Switching from Verizon to Spectrum, Part 3

 After the mess with Amazon was finished, I got back in touch with Spectrum. 

I come to find out the right wording is that they do not allow 'short codes'. Yet, a few people now I have spoken to said they could get those short codes no problem and Spectrum even uses short codes themselves?! 

I went thru the chat on a Saturday on the off chance they might be able to help answer that question, if there was any way they could allow the short code?

So took a while as the chat module is for home services not mobile. The lady said I would have to go to the mobile section on the site and blah blah. I cut her off and asked if she could just transfer me from that chat to there? She was like oh yes, I can do that! 

I get this guy and he said yes, that was true, no short codes. Not all of them, just some of them. I asked him then about possibly rearranging the free line that was part of the deal and he said he wasn't sure. So I realized I would have to call them on Monday but yes, he did say it would be better to call Spectrum first then call Verizon about the big phone device bill.

That's exactly what I did. Spectrum was first in line. But before I called them, I tried once more to get Amazon notification and guess what? IT WORKED! So now I don't need to transfer my line back to Verizon, thank the Gods! And I got super lucky when I called Spectrum as I got ahold of a great guy from Maine! Awesome! He was brilliant and we talked over different options and ideas I had as to how to sort this mess out. 

He said I could not move the account to my daughter because she doesn't have an internet service with them only a phone line and she is the free line. And if I were to change anything then I would lose the special deal we had when we signed up which was get one line for $29.99 and the 2nd line is free for a year. Plus, he said my internet with them was giving us a $10 discount and when we move, our phone service would go up to $39.99 then. Good to know!

But my son's account with them would not go up the $10 when he moves back and we can all keep our phone services with Spectrum but just at the new place, they are not there yet with internet.

 

Next stop was Verizon to call. They were a nightmare. 

 It took me 6 people before I finally reached a Financial supervisor. The other people I talked to kept trying to set up a promise to pay for payments on the two phone bills. The total of the bill is $1,900. They told me at first I could only make 2 payments (still ouch!) and then I had another lady tell me I could do 3 then another told me I could do 5. I had one lady a few weeks ago set up a promise to pay but it was not for the phone devices, it's for the phone service itself!

Once I realized what they were doing, I had to stop them there as the 2nd lady who tried to set this up, got an error message that she couldn't because the accounts are closed. So after that I had to teach the next few ladies that no, they can't set me up with a promise to pay because that does not work with closed accounts, only active ones and it's for the service not the device. 

When I finally got to the supervisor, she was more forthright and clear but she was also saying that I could only do two payments and each one had to be 15 days apart. But she said I could wait til the 18th when the bill is due to set up the first payment to be due on March 5th and then the 2nd on the 20th. Whereas the lady or two before her said I had to make the first payment on the 14th of Feb and even if I wait and called back later my first payment would still be due on the 14th. Say what?

So they really don't know what they are saying or doing there in the financial dept at Verizon. It was horrible. 

I told the supervisor I would call back then when it was closer to the due date and figure something out then. I didn't try harder or at all by then as I was fed up with the run around and they obviously have no clue.

Even making payments, they would be charging me a $10 service fee and a $5 late fee. The supervisor was even trying to threaten me that they could always take this bill to collections at any time. She backed off when I informed her the bill wasn't due until the 18th of February tho', so I have until then anyway! 

 My solution is to put them off for now as the bill isn't due yet and then as soon we move and that is all done, get an American Airlines cc and just use it to pay off the bill for the phone devices and then I would earn frequent flyer points for that whole thing. Makes better sense yes? Pay it off from there on my own.

Bottom line---lesson here are:

If you are making monthly payments with a phone service provider, do not change your provider until you have paid off the phone because they will send you a bill for the total balance left, due all at once!

Verizon is expensive compared to Spectrum and their financial dept is a mess.

Suggestions for Verizon and any other phone service company, is to be sure and tell the person when they go to switch to a new phone service provider that if they have not paid off their phone device then don't switch or make sure you are ready to pay it off.

Also, the phone device payments SHOULD be able to be transferable. But since they are not, then for example, Verizon could have been creative about this. They could have done all sorts of things when someone is willing to pay them too!

Set up payment plans, charge interest, charge a set up fee for the payments, make it so that there is an autopay for it too. That way, they could feel more assured to get the account paid.

I even was going to go ahead and set up another line with them just so that I could go back to payments but they informed me that nope, I would have to pay off the balance before they would set me up with another line. That is stupid. They lost out on money that way.  

Switching from Spectrum - Verizon: Part 2---Amazon Fun!

Amazon has been doing this two step verification to sign in using both your email and your phone. I added my phone but each time they tried to send me the text to my phone, I got nothing. I tried multiple things and yet nothing. 

So I went to the chat on Spectrum and got sent over to the mobile tech chat and a guy there told me that Spectrum blocks short texts. I was like what? Oh damn! Well that explained things but it opened up a whole other issue now.

