Technician charge after tech

Question

First let me start by saying that I am not one who will complain over small charges and fees. I will usually pay to avoid any hassles if it isn't too much. In this case I feel totally wronged by Verizon.
I have a television that is next to a wall outlet that I was trying to get working. I was on the phone with the Technical Support rep on early Sunday morning 8/11/2013 who walked me thru several steps to test the line. It turns out the line was dead so the phone rep told me that they could send out a tech that same day on Sunday to connect the line. I asked if there would be a charge to send out a tech and he told me no. He even said that it was part of my package deal that I signed up for and I would not have to pay. If I was told that I would have to pay, I would have declined the technician service.
I was shocked to receive my bill and find that I have $137 in technician labor charges. I immediately called Verizon Billing and they told me that the Tech Support rep put down a note on the account that he advised me of the charge to send out a technician. This is a FLAT OUT LIE. I told him that all he needs to do is pull up a recording of the phone conversation. I made the phone call to technical support {edited for privacy} on 8/11/2013 at 12:25 am. That phone call lasted 20 minutes. He insisted that they are not able to pull up phone recordings and they he can only go by what the tech support rep noted in the account. So it's my word against the tech support rep who typed something into their system. The billing rep told me that there is nothing that he can do, he is not able to listen to the recording (if there is one), and if I spoke to his supervisor they would tell me the same thing. He was not able to help me or give me any options to remedy this situation.
I have no reason to lie about this. I would have opted not to have the service if I had been told there was going to be a charge. If I agreed to a charge to have a technician come, then I would gladly pay it. I don't know, maybe the Tech Support rep needs to meet a quota of setting appointments so Verizon can charge unwitting customers.
I am respectfully requesting that someone pull up that recording to listen and hear that the phone rep told me that there would not be a charge and in fact even told me that the technician service is FREE. Once this can be verified, I am requesting that Verizon do that right thing and reverse the charge on my account. I sincerely hope someone from Verizon is monitoring this message board and can do something about this.
Solved!
Go to Solution.

Answer 1

I had a very similar issue with what I believe is a less than satisfactory outcome.  I had been on a low speed DSL for quite some time and finally switched to a higher speed DSL plan, and of course after switching, the activation date for my new internet service came and went, and my internet speed did not increase.
So, I contact Verizon customer support, and without indicating that this would be a billable event, they indicate that they will send out a technician.  The technician shows up only to find that there's nothing at the house that is having issues, so he runs test to the central office only to find that my internet speed is still being limited to 0.5-1 Mbps.  So, he calls the billing department on my cell phone (since he's unable to get the central office to 3-way call the billing department) and tries to put everyone on speaker phone.  Long story short, the order never went through properly and there was never anything the technician could do at my house to have fixed this.
Like the original poster, I was surpised to be charged $137 for the labor charge.  I called the billing department and was told that my account also had a note indicating that I was advised there would be a charge.  If I had known this was the case, I certainly would not have asked for a technician to come either.  Not only that, the labor that I'm being charged for never had any chance of fixing my problem since it was the central office that was limiting my internet speed since the order didn't properly go through.  The billing account rep tried to help me as best as she could, but I'm still dissatsfied with the outcome.
Verizon made a mistake which resulted in me not getting the promised service speed on my activation date.  Then, they made a mistake by sending a technician to fix something that could never have been fixed by the technician coming out to my house in the first place.  On top of that, they never told me there would be a charge for sending out the technician, which I would have declined, but wrote it into my account.  Now, I'm expected to pay for the mistakes that Verizon made. 
Although it seems that finding a resolution to these issues through the forums is hit-or-miss, I figured it would be worth a shot.  At the very least, if it happens to someone else, they can know they're not alone.