Billing problems, promotions-not-honored, and passing the buck are all common complaints from cable and phone customers, especially when employees of large providers don’t communicate with each other and saddle customers with the role of “go-between.”

Two recent examples of Customer Service From Hell reached our desk this week, one involving Verizon which has the “not my job” mentality firmly entrenched in their call centers, and the other from Time Warner Cable, where “Diego” told a new customer he couldn’t install their service until they disguised themselves as an old customer to cancel someone else’s service first.

The Case of the Persnickety Promotion – You Don’t Qualify Because We Never Added It to Your Account

You can't touch this Verizon offer when the company forgets to apply it to your account for eight months.

Anthony Caruso received an offer he couldn’t refuse from Verizon FiOS: $69.99 a month for a triple play package of phone, Internet, and television service good for 12 months, with a reduced discount of $89.99 per month for the second year — still a great deal over what Comcast was selling.

He signed up for service in June and was happy with the installation and the service… until the bill came.

Over the last eight months, Caruso has never received a single bill that reflected the offer he signed up for, resulting in monthly calls to customer service lasting between 30 and 75 minutes each.  Every month, Verizon told Caruso the promotion he received never existed, but they would issue certain credits as a gesture of goodwill.

The Star Ledger exhaustively details the entire debacle, but suffice to say, Caruso was a victim because nobody at Verizon applied the promotion to his account.  The company also never bothered to investigate why a customer had to keep calling (eight times in the last eight months) to receive those credits.  The newspaper illustrates how complicated it all got:

In early July, Caruso received the first bill, for $176.44.

It was more than a little confusing: $470.32 in “Current Activity” charges minus $289.96 in “Specials & Promotions” minus $21.24 for a partial month. The bill also included a “Showtime Starz Entertainment Pack” for $16.99 and “Multi-Room DVR Package” for $24.99, neither of which Caruso ordered.

The bill also included a “first bill estimate” showing monthly charges would be $139.31.

“Very confusing collection of charges and credits,” he said. “I paid the full amount to avoid billing issues for my first payment.”

He called Verizon on July 29 to discuss the bill. Caruso was transferred three times, and a rep named Sandy helped. Caruso said she dropped the “Showtime Starz” package and applied a one-time $30 credit. Caruso decided to keep the “Multi-Room DVR Package,” so his future billing should be $104.43. Because of the overpayment on the first bill, the amount due on the August bill would be $43.21.

“I was also told I was getting $9.99 “Epix” movie channel free for three months,” he said. “The FIOS lineup shows Epix is included in my package, but I decided not to fight this.”

Caurso said he paid the August bill, but there were still problems. It showed the normal monthly price to be $133.63.

He called again, and this time spoke to a rep named Jason, who said he had never heard of a $69.99 bundle offer. Caruso faxed a copy of the offer letter to the rep, who then recomputed the bill to reflect the correct package amount.

But the September bill was for $127.26.

Caruso called Sept. 7 and spoke to two different reps. The second rep also denied the existence of a $69.99 bundle offer, but asked Caruso to again fax a copy of the offer.

The rep applied another one-time credit and said the correct amount would now be $92.16.

This continued for the next several months. The bill would be wrong, Caruso would call and the reps would apply credits.

Got it?

After months of endless frustration, Caruso had to appeal to the newspaper’s Bamboozled column for Star Ledger readers seeking a solution to their endless customer service nightmares.

Tom Maguire, a senior vice president for Verizon, figured out what at least 10 Verizon customer service representatives couldn’t — the company never applied the original promotion to Caruso’s account because the service order was not written in a way that would allow the promotion to be applied.  Instead of the two year promotion, Caruso was signed up for month-to-month service, at a price of $129.99 a month, not $69.99.

“They basically dropped the ball from my perspective,” Maguire admitted.

What irritated Maguire (and Caruso even more) is that repeatedly-faxed copies of the promotional offer made no difference.

Caruso’s consolation prizes for his eight month ordeal:

• A direct number to a senior customer service representative already aware of Caruso’s service history;
• A restart of Verizon’s promotion, effectively extending it for nine additional months;
• A multi-room DVR package at a discounted price for the life of his service.

Tips for Living With Verizon:

Keep a copy of the promotional offer you select until it expires. If Verizon does not apply it correctly, or it mysteriously drops off your account at some point, you will have evidence the offer existed.  If you experience a repeated billing problem, ask the representative that answers to transfer you to a senior customer service supervisor.

