Verizon – Killing the Internet We Do Have

Verizon shows up, severing phone and internet, then drives off.

Despite all things, we decided we would give the fiber optic a shot, and we signed up for high speed internet and television.

Several days ago Miss Utility came out and sprayed marks all over our front yard.

Then, today, Verizon came out with their trucks, dug up the front yard to lay cable, and drove off. This was just the digging. They did not set up the internet or the television.

However, when they left, the copper land lines were severed — we have no phone service.
The cable internet no longer working — we have no internet.

In short, they cut us off completely from the outside world, including 911.

Wife calls the business office.

They claim that can’t get a truck out until MAYBE tomorrow. Unacceptable, since they’re still literally in the neighborhood.
They claim they are not responsible for copper connectivity.
They claim they are not responsible for Adelphia.

Follow that, they come by and cut the connections, then claim they aren’t responsible for fixing them.

UPDATE: Just got off the phone with the Virginia State Corporation Commission, and I have to say they were more than helpful. Our billing issue from before was something she said was fairly common called cramming, where one is signed up for services without permission. Verizon’s course of action was dead on to block future charges and to refund the entire amount; but even though they did that, the FCC is now being notified. As for today’s incident, the Virginia State Corporation Commission was hanging up with me and contacting Verizon immediately; my job is to let them know when phone service has been restored and how the experience was. The bad news is that I do need to contact Adelphia, have them fix the problem, and charge it to Verizon.

UPDATE: My wife tried calling Verizon again, explaining that her business was down as well as the vagueness of truck availability was unacceptable. Their response was that “unless this is an emergency and you’re dying” they could not get a truck out, and the time frame appeared to increase. Meanwhile, my wife’s call to Adelphia went much better, they were not surprised at all to hear Verizon sliced the line; they took note of the VSCC’s involvement. Adelphia marked this down as a priority and they’d have a truck out between now and 9am tomorrow.

UPDATE: I just got a call from Verizon’s customer service stating that they had just received the complaint from the VSCC and they were sending a truck out immediately to fix the problem. I called back the VSCC, as they wanted to know when I had contact with Verizon, and it was amusing how quickly Verizon could change its mind and how mysteriously they suddenly found the inspiration and resources. VSCC, you’re on my Christmas list.

UPDATE: As of 5:30pm the same evening, we got dial tone. Contacted the VSCC, letting them know. They had us talk to the FCC about cramming.

UPDATE: Adelphia showed up and using a little device were able to identify the line as broken. Sure enough, after some digging, they found a severed coax with a fiber optic cable running right through it. They’re taking pictures for evidence, presumably when they bill Verizon. They ran a new cable, it’s bright orange. Now, what’s interesting is that the repair guy was very upset. Driving through our neighborhood it was apparent there were many houses in our area that have orange replacement cables above ground.