Lies and the Liars who Tell Them

Is there no end to the evil of cell providers?

Tech blogger James Kendrick writes about his experience trying to cancel his service at Verizon (after studying the market, he decided to switch to Sprint to power his new Palm Pre).

"I entered the Verizon store to cancel my voice and data lines with mixed emotions," writes Kendrick. "The lying I was blasted with by Verizon employees made the process much easier on me than I thought it would be."

First, two Verizon employees ganged up on Kendrick to convince him that the Sprint 4G service wasn't equal to Verizon's, and that it wasn't available anywhere outside Houston. Kendrick stood his ground and told them that wasn't true. (But imagine if they had been double-teaming a customer who didn't know his stuff ...)

So they sent him to Customer Service, where two more guys peddling the same stories tried to talk him out of canceling. Kendrick refuted their arguments, then asked to speak to the division manager. They hastily cancelled his service.

Concludes Kendrick: "The whole thing left me with a very bad taste in my mouth for the way Verizon conducts business. Which is a shame after a decade of happy patronage."

The real shame is when a company deploys four people to strong-arm you into being a loyal customer, instead of winning your loyalty through the best execution every single day.

But it's also an experience you never forget. Or forgive.

You can check out Kendrick's article here. If you have time, you can also read the 70-plus comments attesting to Verizon's lack of management smarts. (And other mobile providers as well, of course.)