A year and a half ago I moved into a brand new house in an area with FIOS availability. I was so excited about this, in fact, it was one of the factors in buying my new home.

Little did I know, I might as well have been begging to get in through the gates of hell.

I ordered the what is known as the "Triple Play", or cable, internet and phone. My house was pre-wired, so the install took about 2 hours from beginning to end. This turned out to be good since the installers where 6 hours late. After the install, cable TV worked. That's it. Fortunately they didn't bury the line yet, so trouble shooting was a little less messy. After weeks of back and forth and countless hours on the phone (my cell phone), they finally resolved the internet and phone issues by determining it was incorrectly installed. Sigh.

It took 3 months to get the cable buried, but that isn't even an issue as far as I'm concerned at this point.

But this was great, I finally had all the services I was paying for! No.

My long distance would not work. Verizon long distance said it was the internet departments problem, not theirs. Vice-versa according to the internet department. This, believe it or not, went on for weeks as well. I was promised a credit. That never happened.

When the phone service was finally setup correctly I was thrilled. I could now sit on hold with my land line to get my rebooting cable boxes replaced. Which I eventually did. But this introduced a new billing problem. They up sold me on the home media center version, which allows you to record on one DVR and watch it on other cable boxes. Only they don't tell you that those other boxes cannot be DVRs. Which is what I had. When I called to have this resolved, they promised a credit. Never received. I called several more times to remove the service (for which I was charged a change of service fee, even though it never worked). 'Whatever, it's not worth my time any more', I thought, 'I'll suck it up and pay the extra.' But then Verizon never removed the service!

Now, to get to the point of this post, I promise there is one...

After all of the above issues, I decided to stick it out with Verizon for a few more months since I knew I was moving soon anyway.

I was kidding myself, and I should have known.

The day I called to cancel my services with Verizon, I was more excited than when I first signed up. Sad, I know. And while Verizon will happily drop off all the equipment for any of the FIOS services, they will NOT pick it up. But that's ok. I will gladly drive 30 minutes out of my way to turn in this equipment if I no longer have to deal with these headaches. Both on the phone with the rep and in the Verizon Plus store (where you have to drop off the equipment), I was very adamant about receiving some written confirmation that I turned in the equipment in the original condition. I received a piece of paper with an inventory of the items and the word "Good" next to each item. No, the rep in the store didn't look twice at the equipment, much less test it.

Fast forward 3 months. I'm in San Diego.

I go to the mailbox on a beautiful sunny California day, and to my surprise there is a Verizon statement in the mail. You have to be shitting me.

$1500+ bill.

They wanted payment for the returned equipment. Here is the funny part. They know I didn't have service, and that I needed to "pay for" this equipment, but they still tacked on the monthly charges!

So let me get this straight. You know I canceled my service (by requesting payment for the equipment), and yet you continued to bill me. Right.

But I got this! I have my receipt! This should be easy enough.

No.

To make a long story less long, several phone calls and about a month of waiting turn into a $0.00 bill and a voicemail from a Verizon rep stating that everything is now clear and they are sorry for any inconvenience.

I know better.

The next month, I receive a bill...again...for service at my old address...with my name.

DIFFERENT ACCOUNT NUMBER! Now I totally have proof! No.

I call up Verizon. I think at this point I've spoken to every outsourced employee there. I explain the current situation and they tell me to simply write "Not mine" on the bill and mail it back. "No way this will work," I think to myself, but I do it anyway because nothing else seems to work with this company, "What the hell?"

For future reference, if this ever happens to you, DO NOT DO THIS.

I received a collection call for my Verizon account. Not a call from Verizon, but a call from a Collection company claiming I owe some amount of money. Ok, F this. Now I'm pissed. I can put up with some of the BS run-around, but now this is really affecting me.

The collection company couldn't give two shits about the fact that it wasn't my account. They give me the number to the Verizon Fraud department, but like typical Verzion, its not valid for customers in the state of Texas. I finally get in touch with someone and the conversation goes like this:

Me: This is not my account. I received a collection call. Please fix.

Verizon: We need to verify some information.

Me: Of course you do.

Verizon: Please send us proof of residence.

Me: You have it. I called you when I cancelled with my forwarding address.

Verizon: We refuse to work with any other internal departments. We require a notarized lease agreement or bank statement showing your address.

Me: Let's try it this way. This is not my account. Provide proof that I opened this account.

Verizon: We don't have that information. Most signups are by phone or the internet.

Me: Like I said, this is not mine. Please provide proof.

Verizon: (repeat previous messages for 10 minutes)

Me: So let me get this straight, you require more information to verify an account is mine than to simply sign up? Don't you see something wrong with this?

Verizon: Yes, but this is our policy.

...

And there you have it.

So, as it stands right now, Verizon has managed to screw my credit with a mistake on their behalf and there is nothing reasonable that can be done to fix the problem. Even AFTER I tried to quit being a customer, they have managed to screw up and assign an entirely new account to me. Without my consent.

I leave this open to response from any Verizon employee that actually has the power to fix anything. At this point it seems like a painfully lost cause that will likely end in some form of litigation.

With as many problems as I've had with Verizon, I find it hard to believe that I am the only person that is consistently screwed by that company.

*** Update ***

After many people offered assistance with this, I was able to contact someone in the TX office that could help me. This has finally been resolved. Hopefully the account has been properly closed for the last time...