Attention Small Businesses

Is there an insurance agency, fuel oil company, auto parts supplier, or other going concern that wants to send me a free 2010 promotional wall calendar?

I will display it proudly in my home where I will see your address and phone number on a daily basis for a full year.

Government Bureaucrats 2, Private Sector 0

A lot has happened on the Verizon front since we last placed a call to Verizon lawyer Lynne Anne Sousa, Esq., J.D., B.A., C.Y.A.

After I got off the phone with Sousa, I took a little walk. First I climbed over my back fence to get a better look at the pole. This involves scaling a stone wall and tottering on a rickety chain-link fence, which is why I hadn't done this before. Turns out that the "comically long and spindly pipe thing" was not a pipe at all -- it was an optical illusion. It was actually the cables coming from the pole and leading out to another pole on Orchard Hill Rd., which runs behind our house on Tower Street.

Our backyard neighbor, whose house sits on a ledge about 20 feet above the foundation of our place, had propped up the cables with a 2x4 so that they wouldn't drag on the ground. I had never met our backyard neighbor, so thought this would be a good opportunity to do so.

I rang the doorbell and an older woman answered.

I explained who I was and she called for her husband. A guy resembling a slimmed-down Tip O'Neill showed up. "Come on and have a seat," he said, motioning to his front stoop. He said his name was Frank C.

We sat down and had a great talk. Found out that a tree on his property fell on the cables back on August 14 -- that's what pulled the pole away from our house, which in turn ripped the cables and two clapboards off. He said he called Verizon immediately, and "the woman there couldn't have cared less. She said that they'd send someone out. I said, 'OK, whatever.' I've still got phone service at this point, after all."

"Right," I said. "We do too. Cable is fine as well. Apparently that makes it tougher to get quick action."

"Guess so. Anyway, last Friday, some old-timer showed up and said that someone had called the mayor."

"That was me," I said.

"Well, it worked, because this guy was all apologetic: 'I had no idea' et cetera. And then, later that day, a guy named Lucas came out with a crew and got rid of the branch that was hanging on the cables." I remembered the chain saws I heard last Friday. Score one for the Mayor's 24-Hour Help Line!

Government Bureaucrats 1, Private Sector 0.

"So did they say anything about righting the pole or repairing my house?"

"Nope," Frank said.

We got off onto other topics. Frank gave me the history of the street, how all the houses were built in the early 1930s and the older homeowners like him were dying off or moving away now. He said he was a union construction worker.

"You know, this trouble we're having with Verizon has a lot to do with outsourcing and deregulation," I said.

"Yep," Frank said. "The old New England Telephone would have been out here in a flash. I remember Boston Edison -- they would actually come out to replace a blown fuse." Wow, I thought. Maybe not the best example to use when reminiscing about the good old days of union jobs. But on the other hand, why shouldn't we expect that kind of service? Anyway...

"Right, and the utilities were tightly regulated," I said. "They made a steady profit but couldn't raise rates willy-nilly and they had far better service. This so-called 'construction crew' that Verizon has been promising me for two weeks is outsourced, most likely non-union."

"Scalliwags!" Frank said.

"Yeah! But these outsourced crews get paid probably next to nothing. Professionalism has to suffer."

"Yep, those utilities are terrible nowadays," Frank said. "They string their cables everywhere -- and they're all too low! They let their poles lean -- they just wait until they fall down to fix them." Frank was right. Earlier this year, in Newton, a suburb of Boston, a truck hit a low-slung NStar cable and pulled down six (6) utility poles, knocking out power to the whole neighborhood for days (Hat tip to Helen for pointing out a Boston Globe op-ed on this problem of hazardous low-hanging wires everywhere).

Just as we were really getting going on cursing out the utilities, it started to rain, so I clambered back over the fence and went back inside.

Waiting for me was a message from Marilyn Ryan from the Massachusetts Department of Telecommunications and Energy. She got my email complaint and said that she called Verizon. I called her up, described the situation in more detail, and we had a good talk. We agreed that I would call her again on Tuesday to check in again.

Fast forward to Tuesday morning, about 10:30. A Comcast technician shows up in response to my call on Sunday. I figured that if I got Comcast on the case, that might put some pressure on Verizon to right the pole, since that would be a prerequisite to re-attaching the cables. The Comcast guy and I walk back around to the backyard, and (cue heavenly chorus) there are four guys in Verizon hardhats who are righting the pole!

