June 12, 2009 Verizon Customer Relations Team 14025 Riveredge Drive, Suite 300 Tampa, Florida 33637 Dear Customer Relations Team, The purpose of this letter is to inform you of a distinct problem in the delivery of 3.0 mbps Verizon High Speed Internet Service by the Verizon Central Office at 380 Convent Avenue in New York (NYCMNYCA) and a request for you work on correcting it. I have been a Verizon customer for many years and have been satisfied in general with my telephone and DSL service. There have been a few occasions where minor troubles, like resetting my password, were encountered that were handled by call center technicians. However, there have been four trouble tickets that were handled terribly by the NYCMNYCA that serves my account and the latest ticket has been the stimulus to write this letter. My account record and voice recordings should be available so these events can be reviewed precisely and you do not have to depend on my memory. Nevertheless, the events are 1) a high level of static noise on the telephone line after installation of the DSL service which lasted over a year, 2) an outage of DSL service due to the assignment of another account to my pair of wires, 3) the failure to deliver an upgrade of 3360/864 kbps services and loss of more than one week of service due to that failure and 4) the recent occurrence of the same failure to upgrade again to 3360/864 kbps until I raised bloody hell about having it fixed. It still is not working properly. The most recent trouble ticket was the same as 3 rd problem with the first 3.0 mbps upgrade, which was never resolved. It started on May 26 th, the day I ordered the service, until it was partly resolved on May 29th after hours talking on the telephone with call center personnel in India. Tech support worked hard to resolve the issue despite my verbal outrage and constant pressure for better service. These include India call center personnel Rom, Chandu, Sandeep, Jyothi and Carlton and a Mrs. Smith in Customer Solutions who seemed to be in the US during a three way call. They did their best in the most professional manner to help a very angry, dissatisfied customer while protecting the face of Verizon. They came through and returned my service to 768 kbps so I would have not lose service over the weekend and until the 3.0 mbps service could be reliably established. When the 3.0 mbps service came up, I had 80-85 % of the 3.0 mbps download speed but upload speed was still a little variable and lower than the expected 80-85 % of what was assigned. Then
connection then died completely yet again on June 4 th in the late evening. No signal at all. Then it was up again. My assigned speed is now 3360/864 kbps. I waited for stability and the results in the table below were recorded on June 7 th. lbb10 VERIZON TEST HISTORY (Taken from DSLreports.com) TIME 09:56 AM 09:55 AM 09:54 AM 09:52 AM 09:45 AM 09:44 AM 09:43 AM TEST java java java DOWNLOA D 2668 Kbps 75 Kbps 253 Kbps 458 Kbps 204 Kbps 381 Kbps 1043 Kbps 406 Kbps 936 Kbps 313 Kbps 899 Kbps 286 Kbps 1347 Kbps 529 Kbps UPLOAD SERVER DOMAIN California, USA New Jersey, USA California, USA Sprint (Chicago IL) TekSavvy Solutions Inc (Toronto ON) NAC (Parsippany NJ) Speakeasy (New York NY) It is clear from the table that I am not getting the bandwidth service I am paying for. UPDATE: On June 12 th at 12:57 AM, I am unable to complete an upload speed test on any bandwidth test site on the WWW. Upload connection to a test server cannot be made. I cannot make e-mail attachments. Down load speed is 2138 kbps. Later in the morning at, 7:45 am service was in again and I was able to upload e-mail attachments.. After ordering on May 26th, the download speed was fine and was working at 2800 kbps or better on all test sites on May 27th, but the upload speed was intermittent, extremely slow and was less than 30% of the assigned 864 kbps as tested on seven different bandwidth test sites. The upload speed ranged between a high of 334 and a low of 37 kbps. Since the upload speed was slow and intermittent, internet use was choppy the day after the order and by mid morning on the May 27th there was no service at all. The DSL line was inoperable. Then the calls for tech support began.
The issue, however, was not resolved quickly with tech support because of the inability of the Verizon Central Office on Convent Avenue in New York to do the job. There was never any definitive response from them to the call center. I had to go to a friend s office to use the internet since I use the internet nearly 12 hours a day for consulting, SEO, web design with file uploads, blog entries, etc. The India call center personnel had a difficult time getting any reliable information from the NYCMNYCA that serves my account though they would not and did not say that. It was clear because they could not answer my simple questions. This was the case in the upgrade failure from before and I was plied repeatedly by tech support with the same vague answers. The problem started precisely from the same failure in upload speed and that was followed by no service. The response was always it will be ready in 24-48 hours. The last time that happened was in February when I went without service for nearly two weeks with those same reports of being fixed in 24 hours, day after day. This time I vehemently demanded better than this and fought hard that something be done to get a definitive answer as to whether the service could be delivered on not. If not, put me back to 768 kbps. Now during all my yelling and badgering and asking for supervisors and more supervisors, the personnel never once said an untoward word about Verizon or the NYCMNYCA in New York handling my account and treated me with the utmost respect. But it was clear that NYCMNYCA was falling down on the job. The NYCMNYCA had fallen down three times in the past where all the previous incidents required work in New York to be completed, work that cannot be completed by call center technicians in India or in Mexico or in the Philippines or elsewhere. 1. For example, the static noise problem was not resolved even after a number of technicians came to my apartment and who cited that the problem was in my wiring. That was not the case. A bad circuit was eventually found and replaced. It took a long time for NYCMNYCA to figure that one out and replace the hardware in the CO. 2. The similar CO based problem occurred with an outage due to improperly wiring the wrong account to my pair at the NYCMNYCA. Fortunately, a technician of Caribbean descent with real knowledge and expertise immediately recognized the problem, called it in and directly oversaw the proper placement of the wires at the CO. If it were not for that outstanding gentleman, I would have lost further days of service due to incompetence at NYCMNYCA. Men and women like that gentleman should be in charge to make sure all technicians know what they are doing. 3. Next came, the first attempt to upgrade to 3.0 mbps this year. This was never resolved by NYCMNYCA. I had to downgrade the service to 768 kpbs to have service.
