My latest encounter with Verizon Wireless

Verizon Wireless in the US, in my opinion, offers the best internet/celluar service whether it be call clarity, call stability, LTE, or FIOS, and Verizon seems to know this.  In the past, not sure if it has changed, but they have charged the most, got away with having just the rudest customer service you can ever imagine.  It is all flowers and rainbows when you sign up, but when you try to cancel, they throw you to the hounds.

I imagined their hiring practice to be that they had to be absolute killers when it comes to making people feel like they owe Verizon a favor for ripping them off one last time when they attempt to cancel service on a contract the customer has already fulfilled.  If you tried to cancel a contract you haven't fulfilled, then you are really put through the ringer.  It usually goes something like this.  They argue with you for about 20 minutes on why you're canceling service in a condescending tone, then they say they have to talk to the manager, and when they come back, they say they are doing you a favor by making you pay a slightly lesser balance you don't owe on top of your contractual obligations.  And when you try to pay, the only option they give you is to pay a service charge to pay over a phone, since they've blocked all convenient ways for you to pay such as paying online.

Well, that seems to have changed.  I had to get a Verizon Jetpack 4G LTE 4620LE  activated for a month.  And when I tried to do so, they conveniently mentioned that for 4G LTE, you have to enter through a contract that doesn't allow you to buy a prepaid SIM.  You have to sign up onto a month to month contract with a $30 activation fee, which you have to go through the trouble to cancel later, only through painful live conversation.  I thought "here we go again."  But since I really had no options that day, I signed up for service, thinking I will just have to endure a 30 minute hostile phone call later.  But that wasn't the case at all.  Signing up for service was easy as expected.  And the experience of cancelling was a surprise.  The woman on the phone was nice and friendly, and managed to cancel my service in a few minutes.

It is good to know that Verizon has adopted the motto, you can attract more return business with good customer service than trying to milk the customers for some cash on their way out.  So where have all these rude CSR people found jobs?  From what I recall from talking with the AT&T billing department, it seems that they are employed at AT&T now.  What a shame.  I used to like AT&T.