The foreman-looking guy sees us and says, "Are you the guys who are here to fix the drops?" Apparently "drops" is the term for the cable connection to the house. The Comcast guy nods and before I could answer the foreman says, "Yeah, they need to be re-attached. The lady here in this house has complained."

It's all I can do to keep keep from laughing as I raise my coffee mug and say, "I'm the lady."

"Oh...You're the lady," the foreman said. The youngest guy on the Verizon crew, shoveling behind the foreman, thinks this is pretty funny.

I wait a moment, squint meaningfully at the hanging clapboards, and then walk over to the crew. "You guys want some coffee?" I asked.

"Oh, no, no, no, we're fine, thanks anyway," they all said.

"Okay," I say, before strolling back around to the front of the house.

Apparently, the call from the Mass. Department of Telecommunications and Energy did the trick. I can't say that's what it was for certain, but the call was made on Monday afternoon, and the Verizon crew showed up on Tuesday morning. It's the conclusion I'll draw.

So: Government Bureaucrats 2, Private Sector 0. The Private Sector should be glad I don't dock them a point for the Verizon foreman's "Some lady" comment but it turned out to be funny so I'll let it go.

An hour or so later, I hear the dulcet tones of workmen hammering on my house! Could it be -- they're repairing my clapboards? I dare not look lest it turn out to be a giant woodpecker...

But the suspense is killing me. I go to the back yard and, YES! The anchors are re-attached! The clapboards are expertly repaired! Galvanized nails even!

I race inside to check the dial tone. A bit of static...hmm. But, no problem. I call the Verizon repair robot and tell her about all about it. She's got a sympathetic robotic ear, and says someone will come look at it on Thursday, sometime between the hours of 8:00 am and 8:00 pm. Luckily, I'm getting my hair done on Friday, and my canasta club is on Wednesday, so Thursday will work out fine.

I hope this closes the book on this particular episode. Famous last words...

Lawyered Up, Verizon Style

Penetrating the Verizon Wall of No Accountability is like trying to invade Helm's Deep. It's well-nigh impossible. Let's see if I can sneak in through the sewer pipe like Saruman's Orc Army almost did...

Over the weekend, we had some progress on the utility pole front. Someone came and propped it up with a comically long and spindly pipe thing that may or may not hold up to Tropical Depression Katrina once it arrives in a few days.

But the clapboards and cable connections are still hanging in midair. It is now Day 16 for the Hanging Clapboards of Tower Street. ("When will the Carter administration finally act to free them from their captivity? I'm Ted Koppel, and this... is Nightline!")

This morning I called Verizon customer service again, talked to "Jim," Verizon Employee Number 716. Lovely chap. Told me again to "Call the legal department." So I called the main Verizon switchboard and the receptionist gave me an 800 number to call to make a claim. I called and spoke with a robot. Then I emailed them.

I waited three hours for a response. Nothing. Decided to send a demand letter, registered mail. But for that, my mom (who worked for lawyers for many years) said that I would need the name of someone specific to send the letter to. Just sending it to the "Legal Department" wouldn't work.

So I called the Verizon offices here in Boston and asked to be connected with the Legal Department. This is my memory of the conversation:

"Hello, Verizon Communications."

"I'd like to be connected with the Legal Department, please."

"Who are you calling sir?"

"Well, I don't know yet. I need the name of someone to send a demand letter to."

"A demand for compensation?"

"Yes, for property damage."

"You need to call our 800 number for property damage claims."

"Already did that. I also want to send a demand letter to a human being in the legal department."

"I'm sorry, sir, but I can't transfer you to the legal department without a name."

"Come on, just let me talk to the-"

She hangs up on me, transferring me to Verizon's bottom-level voice mail system. A voice asked if I would like to sign up for Verizon Online DSL. I hung up.

To the web! and the online Martindale-Hubbell legal directory! I type in "Verizon," "Boston," and "Suffolk County" into the lawyer search form.

Voila! A name pops up. A single, solitary name: Lynne Anne Sousa. I see she is exactly as old as me, born 1968, and that she went to American University for her BA and got her J.D. here in Boston at Suffolk U.

Back to the Verizon switchboard. "Can I please speak with Lynne Anne Sousa in the legal department?"

The receptionist gave me a number in the 972 area code. Strange. Maybe a cell phone?

I call the number and Ms. Sousa answers.

