I've been a long time FiOS customer, back when Verizon first installed it in the neighborhood, and the technical aspect of the service itself was great, never an outage that I can recall. Frontier took over, and all was well, my promo rates had expired, but I still paid the $150 or so for TV, internet, and phone service.
My nightmare started when I requested Frontier port the DID from my 2nd phone line to a voip service. Unbenownst to me, Frontier was using the secondary DID as my customer account number, and I woke up the next morning with no tv, no internet, and no phone service, and customer service actually attempted to blame this on me, because I should have known their computer was going to delete my entire account. For real, they told me this at one point. After asking for supervisors a few times, and arguing with people about not wanting a pay channel package, and just wanting my services restored, someone finally got on the line, and said they could do that, and after a bit, it was done. They had restored everything, same services, same pricing. Fast forward 2 years ...
I get a bill saying that my "introductory prices have expired" again ... how can my introductory prices expire twice ?!? Well, customer service insists its because *I requested changes to my account*. At this point, they are expecting me to pay $240 a month for TV, phone, and internet, and to add insult to injury, the internet speed was slower than what they give new customers. They were also billing me for a STB I had returned over 2 years ago, and they said they couldn't refund me the money for that.
I'm going to leave out multiple phone calls and run arounds, because I don't want to sound like I'm ranting. Anyway, I realized this was it, noone at Frontier was ever going to actually listen to what I was saying happened to me, and noone cares if I'm happy or not. If you start looking at the company financials, you'll find out that they are bleeding customers, suffering from debt load of their acquisition of FiOS, and gaming customer service accounts with fees and services noone wants or even ordered, in order to make their "per customer revenue" increase and make the bankers happy.
I started to manage my switch away from Frontier. I got a new internet provider, and I called Frontier to cancel my internet service only, keep phone and TV. The customer service lady assured me she had done that. Hours later, I get an email saying that I've ordered equipment, and that a technician is scheduled to install it. I called to find out what was going on. The customer service rep that I said "cancel internet only, leave everything else the same" added a DVR for $16 a month to my account. I never said the letters D-V-R, she never said D-V-R, yet, there it was.
So, at this point, I've managed to get TV service from another provider activated as well, so I call to correct the DVR issue, and explain I want internet and TV cancelled, keep the phone services all the same. After much time on hold, I'm being told they can't deliver FiOS digital voice plan, because "it comes over the internet." Its a lie. I have an ONT, and the house phone wires are connect to it, and it comes over the fiber same as all the other services. I confirmed this with the local store employees. What they are doing, is refusing to offer any plan other than the most expensive phone plan they have, which is some "Freedom Essentials" bs, which anyone with brains knows is just the same phone service by another name. They've also insisted they have to send a technical to my house to move wires. So, understand, in order for me to not change my phone service, they have to change my phone service. The new monthly fee for just 1 phone line ? $72 a month, which is only $8 less than they are selling triple play packages to new people for. As soon as I can port this DID to another provider, I'm gone.
I've been through the retention department people, they aren't any help. I've tried to explain whats happening to me, how they have systematically alienated a long time, decade old customer, and have failed at every interaction, but its pointless. Noone at Frontier actually cares about anything customers have to say. They have the latest plan to game you out of your money, and all that matters is the dollars.
5 years ago Frontier had a share price of $106, and today its $2 and change, and this is why. I hope this serves as a warning for what you're getting into when you deal with these people, and if you decide to do it anyway, go talk to the people at the local store, don't bother calling the phone center unless you like abuse and have a bottle of ibuprofen handy.
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