This is another story about pointless circular conversations with a vendor that doesn't listen to the customer. If Verizon Wireless didn't have such great connectivity in the places I spend my time, I would never have stuck with them so long. I've learned to live with the fact that that the best phones don't come out in Verizon models for a year after release (I'm waiting for a Blackberry Curve now). But, Verizon's customer handling has finally reached the proportions of the Abbot & Costello "Who's on First?" routine.
The Problem:
My husband and I live in a community property state. That means the law says that whatever we own, we both own (unless we do something specific otherwise). The law also says that anyone who wants to collect debts from us must collect from us jointly; lawsuits must be filed against us as a couple for someone to collect. Verizon, however, isn't interested in that law.
At some point, we discovered that Verizon insists that only one person owns and is responsible for our phones and phone bills. For a while, they thought this was my husband. Since I handle our bills and services, that got pretty frustrating. Every time I would call to follow up on an error in a bill, change in service, whatever, they would tell me they needed my husband's permission. Treating me like chattel will always get my dander up, so those conversations (while I waited for them to get my husband on the phone, to ask him for a password he didn't know, and for him to plead with them to stop this crazy system and agree yet again that I could handle a phone bill) tended to escalate in negative ways.
So, we decided, in what seemed like logical fashion, to instruct Verizon to make me the authorized customer. (Still didn't seem right if my husband ever wanted to call, but the odds were low, so we went with this.) Within a few months of the change, I received a text message, phone call, and bills indicating that the account was past due. I pay every bill on time or early so I kept explaining that I'd paid the bill.
Last week, when I sat down to reconcile my checkbook, I confirmed that the bank statement showed Verizon had been paid. In an exercise of over-caution, I called Verizon to confirm this. They told me they hadn't been paid. After much conversation, we were able to determine that they had closed the account with my husband's name, opened a new account with my name that showed no connection to the old account with the same phones, phone numbers, and registered users, and not told me there was a new number. I had sent an automated payment through a system that still had the old account number as the reference; Verizon accepted the payment from me with the old account number on it but not credited it to anything. That occurred on March 21.
I called Verizon on April 16. The operator promised to call me the next day. Instead, two days later, I got a notice from my bank that Verizon was returning the money to them. So, having been notified of the problem, Verizon wasn't applying the payment to the account with the same people and phone numbers. Instead, they declared my account (for which they had received and returned the payment) was still past due!
The Solution:
I say it every time. Start by being nice to your customer. From the first contact, the Verizon folks were pretty aggressive, taking a "you're a deadbeat and we're going to cut off your service" sort of tone. If you're the vendor, always consider that you might be making a mistake and make sure you won't be embarrassed by your actions if you are.
This is probably another lesson in the importance of thoughtful system design. The inability to change the name on an account from one person to another probably reflects a system that was built completely by automating standard procedure. A good system designer asks the ultimate users to explain problems and exceptions to standard procedure and builds a system that can handle them.
Make sure your system lets you know your customer. Proper record keeping would have made clear that my husband and I had been excellent customers (high bills, expensive phones, and on-time payments) for many years.
Last, excellent record-keeping is usually worth the hassle. Had Verizon accurately reflected that all we wanted was to change the name of who would talk to them about finances, none of this would have happened. Had Verizon insisted on its policy but properly shown the link between the two accounts, they would have known that they had been paid and not have alienated a good customer.