Goddammit, Verizon
Aug. 31st, 2025 09:38 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
canyonwalkerOur phones have been on the blink. Again. Because Verizon is incompetent. And lies about it. 🤬
Several days ago, when we were traveling in Canada, both our phones suddenly couldn't find the network. We tried various forms of "turn it off, turn it on again" (airplane mode, turn off/turn on cellular network, reboot phone, etc.) but nothing seemed to work for 30 minutes. We had flashbacks to when a similar thing happened in Panama last December that took a hours to fix with the help of Verizon tech support. Fortunately when it happened last Monday our phones starting working again after about 30 minutes.
Then it happened again-again yesterday (Saturday). We were out getting lunch and shopping locally. First Hawk's phone went into "SOS" mode indicating it couldn't find any cellular network. She tried various forms of rebooting but none worked. Then about 2 hours later my phone did the same. I also tried various forms of restarting/rebooting. I even updated the software on my phone in case the glitch was related to older versions (though mine was less than 6 months old). It was all to no avail.
With Hawk's phone kaput for 3 hours and mine kaput for 1 hour, Hawk placed a call to Verizon tech support. Actually it wasn't a call, it was a chat session on their tech support portal. It went unanswered for 40 minutes.
At that point I started wondering, No response, not even a chatbot, on a chat service, for 40 minutes? Their tech support must be totally overwhelmed. That means likely this isn't just an "us" problem!
Hawk searched online and found lots of people complaining about the same problem.
Verizon, for its part, was responding that it was an "isolated" problem that affected "only a few people". The sheer number of people complaining online shot the shit out of that claim.
My phone came back online yesterday evening. Hawk's phone reconnected this morning. Is the problem solved? We're not sure. Verizon's continued downplaying of the apparently widespread outage gives us no confidence.
Several days ago, when we were traveling in Canada, both our phones suddenly couldn't find the network. We tried various forms of "turn it off, turn it on again" (airplane mode, turn off/turn on cellular network, reboot phone, etc.) but nothing seemed to work for 30 minutes. We had flashbacks to when a similar thing happened in Panama last December that took a hours to fix with the help of Verizon tech support. Fortunately when it happened last Monday our phones starting working again after about 30 minutes.
Then it happened again-again yesterday (Saturday). We were out getting lunch and shopping locally. First Hawk's phone went into "SOS" mode indicating it couldn't find any cellular network. She tried various forms of rebooting but none worked. Then about 2 hours later my phone did the same. I also tried various forms of restarting/rebooting. I even updated the software on my phone in case the glitch was related to older versions (though mine was less than 6 months old). It was all to no avail.With Hawk's phone kaput for 3 hours and mine kaput for 1 hour, Hawk placed a call to Verizon tech support. Actually it wasn't a call, it was a chat session on their tech support portal. It went unanswered for 40 minutes.
At that point I started wondering, No response, not even a chatbot, on a chat service, for 40 minutes? Their tech support must be totally overwhelmed. That means likely this isn't just an "us" problem!
Hawk searched online and found lots of people complaining about the same problem.
Verizon, for its part, was responding that it was an "isolated" problem that affected "only a few people". The sheer number of people complaining online shot the shit out of that claim.
My phone came back online yesterday evening. Hawk's phone reconnected this morning. Is the problem solved? We're not sure. Verizon's continued downplaying of the apparently widespread outage gives us no confidence.