I called Amazon about an order I had made in November for some apple cider where the one bottle came broken and I had emailed about it but didn't see a reply until now.What a nightmare! The first person I got on the phone kept trying to verify my account by sending me a code to my phone. I laughed and said no, you won't be able to do that because I am not getting those. She then tells me she can't help me if they can't verify my account then, sorry. I was like can I talk to a supervisor then? She tells me that a supervisor will not be able to help me at all because they will have the same trouble as her in not being able to verify my account. I laughed and I said I didn't care, I wanted to talk to one anyway. She said ok hold please. I am on hold for a few minutes only for her to come back and say for me to call back in 5-10 mins and they would be able to help me then. Asked me if that was ok? I said no, it isn't. She assured me that her supervisor would be able to resolve this problem etc etc. I knew it was a mistake to hang up at that point. But I did.

Next call, I get a guy and I immediately ask for a supervisor. He ignores me and tries the verification text bit on the phone and I tell him, no, you can't do that, it won't help. He keeps interrupting me and trying to tell me he can't help blah blah blah unless he can verify, blah blah, I explain what the last lady told me and he then tells me I could go on the site and ask for them to call me and then I wouldn't need to go thru the verification process. I told him it's not on the site, I can't find it. He goes silent. I think he hung up on me and he finally comes back on and tries to explain again and as I am saying I thought I lost him, then he goes silent again. I had a feeling he was just pushing his mute button not wanting to hear me. I finally hang up on him when he goes silent for the 4th time. Yup, I am persistent.

So then, I call again. I get this nice lady named Queenie and I immediately ask for a supervisor, she politely asks if I could give her a chance to help me and I am short at this point and frustrated to no end and I cut her off and say no, you can't, the other two couldn't, I need a supervisor. They told me to call back to ask for one as everyone keeps wanting to verify me via my phone and no one is listening that my phone service won't let me. 

She listens to me and then asks me what my original question was. I told her about the broken bottle of apple cider and how I just saw the reply now and I have the order number etc. She says she has to verify my account but what she can do is call me back. So asked for my phone number and I gave it to her and we hung up and she called me right back! Then she looked up the order and in no time, bingo-bammo it was done! Refund issued! YAY!

 Love Amazon!!

www.amazon.com

Now that the Amazon issue was resolved, I know I still need to be able to get those texts should I need to log in again with Amazon or if I have an issue. I decided to call Spectrum back to find out if there was any way they could flip a switch or maybe pay for a more premium service or something to allow those short texts to go thru?

 

 To be continued...

 

 

Switching to Spectrum from Verizon---Part 1

 Strap in for this one!

I've had Verizon for years on end. They've always been pretty good to me, although it was a bit expensive. Seeing the great deal that Spectrum had and got my son moved over to them for his own account and how little he was paying versus what I was paying on Verizon with my daughter and my line, I decided to switch her and I over to Spectrum.

For me having an Iphone13, it was easy peasy to do with the eSim and not having to use an actual physical sim card. Brilliant! To move me over and activate my phone was pretty simple.

My daughter with her Samsung, not so much. She needed to use the physical sim card. So it came in the mail and when we went to try to get her moved over, her phone became a brick! Oh noooo!

Well after hours of pulling my hair out with the customer service people, we got her phone activated.

And then the fun began.

I kept getting emails saying I was paying for a line that I was not using or wasn't activated? I checked on line logging into their site and it said my line was activated but hers wasn't?

So I thought to avoid the frustrating phone call, I would chat online with one of their representatives instead. Oh joy. Not.

The person I got didn't even read what my issue was, they just did c&p job with a script. By now, I should warn you that I've lost most of my patience with this kind of thing after years n years of having to deal with people who will not go off from a script. You have to think outside the box and these people even get discombobulated when I simply ask them how they are doing! Usually, I am nice about it. This time, I am calling them out for it. The person insisted they did type it. But didn't matter anyway because telling me their policy of having to wait 24 hours for an activation had nada to do with my problem not to mention it had been over a week! So I told them they needed to READ what the person writes is their problem instead of this c&p'ing business. They were like oh sorry. I repeated what the issue was that I was getting these emails and texts about the line not being activated so they said, ignore it. LMAO!

Of course these notifications continued so I had to call them up and I actually got a really good lady who looked into it and said yup, it was activated already and she would fix it so I didn't get the notifications anymore and it would reflect the right info on the site then. 

Great! I thought it was all solved. Nope!

I found out that since I was making monthly payments with Verizon for the phones and now have since moved those lines to Spectrum, thus closing the account, that Verizon would be billing me for the balance still unpaid for those phones! I tried to call them to see about a payment plan and each person I talked to seemed to be confused as to what I was wanting to do as they tried to set me up with a payment plan for a phone service bill that I would not be getting anymore. 

Took me a few times of reaching the right person who told me this was all too soon and that I had to wait for the final bill to come in and then call the financial dept to see what they could do.

 

But the issues didn't end there...