We have had several customers that got the dreaded "letter" from Verizon informing them that their copper services will no longer work after a certain date. They offer FiOS to resolve the problem. The very first time this happened, I was told I had to attend a conference call with Verizon service and several other Verizon people before this was going to cut. So, I joined the conference. The initial contact with Verizon was useless. All she was tasked to do was get the owner and whoever else on the conference call. So the call started off with a "network services engineer" saying Verizon is abandoning all copper services and will provide FiOS to replace the service. This particular customer had several FGA lines and two PRI circuits. The PRI circuits are with MASS Communications.

So, I'm listening to all this and then another person chimes in and says "We can provide you with a cloud based service so you can get all your services back and not have to deal with "hardware."

I cut him off. I said, "I thought this was a call about migrating services from copper to FiOS. The customer is absolutely not interested in your cloud services. In fact, if this is the reason you made all of us attend this conference call, I will have the customer port all of the affected numbers to their existing PRI circuits that they have with MASS Communications. Furthermore, if this was a sales pitch disguised as a service change notice, I, for one, take exception to that. You have wasted my time and the customer's on pitching something they neither need or want. How about you all give me the name of your first level supervisors so I can lodge a formal complaint regarding what looks to me like a "bait and switch" game.

A few seconds of silence passed and someone else said, we will call the customer to let them know when the FiOS tech will be there to switch over the circuits.

I never got the names of their first level supervisors. Bottom line, stand your ground and call their bluff. This is SO beneath the Bell Telephone code of standards that the company has used for over 100 years. I am really disappointed with Verizon.

A few weeks later, all the FGA lines were migrated to FiOS. We had no service issues.

Rcaman


Americom, Inc.
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