He tried his best to escalate the complaint with Verizon, but had little luck. First, he called the help line:
"We called their help line, and got a wonderful young man in the Philippines who told us:
" 'We can't install it because your name has - in it.' "
I asked the doctor how I was going to print that. He said, "Just say it's a word contained in Libshitz."
He had no luck with a supervisor, so he called the billing disputes number and reached another supervisor who promised to investigate and have someone contact him because " the only person who could help was in Tampa, and that man would have to call India to get them to change the computer code." No one called back.
Finally, he got a letter informing him that he could not use his name as a username because it didn't comply with Verizon's policy.
It took calls from the Philadelphia Inquirer to get Verizon to deal with Dr. Libshitz and his "questionable" name, and that's what bothers him. He told the Inquirer that what he wants "is for these people at least to stand at attention to explain themselves. I don't know if you've ever tried to get to Verizon. . . . You cannot get to them. They are insulated from things like this." Unless you work for a newspaper, that is.
Here's Verizon's official response:
"As a general rule (since 2005) Verizon doesn't allow questionable language in e-mail addresses, but we can, and do, make exceptions based on reasonable requests. The one from Dr. and Mrs. Libshitz certainly is reasonable and we regret the inconvenience and frustration they've been caused."
Daniel Rubin: When your name gets turned against you [Philadelphia Inquirer] (Thanks, Will!)
(Photo: Maulleigh )
there is many other free email address providers. yahoo, gmail, hotmail they have filters also and will not allow any names that gets into the string, so why verizon to blame. use a different user name. dont has to be your first and last name as user name. awsomdoc
]]>@eelmonger: @JustThatGuy3: Who's Ivanna Fuckalot? Is that a real person?
]]>@xphilter: In the military this very problem has been known as the 'secretary dilema'. Basically, the idea frequently comes up to prevent classified(SECRET) information from being passed over unsecure systems by searching for terms used to mark classified information. The biggest one is 'SECRET'. The problem? A dumb filter will hit on the word 'secretary', among others.
Of course, I oppose any banning of 'bad' words because it simply leads to substitution - there's still a need for the term the word expresses, so language, if blocked, simply comes up with a new one. Thus the million and a half terms for sexual organs, sexual and excretionary acts, etc...
I'm reminded of an online cartoon where the main character was quite foul-mouthed, but transported to a universe where it's not allowed(think of him being in a game universe with a G rating). All the common four letter words come out 'Bleep'. As of the last cartoon he had his soldiers singing dirty limericks with not a four letter word in them that still manages to express quite graphical acts - and it's allowed because the filter is *dumb*.
]]>Dr. Herman I. Libshitz, we've placed an exception for your name in our porn filter.
OK, now I'll need your billing address to finish setting up your account.
Dr. Herman I. Libshitz:
69 Cumming Strasse
Fucking, Austria
[www.theregister.co.uk]
[www.toytowngermany.com]
[googlesightseeing.com]
Verizon: Ummm... Could you hold please!?!
]]>...I can't be the only one to have heard that joke.
]]>why doesnt he open a gmail account and just have dsl without using their email...obviously when he cancels the dsl so will his email.
just creat dr.libshitz@gmail.com
and what can you do, their systems are programmed in way that obscene words cant be used, even spam filters probably would pick up those 4 letters
what if his last name was longdickz? same outcome.
so stop complaining, blame your parents!
]]>It was a wonderful test of her professionalism.
]]>@xphilter: Having worked in software development(for high-end software), I'm not surprised there is no provision for "exceptions". Our software wouldn't accept hyphenated or multiple word last names, but the interface designers let any alphanumeric crap through for the phone numbers. Evey time I pulled a phone number in, my code had to filter for any non numeric characters. It went downhill from there.
Logical thing would be to have the software just pop up a warning on potential vulgar items, and have a person make the call on allowing it.
]]>No, in proper German it'd be "Vy-ner" -- "Why-ner" is just as much an American mangling as "Wee-ner".
]]>And what of the poor teacher from Southpark. She cannot have Verizon DSL?
]]>BUT WE MUST PROTECT THE CHILDREN!!! WON'T SOMEBODY PLEASE THINK OF THE CHILDREN!!??
]]>That perfectly sums up my feeling about 99% of the consumer hassles I read about or deal with. It's practically poetry.
]]>My office is currently working with an office move specialist as we prepare to relocate to a new building. She told us that she just had to take the word "specialist" out of her emails because it is being blocked by some spam filters because it contains the word "cialis". Sometimes they just don't think spam filters through all the way.
]]>Unfortunately, Ivanna is too far from the central office, so she can't get DSL.
]]>Crap. I might have problem with my last name Verizoncansukmyballz.
]]>BTW, it's pronounced az'-man
]]>"THIS IS BULLSHITZ!"
]]>Oops, I meant INsensitive.
]]>I think it's super unfair and rude of you to blame someone for "keeping" their family name. To call his name stupid is highly unsensitive of you.
]]>I hate dealing with companies that have their systems locked down so that the front line person can't make a simple common sense decision. Just goes to show they don't trust their own employees and don't want to pay to hire quality people or train them.
Of course, if I was paying a bunch of minimum wage call center script readers, I probably wouldn't trust them either.
]]>Why oh why do people keep stupid names like this? And of course hes a doctor a very smart one! I always hate it when people call in with the name Weiner and and they always say its pronounced ... Why-NER. Its like no you don't fool me.....your last name is a hot dog.
]]>Because his verizon phone was capable of calling an AT&T number I would assume, you aren't tied to your phone company for dial-up service.
]]>This happened to me, too...with SBC. B/c my last name has the word "mail" in it.
]]>Nicholas Cage on SNL as Asswipe Jones.
Pronounced Ahhsweepay.
Regardless that shows a great deal of cultral insensitivity on Verizons part. They need to deal better
]]>Awesome. Just out of curiosity, does anyone use their ISP e-mail anymore? I have something like 12 free e-mail addresses through verizon, which I've never used since I have my own domain and gmail.
Just wondering if anyone else uses it.
]]>Lmao at the Headline Meg!
]]>makes it seem like they wouldn't install an internet connection for him. I'm surprised it got overridden in the end at all, could have easily been software in place that wouldn't allow anyone to actually create the username.
]]>I had a vietnemese friend in middle school and his last name was Fuk. I wonder if he can get a Verizon account?
]]>BTW, it was awesome to have a teacher named that. In a singsong voice: Goooood moooorning Missus HinnerSHITZ!!!
]]>Poor guy, that sad thing is probably the lowest leve of phone people probably could have changed this, they were probably to lazy or too smug to do so
]]>No biggie, just choose something else. Hell, I have a short but difficult-to-spell last name so I prefer a truncated email address.
]]>