No Fios For MeGo here and here for background. So the supervisor from Verizon called me back. I explained to her that the sign-up system said it wanted to verify my identity, not run a credit check. So I was confused as to why they were attempting to run a credit check on me, particularly for such small dollar amounts. She told me that they do it to verify my identity. I told her that I wasn’t applying for credit, and she claimed that on the sign-up form online it says you are applying for credit, which if it’s true I missed it. I told her that I didn’t need credit, that I was willing to pre-pay for the account. I explained to her I was willing to go into a Verizon store and show my identification to prove that I’m me. None of this was acceptable to her. She said that everyone needs to go through this process, even if they are pre-paying!!! I’d like to diverge here and tell you about Hassey Landscaping. I hire Hassey to mow my lawn during the summer months. He charges me $35/week for this service. That’s twice as much per month as Verizon wants for their mid-tier Fios service. When Hassey started doing my lawn, he did so on a handshake, no contract or anything. I asked him how he’d like to get paid and he shrugged, telling me he’d bill me. Which he did, once, at the end of the summer. And guess what? I paid him. Hassey was able to extend me twice as much credit as Verizon not because Hassey knows me or anything. Not because Hassey ran credit checks on me. Or because I paid him a deposit. But because Hassey knows where I live, because he could stop cutting my lawn if I didn’t pay up, and because even if I didn’t pay up, the risk to his operation is minimal. If only Verizon knew how to think that way. Back to my call with the supervisor, I told her that she lost the opportunity to gain a new customer. It’s too bad really, I was really looking forward to the service. Oh, and just in case you think I’m being a little nuts here, I want to let you know that giving your credit report to your ISP is an extraordinary thing. Your ISP knows every website you go to, sees every bit that passes in and out of your home. Matched up to your credit report, your ISP likely knows more about you than anybody on the planet. Moreover, Verizon and Yahoo are refusing to disclose the number of requests that are made through the Patriot Act for information on their customers. One can only assume that the correlation of one’s credit report to one’s internet usage is required for nefarious purposes, especially since the credit risk to Verizon is so low, especially since they declined my offer to prepay my account and show them a government issued ID. I suppose I’m better off without the service. OTOH, who knows what Comcast has on me. They probably ran a credit report on me before I signed up for Debix. Seems like there’s no winning out there… |
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One Response to “No Fios For Me”
December 14th, 2009 at 6:50 pm
Wow! They never required that. But we switched from DSL to FiOS, and I’d had DSL since January 2004, and phone service continuously since 1999. I didn’t even sign up online, but with a door to door salesman trying to get a robust rollout in the town.
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