I really dislike Verizon

We had all of our phone stuff with Verizon - wireless, home, fax lines, and internet. They started a new program called One-bill where we'd only get one bill to cover all the services above (we used to get a separate invoice from the wireless guys and the home phone guys).

Back in August, we decided that spending over $300 a month on phone stuff was just too much so we simplified.

One of our cell phones on the family plan was costing us $30 per month, and we just weren't getting the value for our money out of it, so we killed the contract a year in advanced - to the tune of a contract breaking fee around $175. We were still money ahead in the long term by changing to a pay as you go phone. So we paid that bill on time.

At the same time, we changed our main home phone number to Vonage (a Voice Over the Internet Program - VOIP) and dropped Verizon for our home number - we kept the fax because we wanted to make sure the Vonage would work.

Well, the Verizon One-bill department had paid the Wireless department the $260 we owed that month, but after the main number was cancelled, we were no longer able to be enrolled in the One-bill program. So, the geniuses in the One-bill department reversed the payment - thus, making our account delinquent. That was back in October. I still don't have this resolved with them. I actually had to pay the bill with my credit card because they were going to cut off my wireless service - bastards.

Yesterday was the coup de grâce. I woke up to find my phone is dead and I have no internet. Turns out that when we cancelled the fax line account, the Verizon monkeys thought that we wouldn't need our FIOS anymore. It took all day yesterday to get them to reinstate our internet and I must admit, I am addicted to it.

The nice thing, though, is Vonage is smart enough to know when the land line isn't working and automatically forwards to a number you've set up previously, so we didn't miss any of our phone calls as it forwarded to my cell (good thing I paid that bill a second time, huh).

So the only thing we have with Verizon now is my cell and our FIOS account - which, BTW, rocks. I've also been very please with Vonage - we've got our fax set up on it now as well. It's certainly cut down on the original monthly phone bill as we don't have to pay long distance whenever we fax.