Time Warner Cable’s Mind Games Threaten Our Relationship

Courtesy: Jacobson

Julie Jacobson chose Time Warner Cable over AT&T for her new Carlsbad, Calif. condo located to the north of San Diego.  The deciding factor: no cable box required for extra sets hooked up to expanded basic cable. (Unfortunately for Jacobson, that won’t be true much longer as Time Warner embarks on a nationwide conversion to a virtually all-digital lineup, which will require extra equipment on most television sets.)

Unfortunately, ever since Jacobson signed up for service, Time Warner has been playing “hard to get.”

Jacobson painfully details her encounters with Time Warner customer service, who had no idea what a CableCARD was (much less an “M-Card” which allows multiple signal streams).  She was also not impressed to discover the “free” HD-DVR promotion on offer evidently only applied to the cardboard box it came in.

“Your ‘free’ HD-DVR comes with an additional $11/month box-rental fee and $11/month service fee,” Jacobson discovered. “The HD-DVR is free + $22/month, which puts TWC pricing into U-verse territory.”

But even that wasn’t enough for Jacobson to declare Time Warner Cable “sucky.”  It was this:

Julie,

Thank you for placing your Time Warner Cable order online. We were unable to complete your order with the information you provided.

Please call us at 855-889-4113 so we can proceed with your service order. Be sure to have your order confirmation number (########) and the four-digit PIN you created during your online order ready when you call. We look forward to hearing from you so we can complete your order as soon as possible.

Thank you for choosing Time Warner Cable.

So I called the number on a Sunday at 3:15 p.m., using the phone number in the email. The office was closed by then. Believe it or not, I started pining for Comcast back in Minnesota. At least their customer service is 24/7.

After being bounced from offices in Wisconsin and North Carolina, she was finally transferred to California, where Diego (with his barely decipherable English) was waiting to not provide customer service:

I’m sorry, but I had a really tough time understanding him. As it turns out, it didn’t really matter because he was flat-out wrong. He told me the old tenants returned their TWC equipment, but they didn’t call to cancel their service; my order wouldn’t go through because there was already an account associated with the address.

“You need to call them to cancel their service,” he said.

“What?! I don’t even know who they are!”

In that case, he said, I could go to the local TWC office and bring them a copy of my lease.

That’s real convenient, given we’re only in town for one day.

So I ask Diego for the store phone number, and he provides it.

“Where is it located?” I ask.

“I don’t know … somewhere in the LA/San Diego area.”

Thanks, that narrows it down.

A more encouraging experience with another representative later on seemed to have everything worked out, until a new message from the company reached her e-mail box earlier today:

3rd Attempt: Please call us to avoid cancellation of your Time Warner Cable order.

Tips for Living With Time Warner Cable:

Time Warner’s system for dealing with new customers always hangs up when it finds existing service already established at an address. We encountered this ourselves and had to arrange for the old owners of our home to arrange for a service disconnection before Time Warner could complete our order for new service. Usually it makes better sense to call and establish service directly with a Time Warner representative over the phone when a complication like this arises. The representative would have identified the problem immediately instead of dispatching cryptic e-mail messages about a generic “problem with your order.”  Calling the local office nearest you is also a great way to cut through red tape and stop your call from being transferred to different call centers.

If your order went horribly wrong and you were inconvenienced, ask a representative to throw in free installation or some other extra promotion for your time and trouble. 

We also suspect that “third attempt” notification was probably associated with the earlier e-mail and not the more encouraging, later experience with another representative by phone.

Verizon Wireless became the Bank of America of late 2011 when it attempted to impose a $2 “convenience fee” on select customers who prefer to pay their monthly phone bills online or through an automated telephone attendant.  It’s just the latest experiment in customer gouging — the same kind of toe-in-the-water strategic experimenting that unleashed ubiquitous baggage fees on airlines, low balance fees on checking accounts, and the increasingly-common practice of charging customers extra to mail them their monthly bill.

An entire industry of consultants pitch their creative talents to companies like Verizon who want “a little extra” from captive customers.  These specialists sell their expertise identifying the most vulnerable (and least likely to leave), who will grin and bear just about any kind of abuse heaped on them. Many income and resource-challenged consumers are left feeling powerless to protest and reverse unwarranted extra charges.

