We don't care. We don't have to.

[redbird]

I opened the verizon bill just now--I do that (and other regular bills, like Con Ed and credit cards) on Saturdays--and found that apparently I had overlooked last month's bill (probably while in Montreal) and they mailed a "final disconnection notice" immediately on the payment being late. The previous bill, with no late anything, wanted me to pay by July 27. This one arrived, I think, on Wednesday (July 29). Feh.

And nobody else offers local service, not really--we need the DSL through them (we can't get cable internet here, we've looked). Yes, I owe them the 1,5% late charge, but "disconnect if not paid by August 5" on the first late bill?!t care.

Also, when I called to ask when it became policy to send final disconnect notices the moment a payment was late, I got put through a voicemail tree. I pushed 0 to ask for an operator, and it asked why I wanted an operator: and then admitted that it didn't have any available, and advised me to go to the Web site.

So. Pay the stupid thing. Consider whether writing them a sharply worded letter, cc'd to the public service commission, is more than a waste of postage. And maybe see if I got any decent okapi pictures.


ETA: After some stupidity with the online system (the stupid bit being that its choice of possible security questions are all of them things that other people will know--I picked one at random and gave it a code answer unrelated to the question, but many people won't think of that--I have paid online. It warned that it might take up to 3 business days to be applied, which will be cutting it close. At least, unlike one credit card I dealt with, they aren't charging me a fee for doing this. It also transpires I had paid online at least once before, in 2004. *sigh*

Comments

[amaebi.livejournal.com]

Goodness gracious.

[avram]

We switched over to Cordia a few months back (their combined local and long-distance services came to about $10/month cheaper than AT&T + Verizon). When I got behind on the payment (due to losing track of the envelopes), they sent me a notice after two missed payments, and even though I had already technically missed the deadline for final payment before I even opened the envelope telling me about it, I promptly paid online, called them up to tell them, quickly got through to a human being, and was told everything was OK, there'd be no interruption in service, and I didn't have to pay a re-connection fee.

We don't have DSL, though. We get our internet through our cable company (Cablevision). Cordia does offer DSL, so if they cover your area, you might give them a try. I see a few negative reviews online, but those don't match my experience.

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the heads-up! We have Verizon and have generally been quite happy with them, but holy crap.

[mjlayman.livejournal.com]

My Verizon bill from month before last showed I had missed that payment, but didn't threaten disconnect. I knew I'd paid it and the bill was sent in the mail after I'd paid via my credit union's bill payment system. So I didn't do anything.

Last week, I found out from the WashPost that I can have DSL without the landline under it, and arranged that. The current Verizon bill came Friday and showed both past months paid, plus $35 less for the current bill.

So I don't know why they would cancel your service when they didn't mine.

[womzilla.livejournal.com]

We failed to pay for two months straight--the bills disappeared somewhere; I suspect they never arrived, but it's also possible that we threw them out thinking they were junk mail. They didn't threaten to cut us off; they just nicely called and mentioned that they might have to cut us off if we didn't call them sometime in the next week or so.

So I have no idea what might cause the difference in treatment.

[sraun]

Grr. I have it worthwhile to write a letter the Public Utilities Commission (or your equivalent) and the President of The Phone Company (QWest, in my case) the time they really got me mad. It got me a credit of about half a month's service for about a two day outage.

I expect that being able to show the PUC the appropriate paperwork would generate some wrath towards the phone company.