Nearing the End

Verizon Sucks (less)

Replaced phone for free

Well, I had to buy the replacement phone on eBay. But the lady at the Verizon store was very nice. She transferred my phonebook to the new phone and waved me away instead of charging the normal $10 fee. She also told me I could activate the new phone myself on the internet, which I did just now, which saved me an additional $20 fee. She should be running the rest of the company.

Try to email text msg to Verizon cell phone

This is the way toooo common result.

1235551212@vtext.com
550 SMTP connection refused

Gmail + Verizon = Failure

I used to forward my gmail to my Verizon cell phone. But almost half of the mail was being lost. This is above and beyond the "550 SMTP connection refused" error listed above. Fortunately I'm able to use Teleflip instead.

Mail forward to my phone via Teleflip is fairly reliable. Only about once a week do I get the "550 SMTP connection refused". Even then, Teleflip is good enough to inform me that Verizon is down again. That little bit of feedback eliminates a lot of frustration. What is frustrating is why do I have to route mail via Teleflip in order for it to arrive at my Verizon phone???!?

Google Calendar

Unlike gmail, I can't ask Google Calendar to send event notifications to Teleflip. I can send notifications to my gmail account. I do that in order to forward a copy to Teleflip and on to my Verizon phone. That works but I end up with extra clutter in my gmail Inbox.

Google Calendar supports SMS to cell phone directly. Great! Oh, but initially Verizon was one of the few unsupported carriers. I can only guess Google is smart enough to steer clear of Verizon's technical problems.

Verizon is now on Google Calendar's list of supported vendors. I'm testing it now...

Bought a new phone

A Christmas present for my son. He rarely makes any calls and just a couple of text msgs per day.

Automatically lost my old plan and got a new one.
Old plan: $10/month
New plan: $35/month
Verizon: "This was fully explained to you."
Me: "Why the hell would I agree to more than triple my monthly phone bill??!?"

Reset This!

I just tried to get access to my Verizon on-line account. Apparently I forgot my password so I clicked on "reset my password". I entered my cell phone number, social security number and this is what I got back.

Our records indicate that you requested an additional account password to prevent unauthorized access to your account.

Please enter the account password below to continue.

If you have forgotten your password or wish to have your password removed please contact us at 800-922-0204.

I waited 6m 30s for someone to answer the phone. Once I talked with someone it went about as smoothly as I could expect. She said I need a second four digit password. She reset that for me, I enetered it and it took me back to the original screen asking for my passowrd. I had to try that again, let it fail, ask again to reset it, enter my phone number, soc sec number again, then I was asked for my mini password again!! I entered it and was taken to a screen asking for my password again! But... at the bottom of the screen there is now a button to "Reset Password". I pressed it and received a text msg with my new password.

Once I logged in I was taken to a screen to reset my password. That makes sense. I filled out the form and... got this.

The information you have entered is not in a valid format. Please check the information and re-enter.

As my "security question" I entered "Name of least favorite wireless carrier?". I can't print the answer here because that would defeat the security but you can guess. Is that considered "an invalid format"??

I finally got logged in. I feel less retarded now.

There's a link on my Verizon home page saying "Upgrade to a new phone". I'm careful not to click it. I'm not sure where it will take me but I'm almost certain I can't afford whatever it is.

Net Non-Neutrality

Verizon is one of the big telcos behind this propaganda cartoon.

Links

last updated 2 years ago #