The Tyler Hayes

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I’ll try to keep myself to as little ranting as possible. I’ll do my best to keep this as a case study. No guarantees though.

IMPORTANT: I’ve worked customer service. I know how much it sucks to have to go through this, so please trust me when I say that I was always respectful, patient, and honest (as much as I felt necessary) in these phone calls.

The short version

Verizon refused to let my family out of our family plan without an ETF (Early Termination Fee, $185 for us). Our actual reason? They suck, for a lot of reasons (see longer version below). The reason I gave them? They raised our “Monthly Administration Fee” (MAF) from $.85 to $.92 on 7/1/09, which allows us – for 60 days afterwards – to cancel our plan without an ETF, as it constitutes a “material adverse effect” on my family (Verizon’s words, not mine). There are dozens of webpages documenting this methods’ legality and legitimacy, and even more forum posts around the Web by people who have done it successfully. Three separate people refused to let us out of our contract, by offering us a credit for the increase. This credit doesn’t change the contract, however Verizon doesn’t seem to understand that. Yes, I’m an asshole.

The longer version

I’m assuming you read the short version, so I won’t repeat anything. Hopefully, this timeline will keep this concise:

• Last 10 years or so (we’ve been with Verizon ever since cell phones gained mainstream popularity): Verizon customer service has been good over the phone 50% of the time, bad in stores & kiosks 100% of the time. Not once have I (or anyone in my family) had an experience in the store where we walked away satisfied, let alone not dejected and insulted. Over the phone, it really depends on the reason we’re calling. When it’s to cancel any of our add-ons, it’s like pulling teeth from a full-grown baboon. Also, we don’t get reception in our house. I miss important calls constantly. Verizon (and all cell companies) wipe this liability away by saying “We cannot guarantee cell reception inside buildings or houses.” What a crock. If you can’t guarantee it, then I should be able to leave your contract.
• Monday, 6/29/09: I called Verizon to try and get out of our plan. In all honesty, I’ve always wanted to leave because Verizon has crappy phones. I understand some people like their “most reliable network” but for urban users like me it really doesn’t make a difference which provider I use.
  Phone call #1: Around 4pm. Talked with a very nice gentleman named Anthony. He told me the MAF could be credited back to our account, meaning it would no longer constitute as a “material adverse effect.” This made sense to me for a bit, until I read some more online case studies. This also means that it’s a charge that Verizon chooses to set, rather than something they’re forced to set by the government (this is important for the next phone call). He was so nice, in fact, that I decided to end our convo early because I didn’t want to put him through the whole “let me talk to your supervisor” fiasco. I even came clean with him that I was just trying to get out of the contract in general, at which point the conversation got more tense but more informal.
  Phone call #2: Around 6pm. I finally called back and got a nice woman named Beth. She, unlike Anthony, told me that the MAF was set by the government, hence it was not something they had control over. She did NOT at any point tell me they could credit me the MAF. She told me this a few times in fact. Then, she offered to transfer me to her supervisor Cory.
  Supervisor Cory:  Cory was more short with me than either Anthony or Beth, and was quite nervous I could tell. But he was as kind as he needed to be, if a little pushy. Cory decided he wasn’t going to budge before our phone call. So, when I told him “Just because you offered me a credit, that doesn’t revoke my right to cancel my plan without paying an ETF,” he just wasn’t having it. He was 100% convinced that by offering me a credit, this negated the “material adverse effect.” While I can understand the logic here, it doesn’t matter. A contract is a contract. What’s ironic is that both Anthony and Beth told me multiple times that I had agreed to pay this fee in my contract, and I had to hold up my end of it. If that’s true, then how can they suddenly revoke my rights in the same contract?
  Manager Siam: Cory told me his manager Siam would call me back within 72 hours, but most likely within 24 hours. It’s now been 75 hours. No phone call. What, did they lose my number?

The arguments I heard (as best I can recall)

• Anthony: “If you had called to tell us that you were having bad experiences earlier, we could have done something.” – This is an audacious argument to make. I have complained multiple times in their stores, and at least once over the phone. I asked Anthony what they would have done. His reply was two things: 1) Update the software on our phones (really? You think after 10 years we didn’t get new phones or update our software?), or 2) Make us pay $100-$250 for a “range extender,” which he even told me 1/5 people he talked to couldn’t set it up right. I’d read about these earlier, and they’re unbelievably difficult to get setup just right, and it’s akin to installing a satellite dish.
• Beth: “We’re forced to pay this fee.” – No, you’re not. Anthony negated this when he said you could credit me. So did your supervisor. Also, I believe the paragraph that explicitly states you set this fee would negate that: “These include Federal Universal Service, Regulatory and Administrative Charges, and may also include other charges related to our governmental costs. We set these charges.”
• Cory: “This is a charge that you agreed to accept when you signed the contract.” – You’re right. And then you agreed to let me cancel my account within 60 days if I didn’t agree to the increase.
• There are more, but are they really necessary at this point?

The takeway

1. I’m an asshole. You have to be to do something like this.
2. On the other hand, my family has been very considerate to stick with a company like Verizon for as long as we have. We’re all mobile people. Then I came back from college, and both of my parents retired. All in the last year. The main reason we’re only now getting pissed off at the crappy reception in our house is because we don’t want Comcast’s even worse home phone option. But why get rid of our home line when Verizon can’t even provide us with consistently 1 bar of reception?
3. The big point: Really Verizon? You really want me to pay $185 that badly after 10 years of us paying through the roof for almost no cell reception in our house, completely disrespectful in-store customer service, and deceit and lies during these 2 phones calls? Oh, and then you can’t even call me back with 3 days like you promised? Yikes.
4. I understand that we don’t have much of a leg to stand on, but the little we do is legitimate, and Verizon refuses to acknowledge that because they – like most cell companies – are power-hungry and refuse to ever let go of even one customer. I’m sorry, but the very moment a customer says they’d like to leave, you let them leave. It’s that simple. Otherwise, well, you get this.

The icing on the cake

This email we got right after the phone calls that doesn’t even ask for feedback: