After seeing that Gigabit internet is now available in my area I signed into my account yesterday to upgrade from my current Internet Only, 75/75.
Best price I could get to upgrade was $117.99 even though new customers can get it for $69.99.
That's fine and dandy I guess, because that's just how companies do business nowadays (force existing customers to cancel service and have them turn around and get "new" service activated at their same address under a spouse or roomate's name).
But after looking around and weighing options I saw that I could add Custom TV and Unlimited Digital Phone to a gigabit upgrade and it offered me a Triple Play Package for $42.99 plus $12 TV Box plus taxes and fees for the first year, then $47.99 for the second year and $57.99 for the third year. The initial $90 install fee was waived for doing it online, and the standard $90 speed upgrade fee was listed and broken into $30 chunks across 3 months. Seemed like a decent enough deal to me so I went ahead and added everything to the cart and went through the chekout process. It verified the pricing and had me pick an installation date, which I did. I recieved a confirmation on the install date, was given an order number and another breakdown of the costs and incentives for me to verify again. Everything is good. I printed the confirmation information to PDF and saved them for my records.
The My Verizon page shows an order number that matches the confirmation I got. Everything is cool, right? WRONG.
A few hours ago I recieved a confirmation email with a completely different order number and a completely different pricing structure and a completely different install date. Not only did they inflate the price by an extra $27/month for the first year but they also added more onto it for the second and third year PLUS added $180 in upgrade fees, so my orginial agreed upon and confirmed price of $88.48 (from the $30 initial installment for the $90 upgrade fee plus around $17 in taxes and other fees) for the initial month suddenly inflated to $276.51 after taxes and fees.
I contacted chat support and they said that they are sorry but they would not be able to honor the original price that they offered, I agreed to, signed up for, and recieved confirmation of being a done deal.
I don't believe a bait and switch this incredibly bold is even legal.
I first became a Verizon customer 17 years ago when I moved out of my parents house and got DSL. When Fios was first available I was the 3rd person in the neighborhood to upgrade. When I moved out of that apartment and into my current house with my wife I continued that service and slowly upgraded my speed along the way. I have had Verizon internet, uninterupted, and without a single late payment for 17 years straight and THIS is the kind of **bleep** they try to pull? Really? My neighborhood has 2 other ISPs available for me to switch over to. I don't live in a market where Verizon has a Monolopy.
I am not ok with this.