Follow Up: Verizon makes good on our FiOS privacy woes

Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Broadband, Editorial, Features, Internet

A little under two weeks ago, we made a long-standing issue that we had with Verizon public. The fact that they had ignored our request to fix a huge oversight that resulted in our private FiOS account info to fall into the wrong hands for over 8 months was starting to upset us just a tad. We knew that if we shared it with you, our readers, that Verizon would have no choice but to respond quickly. At least, that was the hope.

Well, sure enough, after the story was picked up on The Consumerist as well as made it to the front page of Digg, we received a phone call. Then an email. Then another phone call. Then a couple more emails. Verizon Damage Control had stepped in.

Most of the phone calls and emails came from different people at Verizon, but the main idea was that they would be sure to fix the problem quickly. Later on in the evening, though, I got a call from a Verizon exec named Jeff. He had a tech, named Eric, on the line with him. The call came in at 7:00 PM, and we stayed on the phone for about an hour. Jeff and Eric were committed to making sure the issue was solved during that call, no matter how long it took.

It did take a while, but the end result was that I could now log in to the Verizon control panel and see my information, as opposed to the information of someone else who lives in the same city. Even better though, was that this guy who lived across town no longer had real-time access to my information. I specify “real-time” only because I will never know if he decided to take screenshots of my personal data, but I am optimistic on that end of things.

So, now that it was fixed, I said that something needed to be done about the 8 months that I was given the run-around, as in that time, I had spent over 20 literal hours on the phone with FiOS tech support, sales, retention, and anyone else I was put on hold in order to be transferred to. Another Verizon rep, Michael, made sure I was taken care of on that end. A couple of days later, we received a phone call that our account would be credited with 10 months of free service. We are on the highest plan Verizon has for FiOS customers in our area, that being 30/15. So the credit came out to almost $1500.

So a “Thank you” goes out to Verizon. Not only did they fix the mistake that had been lingering for so long, but they also went the extra mile in compensation us for our troubles.