Gena01.com Forum

People always ask me why I hate Verizon so much. And it might not seem fair from my side, because I am sure there are a lot of talented and smart people that work there. The problem is that I got my own stories and my personal experience that shows what complete idiots work there. And these bright few people make the whole experience unforgettable.

So I was at my friends house fixing his computer over the weekend. He recently got married and became a Verizon customer. He also signed up and got Verizon DSL service which is up and running (or should be anyway).

FYI: I used to have Verizon DSL years ago and remember how Verizon tries to do "smart" things or shoot itself in the foot with their complicated layers or software that needs to be installed and security that needs to be setup in order to get it working.

Anyway, back to the story... My friends internet connection was kinda flaky and weird so I went and pressed the "reset" button on the back of the DSL modem (yeah, now I know not to do that). What happened next was kinda interesting. The modem reset itself and any attempt to access the internet would result in a redirect to a special page from Verizon claiming that the setup needs to be activated and asks for login and password. A friend of mine who is not technical couldn't not remember what he used when setting up his account, so after a couple of failed attempts he called Verizon for help.

A tech operator answered the phone and tried to help. After answering some questions and testing the line  and trying to diagnose some other problems some progress was made. At this point in time my friend asked to have his DSL activated again and said that he can not remember his account information. The tech then proceeded to go through verification procedure (I find this funny, considering the fact that this is in the middle of the conversation and other diagnostics have already been done). But then again knowing how scripted things are friend gave and verified his identity after which the Tech guy told us the login name that was created for my friend. The password could not be retrieved and had to be reset.

The thing that happened next was kinda interesting. The Tech tried to help by attempting to activate the line by other means than the Verizon's web-based software. After accessing the modem configuration page and changing the admin password and trying some other steps as requested by the Tech things didn't go anywhere. We were still stuck at that "activate DSL" page. At this point in time the Tech seemed concerned on the phone (and I would assume stuck). So the tech gives my friend an 800 number to call. A friend of mine asks the Tech what the number is about and what he is supposed to tell this new person that will answer this phone number.

Here is the response from Tech " this is the phone number for Microsoft. Call them and tell them it's a browser issue and they should fix it".

At this point in time I was so shocked I couldn't believe what I heard. Verizon's Tech was claiming that the network setup was somebody else problem. And for the curous ones we managed to figure out what password was used and I managed to activate the DSL just fine through the web-based interface. I also had to enter the new modem password (because the Tech told us to change it) and had my friend online again. Luckily I was there and managed to fix the problem, without calling anybody else.

Gena01