Another member of our family subscribed to Verizon Fios triple play. We agreed to hear the sales pitch, as said family would get a $ kickback if we bought. A “non-English as a primary language” person arrived at our strictly English speaking house. We have no shame or guilt in saying that we have no familial or geographic experience with any other language than American English. Yet the salesperson who came to our house was a native speaker of Spanish with marginal communication skills in English. Loads of fun from the get-go! If it weren’t for the family reference getting him in through the door… However, the Verizon Fios paperwork was in English. Much time was spent in my attempting to get the same programming I currently receive (many channels plus all the HBO & Showtime channels including on demand for $138.00 for 4 televisions), for the same or lower price. The man may not have had a debate-worthy grasp of English, but perhaps he shouldn’t be selling to people who only speak English, using English paperwork. I finally communicated that we were unwilling to switch our phone service (Vonage). Then the funstuff was trying to point to the paperwork and saying that no, HBO wasn’t included in the package he indicated would be less than what we were currently paying. He kept insisting, and I kept pointing to HBO as a premium package (“pre-me-um” *point to printed package* – “no, *points to package which includes 1 HBO family channel*. Okay, so what about my pointing out ALL the HBO channels we have, pointing to the HBO family channel included in his package, & saying “no bambinos” made him think this was a worthy substitute?). I actually never got to ask about Showtime because we never resolved anything about HBO. I actually never got to see the actual price of the Verizon channel pkg plus their version of my HBO full access until I said I was going to sign. THEN, on the actual contract, the price was way above his stated price, way above what I was currently paying with my current cable channel, and with a substantial loss of choices. I saw this, refused to sign, and said I was going to keep the contract, look it over, and decide later. He tried to grab the contract -I was quicker : ) – and said he had to account for each contract and would be fired if he was missing any. I made copies of all pages and returned the original to him.

Of course, I never signed to Verizon Fios. I do have Verizon DSL for internet access, but never mentioned this to the salesman. Nor did he ask. Any sanctioned business rep where you feel like you should have to count your fingers after shaking hands is a red flag. Attempting to deal with someone who really doesn’t have a grasp of your language, in the country of your birth where your language is the accepted norm of business (and your surname doesn’t denote an affinity for the language of the salesperson), indicates the company wants numbers/new subscribers. A company not being concerned that the customer understands what he/she is told the package actually is means that there must be a contract where it costs the customer money to end service. Any company which is upfront, doesn’t hide it’s contract, commitments, offerings behind an inarticulate salesperson (how many people are there complaining about misunderstanding what the salesperson said was offered? Of course people aren’t going to complain about language differences, or failure to be able to read a contract for same at their leisure. People accept what they are presented with as if this is the norm for everyone who uses the service. Not everyone who line-items the contract, negotiates a better deal, or makes enough money/spends unwisely and accepts the face value deal writes in to websites), should never get an immediate contract. Sure, most contracts can be cancelled withing 24 hours. But who wants to sign for anything you are so unsure of that you need to be doing mad post-signing research for?

Bottom line: there needs to be more competition. There needs to be more intelligent consumers. Okay, of the two, smart money is for the more competition option as long as it offers a programming block for “Jersey Shore” mentality subscribers, for those who would rather tan than think.

electrons are getting expensive?

its hard to justify this stuff when good folks are loosing their homes
thinking about dumping this stuff

They announced an increase in their internet rate last month – so I sent two letters. One to the “announcer” one to their CEO (certified mail). Short message: “Freeze the rate – or turn ours off”. No response. Next bill contained the offending charge.

I’ll be visiting comcast/time warner (whoever they are now) tomorrow. Time to give Fios the boot. None of those lizards can read.

My recommendation to anyone considering Fios? Don’t bother. Not worth the squeeze.

We had em for about 6 years ….

Why? Because we are being charged $200 per month and we don’t even have their HD TV/DVR service!!!

Again, FiOS internet IS the best available… but after your “contract” is up, they will ROB you blind! Sometimes even BEFORE your contract ends!

We are switching to Mediacom for Internet, TV, and home phones (we’re going with AT&T for Mobiles). I would have proffered to go with Dish Network, because they’ve significantly improved their TV service since we last had them (2005 – 2006) and with the availability to watch TV on all WiFi devices (how I would LOVE to have that) however, their internet SUCKS!!!

At least with Mediacom, we are going to be getting 15mbps – only 5mbps less than what we currently have with FiOS. It’s going to slow down my BitTorrent activities by a considerable amount (I can currently download 5GB at or less than ONE HOUR), but we’re not going to be ROBBED by Verizon anymore.

Perhaps if Verizon gets their act together and STOPS ROBBING their customers we will go back, but not until then!