4. Coming full circle, I ordered 3.0 mbps because of a mailed ad by Verizon. I asked the saleswoman Kimberly if the service will work on my line since last time there were problems. She blithely said yes and I trusted that. It turned out that the same upload speed problem followed by no DSL occurred. The same problem occurred again. What had NYCMNYCA done to resolve this issue from months before? Obviously, nothing was done at all. Cutting back to the fourth trouble ticket, after the call center technicians had resolved the issue, the next day on May 30th, Ms. Tameka Green called me about having a technician come over to work on the problem I was having. I told her there was no problem at the moment that all was resolved at 768 kbps and that a 3.0 mbps upgrade would come later when the issue was clearly resolved at NYCMNYCA. There was no need to send a technician to check something that currently was not a problem and was a problem in the CO. There was no problem with my line and entry to my apartment would be a waste of time and money for me and Verizon. For some reason she insisted to send a technician without a real reason and then retorted as if I was making a mistake. I have no idea what office she represents. Perhaps, she is in Dispatch Instead, of looking more closely at my records and the previous technical transactions she began to tell me what was what and she clearly did not know what the problem was. I explained and then told her bluntly and loudly what had transpired. She said the Indian call center failed to provide the proper information to NYCMNYCA. That is simply not true. The 3.0 mbps service was established, functioned, lost upload speed and then the signal was lost altogether. It was restored at 768 kbps and later upgraded to 3.0 mbps and then lost again on June 4 th and the restored again with poor bandwidth speed that is intermittently slow. If there was no communication how could any of that happen? I explained that the CO had not been able to provide the service and that I had the same problems as before. The CO did not communicate well with the call center and it was a CO problem and not a call center problem or a problem in my apartment. She then said that the call center convinced me that the New York CO was at fault. That was simply untrue. The call center never said one word against NYCMNYCA in New York, ever. I came to the conclusion on my own that there is a problem of CO communication with the call center and some degree of incompetence at the CO handling my account from current and previous experiences. Finally, she hung up on me. Tameka Green s service and attitude is characteristic of severely flawed service and is similar to the utterly slow, inefficient, and ineffective CO operations that service my account and others. God help the others who are not as vocal as I am. I have no idea of the extent of this problem between the call centers and NYCMNYCA or how many others suffer this same problem. But it is clear to me that I had to raise the ante
to get something done by screaming and asking for higher and higher authorities to resolve the problem. I find this an intolerable situation. If I have to go through this much effort to get the service I contracted for and receive poor or no service that I am required to pay for, than what does that tell you about NYCMNYCA on Convent Avenue that is servicing this and other accounts? Tameka Green gave the impression that she resented the out of country call center technicians by making such uninformed remarks. And to add to the distaste she aroused, she did not serve but wanted me to be wrong. Listen to the recordings. She clearly did not know what the problem was and made blatantly ignorant statements that she could not back up. Is this the kind of service you wish your customers to undergo? Money and time are thoughtlessly wasted for operating expenses by assigning unnecessary tasks to technicians, Are these technical assignments inspired by other means? Is this the way to go and then to charge waste and incompetence to your customers? This could be a huge news story if customers decided to inform the press and start a campaign against paying for waste and incompetence. After Tameka, the restored 3.0 mbps service went out again on June 4 th at 10:30 PM or so after working over the weekend and for almost three days. I called tech support about the outage and received a Philippine call center. The first person to handle my account was improperly trained and blindly adhering to the usual and now useless protocol for my case. I asked to speak to her supervisor and she gave me Celine at Dispatch who promptly began to tell me that a technician was coming to check my line. Celine was very similar in attitude and direction to Tameka and I tried to explain that there is no problem at my home and it is unnecessary to send a technician since the problem is in the central office. She refused to examine the records where all of this information is clearly given. I asked to speak to her supervisor. She left the phone on hold for more than 10 minutes and then it cut off. I called back and luckily connected to a naturally amiable person named Eco. I asked to be switched to a New York call center since I was treated poorly twice already. He patiently tried to do so, but could not. Eco did listen carefully to my suggestion to check the records and discovered what the problem was and dealt with it so it seems. He reported that the CO on Convent Avenue in New York was trying to fix a circuit with too many connections and my connection was completely cut off and may be restored tomorrow. That was what was said. It is not happy news but it is better than a useless vague response of 24 hours to 48 hours with no indication of what the problem was or could be. It is not certain that this is the problem. I heard that CO story before with no result. I would investigate this particular NYCMNYCA and the related Dispatch to see if there are more issues like mine. I became intolerant and feisty because that was the only way for something to happen, for my issue to be resolved, for the contract to be served as given. I keep the Verizon service because it is usually reliable and cost effective. I am not going to
allow the incompetence of a few make me discard a good service. But for my sake and all the others who may be hopelessly at the mercy of the NYCMNYCA and related rude and wasteful Dispatch personnel, please do something about the management, communication and technical expertise of the personnel in the CO serving my account and others also served. Save money and time by not sending technicians on pointless, money expending technical assignments. Sincerely yours, signed Verizon Central Office - CO NYCMNYCA 380 Convent Avenue New York, NY 10031-4203 HYPERLINK "http://bit.ly/15chf7" http://bit.ly/15chf7 CO NYCMNYCA is 0.5 miles from my apartment. PAGE PAGE 2