"My name is Chris Hartman and I'm having trouble getting compensation for some property damage caused by Verizon and--"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa," Sousa said. "I'm in Houston. You're in...looks like Boston, based on your area code."

"Yes. Could you give me the name of someone in Boston that I could send my demand letter to?"

"Well, I work in labor and employment, not claims, so I don't know...Hey, how did you get my number anyway?"

"I looked up the Verizon legal department at martindale.com and your name came up as working there in the Boston office. So I called the switchboard here in Boston and they gave me your number."

"They wha-- Who gave you my number? The Verizon switchboard in Boston?"

"Yes." I imagine the receptionist here in Boston will very soon get an angry call from Ms. Sousa. I asked, "So did you used to work there in Boston?"

"Yes, a while ago."

"Well, surely you have an old colleague there who you can tell me to call--"

"No, I'm not going to put them through what I'm going through here--"

Did she actually say that? "What I'M going through here?" Wow.

I regained my composure and exclaimed, "What YOU'RE going through? What about what I'm going through?"

"OK, OK, just a minute. I will call someone and have them get back in touch with you."

Glad for this bit of conciliation, the first bit in my two weeks of dealing with Verizon, I say, "Great, thanks so much for doing that. When should I expect to hear from someone?"

"Well," Sousa replies, "I will put myself on the line and say that if you don't hear from someone in 24 hours you can call me back." Profiles in courage there, wouldn't you say? Putting herself on the damn line!

Stay tuned...

Day 12 for the Hanging Clapboards of Tower Street

When last we left our intrepid clapboards, they were still hanging in there, right where they've been since August 14, nearly two weeks ago. What was initially a minor bit of damage has, with time and pressure, like limestone that turns into marble, metamorphosed into My Lonely Struggle Against the Forces of Ivan Seidenberg.

After my blog post yesterday I made another call to Verizon. This customer service rep, like all the others, had no information. He could not even tell me the name of the outside contractor that Verizon had "retained" to fix the pole, the cables, and my house. I asked him what could I do about the property damage that the Verizon utility pole had caused. "Contact the Verizon legal department," he said. (The buck spirals perfectly as it sails downfield. Unfortunately, no one is there to catch it...)

Always one to follow directions, after another repair-free day I did just that:

Demand Letter

Date: August 26, 2005

To: Verizon
Legal Department
185 Franklin St.
Boston, MA 02110

I am requesting compensation for the following problem:

I am a Verizon customer, telephone number 617-xxx-xxxx. I am acting as President of the 66 Tower Condominium Association. There are two other families in this three-family dwelling.

On or about Sunday, August 14, a utility pole behind my dwelling at 66 Tower St. in Jamaica Plain, MA tipped away from the house approximately 5 to 10 degrees. This tipping pulled Verizon and Comcast cables away from the structure at 66 Tower St., taking the cable anchors with them along with 2 clapboards.

Since then I have been in repeated contact with your customer service representatives in order to get the pole righted, the cables re-attached to my dwelling, and the clapboards repaired. To date, none of these actions has been accomplished. In general, the Verizon customer service representatives repeatedly claim that a work order has been issued to an outside contractor, but they have no way to contact that contractor, nor can they identify the contractor.

I can document repeated telephone calls since August 19 in my effort to resolve this problem. I estimate that I have spent 4 hours so far in an attempt to get the damage to my property, caused by your utility pole, repaired.

This is also a potential liability issue, for if the pole were to fall over completely, it would destroy a wooden stockade fence owned by an abutter to the property at 66 Tower St.

Please send me a check or money order in the amount of $800.00, made payable to “66 Tower Street Condominium Association,” to cover potential repair costs to the clapboard siding and cable connections, and an additional check or money order in the amount of $200.00, made payable to “Christopher K. Hartman,” to compensate me for the time I have spent on the phone in an attempt to resolve this matter, on or before September 1, 2005.

If I don't receive payment by this date, I will take this case to court immediately, unless you notify me that you are willing to try to resolve this dispute through mediation. In that case, I am willing to meet with a neutral third party agreed to by both of us in a good faith attempt to resolve the dispute without court action.

Thank you for your immediate attention to this matter.

Sincerely,

Christopher K Hartman
President, 66 Tower Condominium Association

I'll probably hand-deliver this on Monday morning. Or maybe I'll drop by tomorrow to see if anyone's there.

