So I decided to switch from Verizon DSL to Cox Cable... no biggie, once I got the Cable going, I called Verizon to cancel the DSL service.
I expected the normal "cancel service" routine, i.e. "We're so sorry to hear that you're cancelling your service, sir. May we ask what made you to decide to do this?" along with the normal lies and false promises, "Well sir, if you decide to not cancel your service, we can upgrade you to the fastet internet in the world, completely void of downtime, for the low price of $2.00 a year... etc." And of course, that's what I got...
Besides the fact that this is insulting to me (if you could have procided me that level of service before, but didn't because I hadn't threatened to take my business elsewhere yet, then I don't want to do business with you anyway), I was taken aback by the bald-faced, outright, obviously wrong lies that I was forced to listen to. I was told by a Verizon rep (who later sang bits of the them song to "Inspector Gadget" while he processed my request) that going with Cox Cable would make me
more vulnerable to viruses and hackers. Let me say that again... Verizon was saying that going with a different ISP and broadband provider would magically make me more vulnerable to the dangers inherent in
any broadband connection.
I was dumb-founded. I literally could not speak for half a minute while the sales/service rep rattled on about how Verizon was great and was so awesome in fact that they'd been hiding this special reserve of premium service that they'd be happy to share with me now that I didn't want them anymore, or an even cheaper price than I was paying before. When I finally regained the ability to talk, and my mind had stopped trying to escape through my eye sockets, the rep was waiting for my answer. What could I do? What answer could I give in the face of such courageous lying? I said "No, I'd still like to cancel my service, but thanks" completely resisting the urge to ask this peon to explain his earlier statement, and thus embarass himself before my nearly infinite arsenal of wit, computer knowledge, and instant anger.
As the rep processed my request (or rather, as his computer did... which brings me to another point - why haven't these people been replaced with machines yet!?), and as he sung "Inspector Gadget," I daydreamed about what he might possibly say to try and give validity to his aforementioned claim. I imagined all sorts of things, from his claiming that Verizon had a super spiffy firewall that Cox simply didn't have the
cojones to implement, to a more AOL/Earthlink-ish claim of "workers" "working" to "keep my connection safe." In the end, my curiosity was overpowered by my need to stay reasonably sane, and to get off the phone with pure evil (at the least, pure evil's minion).
The lesson in all this? It's one we all know and love... companies lie... tech companies lie
big!
It's insulting (yeah, I know, I said it before... I'm re-iterating, deal with it) to me, that these companies act under the pretense that all of their customers are retarded... and that those few who aren't (because that's a nearly correct assumption on their part) will keep quiet when they encounter mis-information. HA! Well not me. I'm no consumer whore (And how!) I'm not just posting this in the vast, unread stretches of internet blogdom in which my "web log" struggles to exist... oh no, I'm also telling my friends and family to not use Verizon! HA!
Yes, that really is the best I can do. The old stand-by "you're not just losing me, you're losing a whole network of my friends and family!" The pathetic, idle threat that (l)users like me resort to when dealing with corporate juggernauts, and which multi-billion dollar juggernaut companies laugh off over caviar and champagne. Bastards.
