Verizon is my cell service provider and I'm having difficulty resolving an issue with them. Somewhere along the line my account was suspended (as in I can't log in and work with account details). People in the local Verizon store keep referring me to the corporate customer service line. On the customer service line, I can't find any way to get to a human to help resolve the account access issue.

The last straw was this week when I went to Canada and couldn't find a way to turn on their international roaming feature (Travel Pass, they call it). I'm fed up with paying the freight and not being able to use the features. My inclination is to close the account, open a new one, and try to go on from there. I'm guessing, though, that I'm going to end up in a loop: close the current account, quit paying, but get referred to the old account when I try to open another.

Anyone got any ideas? Thanks in advance.

I don't recall the exact menu sequence, cuz it's been nearly a year, but call, go thru the menus until offered an "other" option, then say, clearly "representative," and you'll get a live person.

Also, most phone menus will connect you with a human if you keep pressing the zero key like you're trying to call an operator.

dial "611" from your phone and say "cancel service", then tell them that you want to cancel your service unless you can regain access to your account.

Cancel the account.

Get your service from Total Wireless. They are an MVNO that resells air time on the Verizon network.

You can use your Verizon-compatible phone, you use the same network, the monthly cost for Total Wireless is much less than what you would pay Verizon for the same service, and there is no contract -- it is a month-to-month service.

Right now my wife and I use this service, paying sixty dollars / month plus sales tax and 911 fee for a total of $64.30 / month. This gives us two phones, both with unlimited talk / text, and a 15 GB pool of shared data, all using the Verizon network, without the need to deal with Verizon's customer NO-service.

On the rare occasions that I need to communicate with a Total Wireless rep, I use the "chat" facility on their website and I always get connected to a human quickly.

If you have a Twitter account, I would suggest contacting them by tweeting your issue at Verizon and/or Verizon Wireless customer support. I have had a fair amount of success (and quick response) when I resort to social media to get the attention of actual humans at large corporations.

quote:

Originally posted by V-Tail:
Cancel the account.

Get your service from Total Wireless. They are an MVNO that resells air time on the Verizon network.

How are the data speeds and GPS on this MVNO network?

Thanks,

RMD

re: "Anyone got any ideas?"

Some years ago unresolveable billing issue with their in-house process was finally concluded by my contacting our State.gov agency for such utilities. I forget the exact name of the agency, but it was some omsbudsman charged with skillful oversight of managing what would otherwise be shameful abuse of the customer by a public utility.

Since then, no issues with Verizon & intend to keep them as long as they serve my needs.

quote:

Originally posted by Orguss:
Also, most phone menus will connect you with a human if you keep pressing the zero key like you're trying to call an operator.

This method works, and I use it often. Usually you have to wait until it gets to the "press 1 for ..." sequence. Then just lean on the zero key.
 

quote:

Originally posted by rduckwor:

quote:

Originally posted by V-Tail:
Cancel the account.

Get your service from Total Wireless. They are an MVNO that resells air time on the Verizon network.

How are the data speeds and GPS on this MVNO network?

I can't compare them to buying direct from Verizon, as opposed to the reseller (Total Wireless), since I have never had Verizon service directly from Verizon. I do know that it beats the heck out of the service I had from AT&T on the same phone.

Of course, we don't use much data on the cellular network, we mostly use data over WiFi. Maybe 1 GB per month cellular data, for my wife and me, combined.

My suggestion: try them for a month. Worst case, if it doesn't work out for you, you're out ten bucks for a Total Wireless SIM, plus one month of service. It's no contract, so you can walk away at any time with no penalty.

Thanks. I may just do that.

RMD

quote:

Originally posted by rduckwor:
Thanks. I may just do that.

Let me know how it works out for you.

Total Wireless is cheap enough, but I just found a way to lower my cost with them even further.

Their single phone plan, unlimited talk / text, with 5 GB data is $35 / month, the two-phone plan that wife and I use is $60 / month with 15 GB shared data.

Most of our data use is on WiFi; our cellular data is usually less than 1 GB / month, so I'm paying for data that we are not using.

They have a single phone plan, unlimited talk / text for $25 / month.

NOTE: They will reduce by 5% if you let them auto-suck from your checking account. Nope, I'm not going to do that. Add local sales tax (6.5% for me in Orange County FL), plus twenty cents per phone for 911 fee.

If you run out of data on any plan, you can buy add-on data in 5 GB increments at $10 / 5 GB. The basic service is good for 30 days. The add-on data does not expire as long as it is connected to a basic plan. So, I could -- belay that, I will buy our future service using the $25 / phone plan for talk and text, and add the $10 add-on data. The $10 data should be good for six months or more, per phone, so we'll be money ahead of the game by paying for only the data that we actually use.

"Thrifty," that's what we are!

Believe it or not, I've found that when the phone tree asks me to describe what I want, continuing to respond "Representative." in a more and more pissed off tone seems to get me to a representative the quickest. Once they come on line I reset to a normal and polite tone, explain the problem, and ask politely for their help and I am usually quite please with the response.

Thanks, gents - problem solved. I was at the Verizon store when they opened this morning, one of the peddlers got me to a human on the phone, and the phone rep got me through a password change. Seemed a lot more painful than it should have been, but I can access my account and services.

If that hadn't happened, cancelling the account was the next step as a couple of you suggested. Thanks again.