The consultant gougers-for-hire made millions for large banks when they figured out how to score the biggest bounced check and overdraft fees (simply pay the biggest check first, opening the door to $39 bounced check fees for all the little checks that follow).  Verizon’s $2 fee targeted customers who couldn’t afford to let the company automatically withdraw their monthly payment, or didn’t trust the company to do it correctly.  Even more, Verizon’s fee would target more desperate past-due customers who needed to make a fast payment to avoid service interruption.  Consumer advocates wondered if Verizon was successful charging these customers more, would they expand the fees to cover all online or pay-by-phone payments?

We’ll never know because the public outcry and intensive media coverage during a slow holiday week combined to force Verizon into a fourth quarter revenue retreat, rescinding the fee 24 hours after announcing it.  But Verizon may be pardoned if they feel they were unfairly singled out.  That is because other telecommunications companies have been charging certain customers bill payment fees of their own for years:

Verizon's evolved position on the $2 convenience fee (Courtesy: WTVT)

• Stop the Cap! reader Larry writes to share TDS Telecom, an independent phone company, charges a $2.95 “third party processing fee” when accepting payments by phone.  “In its place you either have to revert to U.S. Postal Service, or agree to electronic billing for on-line payment access.”
• AT&T charges a $5 bill payment fee for “certain customers.”
• Sprint/Nextel not only has its own $5 bill payment fee for those paying at the last minute,  it also forces customers with spotty credit to sign up for auto-pay to avoid a mandatory surcharge.  Want a paper bill?  That’s $2 extra a month.
• Comcast charges a $5.99 payment fee, but only in certain states.
• Time Warner Cable charges fees ranging from an “agent assisted payment” fee ($4.99) to a statement copy fee ($4.99) in some locations.

While Verizon has agreed to drop its latest new charge, the company’s carefully-named bill-padding extra fees attached to monthly bills remain.  In addition to breaking out and passing along all government fees and surcharges, Verizon also bills customers administrative and regulatory recovery fees that, for other companies, would represent the cost of doing business.  These latter two go straight into Verizon’s pocket, despite the implication they are third party-imposed mandatory surcharges.

Had Verizon called their new $2 “convenience” fee a “business efficiency accounting recovery fee,” would they have snookered enough consumers to get away with it?

[flv width=”360″ height=”290″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/WTVT Tampa Verizon cancels planned 2 bill-pay fee 12-30-11.mp4[/flv]

WTVT in Tampa says Verizon did a complete 180 on its $2 bill payment “convenience fee.”  (3 minutes)

[flv width=”640″ height=”380″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/CNN Verizon Dumps Fee 12-30-11.flv[/flv]

CNN hints the FCC’s potential involvement in Verizon’s business may have had something to do with the quick shelving of the $2 fee.  (2 minutes)

Big cable companies are targeting their non-customers, and those current customers who refuse to sign up for triple-play bundles, with some of the most aggressively-priced promotions in years.  The two largest, Comcast/Xfinity and Time Warner Cable, have been sending out letters offering dirt cheap $20 Internet service or cable television packages that include DVR service, a second set top box, and hundreds of digital cable channels for $49.99 a month for two years.

Comcast

Comcast promotions vary in different markets, depending on who their competitors are.  The best pricing goes to new customers, as a recent promotion sent to suspected DSL customers in their service areas illustrates.

(click to enlarge)

The cable company is pitching 12 months of Xfinity Performance (typically around 12Mbps) for $19.99 a month for the first year for new customers only.  Some customers report they can cancel penalty-free at the end of the first year, while others are told Comcast is actually pitching a two-year contract where the price of the service increases to $34.99 a month during the second year (a early cancellation fee pro-rated to less than $50 applies in some areas if you cancel early).  This pricing applies to standalone service, which makes it aggressively priced.  Most cable providers charge a higher price for Internet-only service.  Some customers also report a $25 or more installation fee applies (and in some areas an in-person install is required for new customers).  We’ve heard from some readers that successfully qualified for the promotion under the name of a spouse if they have had Comcast service previously.  Otherwise, Comcast usually requires customers to be without service for 90 days before they are considered “new customers.”

Customers can try calling 1-877-508-5492 to request this offer: $19.99/Month for 1 year with no additional service required (Code at bottom of letter: LTP79376-0014).

If that number does not work from your calling area, other numbers to try include: 1-877-298-0903 (CA, TX), 1-877-508-5492 (CA, WV), 1-877-494-9166 in NJ (currently pitching 6-month version of this promotion without contract.)

