is the word 'diary' better than the word 'blog'? probably not.
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Tiny, Tiny Victory.
Tiny, Tiny Victory.
Ever since I moved in to my place in QB, I've been having DSL problems. Constantly. Like at least four times a week. It has been very frustrating, because every time I'd call to talk to tech support I'd get asked the same questions and then told that there is nothing wrong with my line, that it must be something else, blah blah blah. They would treat me like I didn't know how the system worked, and would painstakingly describe how to open my System Preferences window, and I'd be all IT'S OPEN ALREADY AND THE NETWORK SCREEN SAYS THAT I AM CONNECTED TO THE INTERNET BUT THE INTERNET LIGHT ON THE MODEM IS NOT ON AND THE DSL LIGHT IS BLINKING. JUST LIKE LAST TIME. Etc. Then they would assert that it was my wireless router, and disregard my assurance that the problem happened even after I took that advice and kept the computer hooked directly to the ethernet line. They would do some sort of voodoo remote line test to "prove" that the problem wasn't theirs. Over time I got better and better at asking every difficult question I could think of, and then I got angrier and angrier that no one would help, and would yell things like, "so you're telling me that basically I have to find a new phone and internet service because you refuse to lift a hand to give me the bare minimum of service!?", etc., tiresome. Then I gave up calling altogether. I somehow figured out that if, when the DSL was down, I used my cellphone to call my phone, usually that would somehow "remind" my phone line that it's also a DSL line, and then Internet service would resume. It wouldn't always work, but it usually did. (I have no idea why. Explaining it to anyone just made me sound crazy, too.)
However that trick stopped working last Friday for long enough that I got annoyed, so I called and talked to someone in India again. That guy had me do all the annoying things they make you do, like unplug every thing from every phone jack to see whether it's an equipment problem. And then he had me try the modem in more than one jack, etc. They don't care that you've done this fifty times already. They just don't care. BUT. This guy was a firecracker. He decided that there was definitely a problem somewhere that needed to be looked at, and it wasn't a problem caused by me. So FINALLY an actual person came to my house, and that actual person, within one minute of stepping into my house, had ascertained that IT WAS A PROBLEM WITH THE PHONE LINE AND NOT WITH MY EQUIPMENT. Not only that: IT WAS A PROBLEM WITH THE LINE ON THE STREET, not even the line in my house. On the same day they sent a guy to climb the pole and fix it. And so far everything seems to be working just how it should have been working all these months since SEPTEMBER 2005.
My only remaining question is: why is the consumer so very powerless in this situation? WHY?! My experiences in Massachusetts and Pennsylvania lead me to advise you to avoid dealing with VERIZON if you can manage to find another way to get phone service. AVOID VERIZON. Verizon's secret motto is: We. Just. Don't. Care.
12:36 a.m. - March 29, 2006
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