints with public utilities commissions. These commissions vary in their effectiveness. Some are lame but some, apparently, are not.
Contact Your State's Public Utilities Commission
FILE A COMPLAINT AGAINST VERIZON WITH THE ATTORNEY GENERAL OF NEW YORK, WHERE VERIZON'S HEADQUARTERS ARE LOCATED
Verizon is headquartered in New York which has a really tough Attorney General, Eliot Spitzer. He has gone after a lot of corporate criminals. Here is the link to file a complaint with the New York Attorney General's Office.
Complain About Verizon To New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer
There's no guarantee they will pick up your complaint or that your problem is something they normally deal with. On the other hand, if enough people complain, the NY Attorney General may decide to pursue this.
SEE CONSUMER COMPLAINTS ABOUT VERIZON, OR MAKE ONE YOURSELF
There's a lot of online consumer complaint sites to sift through. After checking into them quite a lot, I recommend these as three top online consumer complaint sites. They have lots of complaints to look at, and are legitimate and sincere.
Complaints.com
ConsumerAffairs.com
Unless it's changed, Complaints.com will publish your complaint. It may take one or two months for them to post it, due to a backlog. On the good side, their procedure is very simple, you just send an e-mail to the address they provide with whatever you choose to say. That's it.
Consumer Affairs only publishes a minority of complaints submitted to them, but they use them for statistical purposes.
VerizonPathetic.com
The name says it all.
Scott Manning's To Hell With Verizon DSL Pages
Website owner Scott Manning has created an popular place for aggrieved Verizon DSL customers and workers to share their experiences. The postings are divided up into four sections.
To Hell With Verizon DSL Part Freakin' IV
To Hell With Verizon DSL Park III
To Hell With Verizon DSL Part II
To Hell With Verizon DSL Part I
FIRE THE CEO
Everything I've seen of Verizon tells me that CEO Ivan Seidenberg is incompetent and should be fired.
Fire the CEO. Ivan must go. . . .
I'm not sure if it will do any good but here are the names of National Verizon's Board of Directors, if you want to contact them.
Verizon's Board of Directors
However, it looks like they are all his subordinates, at work; and his bosses on the Board. I think they should fire the whole lot of them.
NEWS ABOUT VERIZON
--RE CLASS ACTION SUITS:
Writer Kristin Davis wrote an article on fed up DSL customers for Kiplingers Magazine. "Frustrated consumers are also venting their wrath in numerous class-action lawsuits. One suit against Verizon complains about service slowdowns and outages, as well as miserable customer service and tech support. " See Article
From the "Class Action Reporter." Read about a class action suit filed "by the firm of Cohen, Milstein, Hausfeld & Toll. It accuses the nation's largest telephone company of signing up hundreds of thousands of DSL customers while knowing it was not ready to deliver customer-friendly service." See Article
Scroll down until you see the article.
--MORE NEWS ABOUT VERIZON
Verizon's DSL e-mail sent back e-mails originating in England for three days, because e-mails from England are bad. Seriously. "Verizon's E-Mail Embargo Enrages" Wired News January 10, 2005 See Article.
"Verizon Online under investigation for fraud, theft, corruption."
Oregon Herald, February 13, 2004, Story by Ralph Metcalf
A hard-hitting article that tells the truth about the whole cancellation policy scam. Good work, reporter Ralph Metcalf. No minced words. See article
Email to ConsumerAvenger "at" yahoo.com
Free Web Pages
Consumer Avenger's Fast Food Expose
Consumer Avengers Anti-Junk Mail Page
To Hell With Verizon DSL III
To Hell With Verizon DSL IV
File Complaint with NY Attorney General
Contact Your State's Public Utilities Commission
Send E-Mail to: see above
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