Companies and Products That Suck, 2008 Edition

The New Year is a time to reflect, and this year's C&P That Suck edition primarily revolves around my recent move, which has been nothing short of ridiculous.

DirecTV

Skip Button Time Update: Around October, DirecTV snuck in an update which affected the duration of a "skip." I think it had something to do with Dish somehow copyrighting the "30-second skip." After the update, I was never able to correctly skip any number of commercials again.

False Sign-up Promotions: When I signed up, I was promised a $100 visa gift card within eight weeks. I filled everything out properly, even got confirmation that it was received by the third-party rebate processor, but I never received the card.

Broken Contracts: I signed up for a one year contract. This was confirmed by both the lady I signed up with, and the lady I disconnected with after 13 months of service. A few weeks later I receive a bill for a $150 early termination fee. I don't think so!

Dish Installation
When signing up via their standard customer service number, they told me it was alright that I didn't have a phone number at the time. The Indianapolis-based installer contacted me once via email, but ignored my response. The install window came and went without so much as a knock. I sent a second email asking who is responsible for notifying me when they reschedule - Dish or the installer - and was told that it's standard policy to not go on an install unless telephone contact has first been made. Yay for miscommunication.

Vectren Energy
A week before the move, the gas company was contacted and it was arranged that when the current resident's service was terminated it would immediately turn over to our name. This is what the customer service rep told us. Yet we went two days without heat because they turned it off and then send the same guy to turn it back on two days later. Even he said "I don't know why they would do this!"

But the one that takes the cake...
Verizon Internet
Three weeks before the move, Verizon was contacted and it was arranged that on the day of the move, service at our previous address would turn off and service at our new address would turn on. The customer service rep made it clear that this was possible. That night our Internet went out. We contacted customer service again, and a new rep who said no such thing was possible, and she cooked up a scheme to get service back on at our previous address - just cancel the move order. By the end of that week I still had no service, and my Verizon Online account was disabled. When I called customer service back, they no longer had any record of my ever having service! Apparently they immediately delete all records as soon as you "cancel service" - which is not what was ever supposed to happen in the first place. The only option they could present me with at this point was to put in a "new order" for either address, and it would be several weeks until it could be turned on, even at the previous address, because of the needless corporate bureaucracy needed for new orders, and no matter what I could not have my previous Verizon e-mail address back. Good thing I don't actually use my Verizon e-mail address! So I put in the "new order" for the new address, and was given a promise date of five days after our move-in. "Fine," I said, but that's hardly the end of it. The day comes and goes, and around 7pm that night I get a robo-call from Verizon saying that it's been rescheduled another 7 days - bringing my total Internet downtime to a full month. Now that day comes and goes, and they claim everything is peachy and begin billing me. Only problem is, I still don't have an Internet connection. On that day, one Verizon employee came out and did a line test. He didn't tell me, or Verizon for that matter, the result of the line test. The following week when the second employee comes out, he finds that the line connected to this house isn't even rated for DSL, and he had to spend two hours running a new line from down the block! Over a month from when the ordeal began, I finally have a connection. Only problem is, it might be called DSL and be using DSL protocols, but it's not giving me anymore than 2 x ISDN speed!



That green number up top is my DOWN speed! The sad thing is, I could have had Time Warner Cable Internet installed by now and probably not had any of the speed issues. I decided not to go that route, because they require a month lead time before they'll send an installer, and Verizon kept stringing me along week by week. Let's hope someone there is working next week...