Verizon: Sorry About Devastating Fire, Pay Us $2,345 Another Example of ISP Disaster Support Being Awful Over the years countless ISPs have taken heat for pushing disaster victims a little too hard, when the victims very last thoughts are on the replacement costs of a DVR. AT&T demanded forest fire victims immediately pony up $300 for a lost cable box. CableOne told apartment fire victims "they'd been hurt too" and demanded immediate payment. Charter told tornado victims they needed to "look around the neighborhood" for their cable boxes or pay $212 immediately. HughesNet demanded the immediate return of gear burned in Austin wild fires. Comcast demanded tornado victims pay a vacation fee. Verizon is the latest to take heat on this front, a video on YouTube making the rounds telling the tale of New Jersey resident Jarrett Seltzer, who recently lost everything he owns in a devastating fire. The video highlights how Verizon has been pushing Seltzer to pay up $2,345 for four six-year-old cable boxes and an old FiOS router (we assume they've included their ONT). As the user correctly notes, given the amount he's already paid out as a six year customer ($18,000), he's more than paid off both installation and hardware charges, but can't get Verizon to budge. Seltzer notes that Verizon continued to bill him after learning about the fire, and his attempt to resolve this with Verizon has involved being on hold for several hours, being transferred fourteen times, while speaking to fifteen different Verizon support representatives. We've reached out to Verizon to get their side of the story and see if there's anything they can do to help, and will update this post when we hear back. Given that insurance will usually pay out eventually, all pressing disaster victims (who usually can't pay until insurance comes through) achieves is bad press. While most of these problems usually get resolved amicably after the press gets involved, we've now seen enough of these stories to make it very clear that ISP support policies dealing with disaster victims need a little work. A dash of compassion certainly wouldn't hurt, either. Update: Verizon offered us the following statement on the matter: quote: We became aware of Mr. Seltzer’s video over the weekend. At the moment we are going over the record of his interaction with our service center representative to understand the details of his call. In general, Verizon provides and owns the equipment but our customers are responsible for maintaining the equipment in good condition while in their possession. In the case of equipment destroyed by fire, flood or some other accident, Verizon would expect that the homeowner’s insurance company would cover the loss. If the customer’s insurance company declined to cover, Verizon would attempt to work out a reasonable solution directly with the customer. We are in the process of determining how the communications were handled with Mr. Seltzer to help shed light on our process as it unfolds in a real-time situation (albeit a rare one). We do know that he was told twice that the equipment likely falls under his homeowner’s or renter’s insurance and should be included in any claim he files for the fire. We are working with him now and will not seek to collect any charges for the equipment while his insurance company works through the claim. Even though this is a part of the terms of service with all of our customers, we need to be empathetic with our customers in such difficult situations. So far, it sounds like we could have done a better job of communicating with him and been more helpful in addressing next steps. At the same time we are reviewing our internal processes to ensure we are providing appropriate consideration for customers in situations like these.







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Most recommended from 176 comments

Crookshanks

join:2008-02-04

Binghamton, NY 2 recommendations Crookshanks Member Isn't this what homeowners insurance is for? Verizon/Comcast/et. all should be less heavy handed here, but in the final analysis why should they be expected to take the loss when your house burns down? If you're properly insured you have nothing to worry about, if you aren't, well you've got bigger problems than Verizon's DVR/ONT to worry about.



Every lease I've ever signed for equipment comes with the obligation to keep that equipment in good working order. Where are the headlines about those horrible car dealerships that have the audacity to want their money back after your lease is totaled in an accident or lost during a natural disaster?