If 12Mbps is not fast enough, ask the representative what promotional pricing exists for faster speeds.  Some customers scored 35Mbps service for $10 more per month.

A separate ongoing promotion from Comcast offers Blast Internet service at 25Mbps+ on similar terms.  But pricing varies wildly in different markets.  Customers in California were able to purchase this promotion for as little as $19.99 a month with a year-long contract, while customers in Chicago were asked to pay $39 for essentially the same service.

Comcast’s promotions list runs several pages, so if you are shot down asking for these promotions, ask about other current offers or hang up and try calling again and asking to speak with someone else.  Your results may vary depending on the representative you speak with.  Remember Comcast’s 250GB usage cap applies to all residential service plans.

Time Warner Cable

In addition to regular Road Runner standalone Internet service promotions that deliver Standard Service speeds for $29-35 a month for a year, Time Warner has been getting very aggressive trying to win back cord-cutters and those who have left for a competing pay television provider.  The cable company has mailed letters to non-cable TV customers in the northeast pitching substantial discounts on cable TV service price-locked (but no commitment term for you) for two years and includes free DVR equipment, DVR service, and a second set top box with digital cable TV for $49.99 a month.  They’ll even credit back the cost of any early termination fees charged by another provider over the course of the first year of service.

(click to enlarge)

The promotion is intended primarily for customers who already receive service from another provider, but new customers can call 1-855-364-7797 and ask for the offer without the competing provider early termination fee rebate.  If you do receive service from another provider, there are various requirements and steps to follow to qualify for up to $200 in termination fee credits.  Visit SwitchtoTWC or call them to learn the details.

Neither of these promotions work for existing Time Warner Cable customers.  If you already subscribe, discounts will be offered when you threaten to cancel service.  Retention deals from Time Warner Cable can be as aggressively priced as new customer promotions.  We have found retention offers made during the initial call to request a service disconnection are often not very aggressive.  Most representatives try and pare back your package before starting to offer retention pricing (which gradually gets better the more times you reply, “is that the best you can offer?”)

Our best recommendation is to call and request to cancel service 2-3 weeks from today and wait for a Time Warner Cable retention specialist to call you (answer those mystery caller ID calls — it could be Time Warner).  The reps that call you directly often deliver the most aggressive retention deals.  If nobody does reach out to you, call Time Warner yourself a few days before the disconnect is scheduled and ask them to make you an offer to rescind your disconnect request.  You may find some serious savings taking this approach.  If not, you still have time to rescind your disconnect request on your own before the plug gets pulled.

Stop the Cap! readers will recall we pulled the plug on Frontier Communications with the disconnection of our landline back in early February.  After at least 25 years doing business with Rochester Telephone Corporation, later Frontier-Global Crossing, later Frontier-Citizens Communications, we had enough.  Frontier Communications has done nothing of merit for the metropolitan Rochester, N.Y., area since the late 1990s.  Their DSL broadband service is handily beaten in quality, reliability, and price by cable competitor Time Warner Cable, and Frontier’s lack of willingness to invest in something better for their largest service area of nearly one million people in western New York has left us cold.  After a one week experiment with Frontier’s DSL service in 2009, we dropped the service like a hot potato after it achieved an underwhelming 3.1Mbps in the town of Brighton, less than one mile from the Rochester city line.

In early February, our last remaining service — the landline — was transferred to Time Warner Cable.  But even on the way out the door, Frontier continued to disappoint.  After more than two months (and two invoices later), Frontier had still not refunded our credit balance of $26.09.  We’re a long way from Rochester Telephone, a well-regarded predecessor to Frontier which traditionally enclosed a refund check with the final bill.  Frontier makes you wait, and wait, and wait some more, reminding you they owe you money with repetitious “do not pay – credit balance” invoices for long-terminated service.

More than two months after disconnecting service, our refund check finally arrives!

On Monday, the refund check finally arrived, in an obscure envelope resembling one of those PIN reminders banks send you.  After tearing away three sides of perforated strips, there it was — $26.09 from Frontier Communications.

The long wait is hardly a random glitch.  Stop the Cap! covered the story of a Frontier customer in California who waited several months for the phone company to refund her just over $15, and just this evening we heard from one of our regular readers in Rochester disappointed by Frontier’s hardly-rapid refund policy.

The only good news is that we weren’t overbilled on the way out the door, as one Elk Grove, Calif. customer was — to the tune of $680.

To Frontier we say goodbye and good luck (and we’ll be cashing that check faster than you sent it).