(Also last evening, I called the Mayor's 24-hour help line, but the guy answering the phone there said he couldn't do much more than I have been doing, i.e. call Verizon. He suggested that I lodge a complaint with the state Department of Telecommunications and Energy, which I did via their website form.)

UPDATE: I've decided to wait until Monday morning to telephone the legal department at Verizon before delivering the demand letter. But it was still worthwhile for me to write it...I can use it as a phone script.

Verizon: We Never START Working for You

Three words: Out. Sourcing. Bites.

It bites for customers like me who have been trying to get a property-damaging Verizon telephone pole repaired for 11 days now.

And it also bites, apparently, for Verizon shareholders. Here is the one-year chart for VZ:


Here's my story:

Monday, August 15: Arrive home from weekend in Colorado, turn on The Daily Show at 11 pm, it is in "digital static" mode, where the screen dissolves into little squares of pixels that call to mind a Seurat painting. I call in to Comcast, our cable TV company, to report the problem. They can come look at it on Thursday morning. Two and a half days from now: OK, no problem, we don't watch much TV these days, it's summer, etc.

Tuesday, August 16: I turn on the TV midday, and the problem has cleared up! I call Comcast to cancel the work order. Later, I wander back to the back yard and notice that the wires coming from a pole behind our house have pulled away from our house, taking their anchors and a couple of clapboards with them. That's probably what caused the problem. I figure that a falling branch was the culprit, and start to get out my ladder so that I could repair it. Then I think: wait a second. I can't be dealing with wires! I don't think we get electric service via the pole but who knows? So I call the electric company, NStar, to come take a look. NStar comes right out and confirms that the wires are not electric -- they're telephone and cable TV. Then, while the NStar guy is still here, I notice a technician repairing a cable connection to the house next door, which is coming from the same pole as the wires to our house. This technician is from Verizon and he says that the pole is actually tipped away from the house -- that's what caused the wires to pull away from the house. OH. He's right! It's leaning away at about a 10 degree angle. So now I definitely don't want to attempt the repair myself, because (a) the pole needs to be fixed anyway, and (b) whoever owns the pole should do the repair to the clapboards. The Verizon technician says that it is an NStar pole, even though there is no longer any electric service carried on it, and he tells the NStar guy about it. Great, I say. NStar will come right out and fix this pole and fix my house.

The Leaning Pole of Pisa

Damage to our house: Clapboards still hanging in midair. It is Day 11 for the Hanging Clapboards of 66 Tower Street.

Friday, August 19: Three days have passed, and nothing has happened. The pole is still leaning, my clapboards are hanging in midair, still attached to the anchors. So I call up NStar and talk to Eric: what's the deal? He informs me that this is not an NStar pole. Me: Well, whose pole is it? Eric: Verizon's. Me: O.K., well I'm going to call Verizon and they can confirm with you, Eric, that this is a Verizon pole. Eric: Sounds good. So now I'm on the phone with Verizon. I tell the lady the whole story again. She gets it all down and says that it will be referred by "dispatch" to a construction contractor. Fine. I'm going to be out of town all weekend so I give her my downstairs neighbor's telephone number.

Monday, August 22: I return from Western Mass and nothing has changed out back. Pole still leaning, clapboards still hanging.

Wednesday, August 23: Still no action out back. I call up Verizon and get angry. "Your pole has damaged my house and I want it repaired immediately." OK, let me put that work order right back in sir. Five hours pass, still nothing. I hear thunder. If it rains, that pole, which is on a slope, could go and take out a fence and rip down who knows what else off of our house. So I call Verizon back. "You need to come take care of this right now. It's thundering and if it rains etc." Arlene says, "Well, there's no way anyone can come before tomorrow." I say, "Wouldn't it be easier to fix it before it falls down rather than after? And anyway my house is damaged and you are responsible for fixing it!" "Yes, okay," Arlene says. "She calls back later to say that she's spoken to the "foreman" and he will call me first thing tomorrow morning and come by to take a look at it. OK, fine. It's not going to rain tonight anyway it looks like. Tomorrow morning will be fine.

Thursday, August 24: 5:00 pm. No call from the "foreman" all day. No sign that he's been here. I call Verizon, talk to Paula this time. "Did 'the foreman' come to my house today?" "Let me see...no, I guess not. Let me talk to dispatch." (two minutes on hold) "Well, I have his number, but he's not answering. Can we call you back?"

And that's where we stand as of right now, 5:50 pm. Look for future installments on this enjoyable saga.