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Pity she's not in California - sonic.net is by far and away the best ISP I've ever dealt with (I've been on line since 1983 - before there were ISP's)
Pity she's not in California - sonic.net is by far and away the best ISP I've ever dealt with (I've been on line since 1983 - before there were ISP's)
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If her DSL was getting paid by Verizon and added to her phone bill...did her phone bill actually increase? She probably would have noticed that. And, I'm sure she had to enter bank information to set up the auto bill pay.
Good job Verizon! I've had similar things with the auto bill pay w/ VZW, crappy auto bill pay services and erroneous billing.
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I know Earthlink is run by a bunch of Scientologists, but I've had consistently good service with them for 6 years. Granted, i don't have any special needs mitigating complicated DSL set-ups or anything. They even lower my prices when I periodically call in to get the latest sales deal.
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Well, we all know how well Verizon does with math so I guess it shouldn't come as a surprise that this makes sense to them.
Doesn't AT&T have a secret $10 DSL offer that they legally have to provide(as seen on the consumerist)? It's worth a shot to call them again and insist on that plan.
Sonic is incredible. Unfortunately, they are pricey compared to the comcasts and AT&Ts of the world. However, the quality of service is worth it. I love that you can call them, and an actual live human being picks up the phone, deals with your issue in an informed and friendly manner. I think I actually proposed to the last agent I spoke to.
Not quite the same, but when I got my first Verizon phone line 6 years ago, I set up auto-bill pay which was fine for the first two months of service. Then, I noticed on my credit card that my bill was $10 higher than previously. I logged into the Verizon site and found that they had automatically added features on my phone that I had never requested. I got the extras removed and credited back to me after a half hour on hold and on the phone with various people, but after that I decided never to use automatic bill pays if I didn't have to.
Speaking of which, I need to find out why RCN is charging $5 more a month now :(
@The Walking Eye: Yeah, I was wondering the same thing. If the DSL bill is basically being transfered to her phone bill, she should be current as long as her phone bill is current.
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i have charter communications, and i love it!
too bad they are only in a few areas. helpful, reliable, and they countersued the RIAA!
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First mistake: Letting a company,...ANY company automatically deduct from your checking account. This is guaranteed to be a 100% disaster. Once they screw you oh just try to get your money back!
Second, you trusted Verizon to properly deduct from your checking. See where that got you ?
Third and lastly, you actually thought AT&T was going to be a suitable replacement for Verizon.
Oh yeah, before I forget.
I have Verizon cellular, home service, AND DSL. The paper bill that arrives once per month (paper bill ? what's that?) gives me ONE price to pay for all 3 services.
You would think that Verizon with all that hi-tech magic at their fingertips could not somehow screw-up a bill.
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It sounds like you want to find an ISP that is a little less corporate. The problem is, that's really tough to find. You'll find some smaller local ISPs, but many of them will just be different faces for the corps.
My only hope now is that you backed up your email contact list if you've been using the Verizon.net email system. Now that you've canceled, you will not be able to access that data ever again. If your busy is web-based, you might want to get a new account and look into email forwarding options.
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if you're in a cablevision area, i highly recommend them. super fast - 15Mbps down, 1.5Mbps up & they run a promo at $29.95 (it jumps to $49.95 after 6 months). if you sign up for their \"triple play\", you get cable, phone & internet for
someone else mentioned charter...if this is the cable provider in your area, ask around to see how the service is. we had charter in our office & had to switch to dsl b/c the service was incredibly unreliable (service down for >1 day at a time EVERY month...not exactly the type of service a business requires). i'm sure it's not like that everywhere though.
T-Mobile does the same thing.
We've never had a problem with Time Warner in the 5 years we've used them for high speed internet/cable access.
I do, however, understand the frustration with Verizon. I recently signed up for online statements, and in 3 months, have yet to receive a bill. I also just signed up for automated payment, so we'll see how that goes. After reading this, I'll be sure to stay on top of it.
Time Warner is utter, utter, utter crap. At least in my area. their DNS servers crash all the time, they drop my connection like crazy, and when you call them to find out if its a service outage or something it takes at least 30 minutes to get through their BS. On top of that my 1.5mbps connection is roughly 700mbps.
Also the \"trained tech\" who ran the cable under my drive way the first time, decided it was a good idea to run it through a drainage pipe. Which is excellent for, you know fuzz.
They reran it again and I still think they did a crappy job and they refuse to rerun. They came out to hookup my HD and the \"trained tech\" managed to knock out my internet connection completely and didnt get the HD up. I didn't notice the internet was down till a little while after he left, it was a friday, so they refused to come back out till Monday.
I have Windstream now. 3mbps connection. Screw Time Warner.
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Never use automatic bill pay. Ever. My boyfriend had Verizon draft his bill from his account every month until one month when they drafted it THREE TIMES -- Thereby overdrafting his account twice and incurring 2 overdraft fees from the bank. After settling it with the bank and they waives the fees, he had to deal with Verizon who said they could mail him a check in 2 weeks. But still, he was down a crucial $300 for two weeks.
Isn't it awesome how easily they can take money out of your account, and how hard it is for them to put it back?
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I had a similar problem with TWC NYC a few months back - had autopay set up with a credit card, then we suddenly got calls for being 3 months overdue. Logged in and it was all still set up; they just didn't feel like deducting. Oi.
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I had some ridiculous problems with Verizon and their \"billing\" and after fighting with them for a year [1 hour + calls every month], I switched to Speakeasy.
I can't believe no one has recommended them yet. When I left Verizon I was determined to NOT have to deal with them in any way, I signed up for Speakeasy DSL and VOIP and never looked back.
