Verizon Uses Questionable Pricing Polic in Internet Ad

Verizon is a company with national stature and a good reputation.  It’s also a fine Central Jersey neighbor.  Which are precisely three reasons why it should not use what can at best be called lack of full disclosure and, at worse, an online bait and switch pricing technique in its online advertising.

Verizon features an Internet ad which advertises “Verizon Double Play:  High Speed Internet + Phone.”  The price is advertised at “$54.99/month guaranteed for 2 years.”

But, if you are currently a Verizon customer, click on this ad and fill out the boxes, the price that pops up is ten dollars higher, or $64.99.  However, the Verizon online ad does not disclose that you are being asked to pay $10 more because you are a Verizon customer.

The only way to find that out is to get on the chat line provided and to ask the Verizon agent at the other end why the price has suddenly escalated by ten bucks after you clicked on the initial advertising icon and filled out the boxes, including providing your telephone number.

Nor does the agent on the chat line offer a clear answer for the price increase, except to write back that Verizon has different pricing plans for existing customers.  Decoding the English, this means that long-time Verizon subscribers get the distinction of paying more for an upgraded service than does a new customer.

Go figure!  You are a loyal Verizon customer for years, and the company plays you for a rube in its online advertising.  Top level Verizon management should tap on the link above to see how its marketing department is writing its ads.  Or does it already know?

The BlackBerry Takes Bridgewater by Storm

On Friday morning at 10:30 am, the customer line outside the Verizon Wireless store at the Bridgewater Commons Mall stretched to about 40 feet long, two to three people wide. The store was already open, and a Verizon employee was metering people in towards the counter where service people were already engaged in selling service plans for the newly announced BlackBerry Storm.

This cell phone is the first touch-screen BlackBerry, and it is Verizon’s answer to AT&T’s iPhone designed by Microsoft exclusively for AT&T Wireless. Both operate on a 3G network. It’s too early to tell how much Verizon will be able to temper AT&T’s head start with the IPhone, but the introduction of the new BlackBerry just before the holiday shopping rush should have an impact.

AT&T and Verizon’s service plans with these new devices are not inexpensive; both offer pricing that is either the same or close. It depends which service plan you choose. For example, the Verizon Family SharePlan will give you 700 minutes for the first two lines combined in an all-inclusive voice, unlimited text messaging, unlimited Mobile to Mobile, e-mail, data and video umbrella etc., for $119.99/month.

The comparable AT&T Wireless Family Talk plan seems to be pricier. According to my reading of the AT&T Wireless web site, 700 minutes with a two-line offering will cost you $129.99/month. But that does not include text messaging which is another $30 for unlimited messages, or 20¢ per message if no plan is selected.

AT&T provides Rollover minutes on voice; Verizon does not. Examine all plans carefully before you choose.

Verizon’s Dreaded ‘Service Teams’

It happened quite suddenly and unexpectedly: One moment last week, I was enjoying an upgrade to my Verizon high speed Internet service; the next moment, kaput: nothing but digital silence. About an hour before the line disappeared, I received a call from a Verizon service person in Silver Springs, Maryland, advising me that my line was about to be cut.

She went on to explain that while implementing the upgrade, a technician had “accidentally pushed the wrong button in the central office” and that my line was about to crash. There was nothing she could do about it right then and there, she explained, because Verizon’s erroneous disconnect order had to go through before a second order to restore service could be processed. Not to worry, the Verizon lady assured me, the Internet service would be up and running again before the close of business on Friday.

The day before that conversation, another Verizon person in Westfield advised me that my upgraded service would be available the following day: Two separate assurances of service on two separate days, and I still have an “accidentally disconnected” Verizon Internet line.

But that’s not all! About a week before those episodes, I found myself in an endless loop of international 800 telephone service calls to Verizon because the Internet line was acting funky. It was erratically dropping its connection: The modem’s LED Internet light was toggling from a pulsating green to solid red or no light at all. Not good! That means constant line interruptions.

The latter is what prompted my initial calls to Verizon and what led to a decision to upgrade to higher speeds. Ugh! The take-away behind all this is: May the gods have mercy on you if you ever have to deal with Verizon service people.

ASSESSMENT: Verizon is plagued by an inability to coordinate its disparate service units. The people who control service in the central offices where the rubber meets the road have no effective tie-in with the service people who man the 800 lines. The latter are located worldwide: On this single service issue, I spoke with at least two persons in the Philippines, as well as others located there or elsewhere. The total number of calls which I made (I have profuse notes) is beyond the threshold of what is required to fix a still unresolved, mundane technical issue.

EXAMPLE: Sensing customer frustration, one service person at the end of an 800 line tried to reassure me: She “promised” that my Internet service would be up and running “within 12 hours.” That’s when I heard the rooster crow in the background, with the sinking feeling that I was being betrayed for the third time by a company whose representatives like to end calls by telling us how much Verizon values our business.

Saturday afternoon, the wisest Verizon person was the one who admitted, “I can’t tell you when your Internet service will be restored.” Around 1:30 pm, Monday, when I left my home office for the Bridgewater Library to post this entry, the Internet line was still buried somewhere in a technical graveyard.