Frontier Communications and Verizon FIOS Downtime FailI

Our neighborhood receives weekly Verizon FIOS solicitations to upgrade our service yet today came as a huge surprise. We’re now Frontier Communication customers!

Whoopty Doo! /s

I came home a few hours ago after a grueling day at the DMV. I was looking forward to continue playing with jekyll but I could not resolve my domains or digitalocean vps services. I went as far as rebooting a digitalocean vps with a 275+ day update and the issue did not resolve. When the painful reboot of my VPS was complete, I opened Firefox to try another browser in case Google Chrome was the culprit. I was greeted by DNS errors and a new search engine powered by Frontier Communications. That DNS error landing page was the first noticia that I was no longer under Verizon’s residential services and was now a Frontier COmmunications customer. At first I thought my router had been hacked and scrambled to reboot my router to ensure there were no issues. Once that didn’t pan out I googled frontier communications and was greeted by the thousands of unhappy former Verizon FIOS customers who were also experiencing issues with their Internet service.

I’m experiencing the issue live as I type this post. Here is my argument. I received ZERO notification that Verizon FIOS was being transferred to Frontier Communication. If I received any communication, it was probably in a simple white solicitation type envelope that gets thrown in the trash. While I might be to blame for discarding whatever notification was sent, I can in good faith state absolutely no advertisements to upgrade services have mentioned a transition and potential downtime while the transition happened during business hours today. Instead of beginning the migration process at 00:00:00 on April 01, 2016, they began the transition during the workday. WTF? Seriously?

I called Verizon FIOS and was transferred to Frontier COmmunications. I was greeted by a prompt requesting I enter my telephone number which was not found in their system. I requested to speak to a customer service agent and was greeted by a heavy accent. I’ve never been greeted by a heavy accent when I’ve called Verizon FIOS. When the customer service representative requested the telephone number associated with my account, he pretended to pull up my account and then informed me about the transition and the downtime and service issues in my area. Once he informed me of the issue, he tried getting off the phone but I stopped him and requested a credit for downtime. After pressing him for several minutes he finally came clean and stated he could not provide a credit at this time because my account was actually not on his screen and my account information was not in the system.

A sudden chuckle came out as I realized the Frontier Communication CS representative had zero clue who I was a a customer. I asked him if he even knew my name and address and his response was classic. He stated he did not know who I was and he was sorry we were experiencing issues in Florida so I laughed because I’m location in Southern California. Here’s my bottom line. I know a multi state transition must be a bear to tackle, but not giving customers ample time and notification of possible downtime during the middle of the day is bad customer service and is extremely shady in my book. I’m willing to bet Frontier Communications PR decided notifying customers that there was a change in ownership might trigger a waive of people requesting early termination fees waived since they do not agree to having their information transferred to a different company. A lack of communication on Frontier COmmunications part is bad customer service and has left a bad taste in my mouth.

Southern California has tons of high speed Internet service options and I’m not in contract with Verizon Residential Services or Frontier Communications. I’m going to keep my service until 05/2016 which marks the end of my promotional period with FIOS. There has been zero issues or downtime with FIOS since I started service almost two years ago, so today’s little blip is not that big of a deal in the grand scheme of things. If Frontier wants to continue earning my business, then they will have to offer me something good or I’ll switch to someone a different Internet Service Provider.

Update 2016/04/02:

[Louis ] i cant find account information and my internet connectivity is horrible since yesterday.

[Jennifer] Hi Louis, Im sorry to hear that, but dont worry I can help you out

[Louis ] hi.

[Jennifer] Do you have your billing telephone number

[Louis ] i don’t have a verizon account number because it was all online billing and now i can’t access verizon fios information.

[Louis ] 213--*

[Jennifer] Ok Thank you, give me a moment so I can check to see if I can pull you up!

[Louis ] k

[Jennifer] Ok I need your address please

[Louis ] *** n ****** rd west ** ca 9***1

[Jennifer] Thank you

[Louis ] i keep getting a welcome to frontier splash page

[Jennifer] ok let me get you over to IHD

[Louis ] IHD?

[Jennifer] internet help desk

[Louis ] will they resolve my account issue?

[Jennifer] you will be able to access your online account By april 6

[Jennifer] with the conversion the site is overloaded

[Jennifer] and taking awhile to load everyones info with their accounts

[Louis ] ok. thank you. please have someone help with my Internet connectivity. maybe i just need an ip address change

[Jennifer] ok give me a moment

[Louis ] hello?

[Jason] Thank you for contacting Frontier Communications My name is Jason from Florida, and I will be happy to assist you!

[Louis ] hi, jason.

[Louis ] i’m having major routing issues with my Internet service.

[Jason] bear with me while I review your previous chat log

[Louis ] at first i thought it might have been DNS related, but some websites and ip addresses won’t resolve properly and i’ve pinpointed the issue with my Internet connection. browsing the same sites connected through verizon wireless hotspot results in instant access of the same sites that take 5-15 seconds to load through FIOS.

[Louis ] i changed DNS entries from verizon fios default to google dns and the issue remains. it’s not DNS related.

[Louis ] the ip address associated with my router is the same verizon fios ip address and i’m thinking this might be the issue.

[Jason] OK so let me find your account information and get you over a FiOS rep due to they have to manage your account, I do apologies for the inconveniences however you should have not been transferred to me.

[Louis ] lol

[Louis ] please stop.

[Louis ] i was just bounced by a fios rep onto you

[Louis ] and now you’re bouncing me back.

[Louis ] she stated my account information is unavailable until the 6th at the earliest but that does not resolve my issue today.

[Jason] The rep you spoke with was not a FiOS rep they were a customer service representative, FiOS reps are only technicians. True however I will still be able to locate it

[Louis ] ok.

[Jason] can I get your email associated with your Verizon account, your Verizon account number, phone number associated with the account?

[Louis ] **************

[Louis ] i was using paperless billing so all billing / account information is innacessible on verizon fios site as i’m redirected to frontier.

[Louis ] this is such a cluster

[Jason] Understandable let me uncluttered this for you so you will be able to locate your account in the future.

[Louis ] ok.

[Jason] ok found your account

[Louis] sweet

[Jason] 44**** is the number associated with your account and will be the number frequently asked for moving forward. now let me get over to a FiOS rep to assist with your internet.

[Louis ] thanks for the help.

[Jason] of course thats what we are here for =)

[Louis ] hello?

[John C.] Thank you for contacting Frontier Internet Chat Support. My name is John, and I will be assisting you.

[Louis ] ok.

[Louis ] can you read what i typed to Jason so i don’t have to retype the issue?

[Louis ] [Louis ] at first i thought it might have been DNS related, but some websites and ip addresses won’t resolve properly and i’ve pinpointed the issue with my Internet connection. browsing the same sites connected through verizon wireless hotspot results in instant access of the same sites that take 5-15 seconds to load through FIOS.

[Louis] i changed DNS entries from verizon fios default to google dns and the issue remains. it’s not DNS related.

[Louis ] the ip address associated with my router is the same verizon fios ip address and i’m thinking this might be the issue.

[John C.] I am looking into that for you now. I appreciate your patience as I work to resolve this issue.

[Louis ] k

The operator has ended the chat. Thanks for contacting us.