They are a great company, never had any problems with them. When you call...they actually ANSWER the phone. A rep within 30 seconds! Its amazing. My DSL is fast and best of all [after Verizon] CONSISTENT.
They are more expensive, but I learned you get what you pay for.
@Veronykah: Well, they're now owned by Best Buy, so people might be shying away now, but I've heard nothing but good things about them. I don't think they provide service here. All we have is TWC, who has been OK regarding Internet service. TV, on the other hand,...
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Speaking of Charter, I have their internet service and I would rate it 3.5 out of 5. Firstly, it costs an arm and a leg. I pay about $55 for a 5MB/256k line. On DSL, it would be about $20 dollars less for the same speed. Secondly, I have had my net go down 3 times since I've had them. Two of the three times, it took me weeks to get it back up again (I don't know how many hours I spent on the phone, but it was a lot). They continually blamed me for the problem saying there was something wrong with my computer. I told them, \"I have four computers. One is a normal PC, another is a Dell notebook, another is a Macbook Pro, and another is a Sony Vaio. Are you telling me there just happens to be something wrong with all these computers simultaneously and they all happen to have the exact same problem?\" Of course the lady following her script with no clue about what advice she was giving from it meant had nothing to say to me exept, \"That's not our problem. Call the manufacturer.\"
So what's good about them you ask? Well, my P2P works great and haven't yet had an RIAA/MPAA letter in the mail/email.
Side note: if you're wondering why I don't just switch to a different ISP, I can't. I can't get DSL through my phoneline (it's jacked and no one wants to take responsibility to fix it, not even the phone company. So I'm stuck with cable as my only way to get internet.)
This happened to me with my RENT. I set up automatic deductions for rent and they double billed me. I called them and said \"Quick, cancel that double billing, because it will create an overdraft!\"
They said \"Prove that you paid twice\", basically accusing me of stealing from them. I said look at records and they said \"No, you have to prove to us.\"
Fortunately, my statement came the next day and I showed them. They didn't even apologize, but I forced them to pay the THREE overdrafts totaling almost $200. Real smart.
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Hey all, this is Rebecca. Thanks for the suggestions...I live near Boston and my town is currently setting up a wireless network, which they'll offer to residents at about $20/month, so I might try to hold out until then.
In regards to the phone bill question, that was my major mistake -- trusting Verizon to accurately report information on my account page at verizon.net. I'm still not sure if there's a separate site that would have shown my phone bill, actually. Instead, I assumed that the amount shown on Verizon.net was the full amount including phone, since I had agreed to have them put the phone and DSL together on one bill. So, they have a stupid, confusing system with poorly informed customer service reps, and I have a problem with staying alert and double-triple-checking to make sure automatic billing is working correctly.
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I'd look into getting internet service from your local cable company. I've had both Charter and Comcast, and while we had issues with the TV several times, our internet connection was pretty solid.
@Myrall: whoa, Earthlink is run by Scientologists? That's a new one to me. I had dial-up through them for some time and never really had a problem. Now I feel dirty. And not in the fun way.
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@skepchick: The founder of Earthlink, Sky Dayton, is an interesting character. He's also the founder of Helio and is known for posing on the beach and trying to look hip.
Rebecca I work for at&t what If you tell me what state you live in and what speed internet you are looking for I can tell you what the cheapest package is with a ballpark on taxes and fees.
As a former Verizon employee I can let you all in a little secret. The bills are consolidated from the 3 different lines of business. So yes, Verizon Wireless, Verizon ISP, Verizon Communications (POTS) are all paid by a central billing system. If in any situation a portion of the One Bill is not forwarded to any of those subunits they will cut off your service.
This kind of crap even happens internally! Verizon cutting its own service off to employees using a Verizon service!
I have found the best system is to stay away from triple play offers. Rather have each service from different companies. This allows me to switch my services to the best deal being offered.
I use Vonage for phone (no problems yet) and I have called them told them I am quiting and they gave me a good deal.
Every 6 months to a year I switch between Comcast and RCN unless one of them offers a good deal to stay. This has resulted in cable internet costing less then $30 dollars a month.
The big problem with triple play offers is keeping your old phone number can be a pain, but when your just moving cable services its fairly simple. The only downside is that you have to be at home for 4 hours (the range of time it takes for the installation guy to show up). No bigy if you schedule for a day that your going to be around the house anyway.
I've had nothing but confusion & incompetence when dealing with Verizon. Whether it's technical support (offshore, of course!), billing, orders, etc. They always seem to get it wrong, transfer me to 15 different departments, all which claim they can't help me and will transfer me to another hold queue. I've often wondered if Verizon's \"customer service\" goal is to put people on hold / make it so frustrating that customers give up and leave them alone.
The best part was when they sent me 3 different modems -- ALL the wrong model. One of the wrong models was totally DOA. Trying to get Indian technical support to understand why I needed a modem which supported bridge mode instead of a router was a fight with futility. 4+ hrs...and finally got transferred to a US rep who made it happen instantly. I know offshore tech support is cheap, but when I'm trying up their reps for 4+ hrs, it can't be THAT cheap.
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Verizon was such a pain the hiney with their double billing that my BofA representative hung up on their customer service person because she refused to work with the bank to figure out the problem. BofA disputed the second payment and gave me the money back. I closed out my Verizon account and thought I was done with them. Then I found out that Verizon's double bill was on my credit report for nonpayment. I had to dispute it with all three companies.
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This is why I never use AutoBill, Verizon should have just called it Autoscrew.
If the person lives in a Bellsouth service area, he/she can try to sign up for the $10 DSL that the FCC has required Bellsouth to offer. It'll take some effort to stop the upsell attempts and it'll be somewhat slow but it's cheap.