plntpolice

Who knows more about all things phone related than Verizon? They qualify as experts, so logically they are the go-to choice, even for crank calls, as I discovered, Verizon has the know-how.

About two years ago, I began to receive one ring hang-up calls in the middle of the night. At first I thought I was dreaming. Like the familiar feeling of falling that shatters sleep, a single phone ring would jolt me awake. Night after night it happened, and often I’d forget about it by morning.  Finally it occurred during a bout of insomnia and I knew it was not my imagination. Some time between 2:00 AM and 4:00 AM, almost every night, for more than a month, the calls persisted.

Who would do this? I live a quiet life and haven’t managed to rile up any new enemies for years. The old ones probably lost my number or died of cirrhosis decades ago. This made the possibilities all the creepier. Obviously it was a serial killer who had selected me at random and was watching me with night vision binoculars right now.

Trying not to sound like a soap opera victim, I called the Verizon department that handles this stuff and explained that I needed to have my line traced. The cheerful rep replied with a friendly laugh. “It’s undoubtedly Verizon calling you, ma’m. We get dozens of calls about this every day.”

“Verizon is calling me at 3:00, night after night?” I was confused, to say the least.

“Yes!” She asserted, simply reeking of hearty glad-we-could-be-of-service confidence. “We need to check the lines periodically to make sure they are working, and so our computers call briefly in the middle of the night.”

“Ahhh, but wouldn’t I contact YOU if my line wasn’t working?” This was getting less logical.

“Well, it’s a technical thing, to make sure the electrical charge in the lines is working correctly, and so on. We need to check everyone’s lines, but sometimes the computers recycle the same number and just keep dialing for weeks and weeks.” She managed to combine “you-know-how-it-is” with “you-wouldn’t-understand-it’s-technical” in a well practiced tone. Then a sudden helpful idea popped into her head: “We can stop the calls if they disturb you.”

“Gee, why would the phone ringing in the middle of the night disturb me? Yes. Please stop.”

“Certainly! We’ll be glad to do that.” The rep transferred me to the Verizon repair department after giving me their direct number just in case the matter wasn’t resolved in a few days. I spoke to a repairman who promised to take my number out of the queue.

The calls continued and I made another plea to the repair people a week later. They stopped.

Months passed and Verizon people worked their way through my neighborhood installing FiOS. A rep came to the door and successfully convinced me to trade in my perfectly adequate DSL line for a FiOS connection for almost the same price. At the end of the sign up process Verizon warned me that there was no turning back; they would not hook up DSL again once I switched to FiOS, and my landline phone would be a FiOS line, too. This made me a little uneasy, but I hadn’t heard anything negative about FiOS, so I agreed. They explained that the installation could take several hours and a back up power box would be installed in my basement. Because I’m stupid, this didn’t set off any alarms.

After the FiOS installation, I looked over the several pounds of written stuff they gave me and realized the back up power box was needed because unlike the phone lines I’ve come to rely on my whole life, FiOS lines don’t have their own electrical supply running through them. If the power goes off, so does the land line phone after the two hour back up battery is exhausted.  I was appalled. This is not progress.

Verizon must have known that I was freaked out by this, because they decided to taunt me. Within a short time I began to see TV commercials touting the reliability of Verizon, showing customers in their cozy homes, safe from storms, chatting on their Verizon land lines. “When the power goes off, your phone stays on,” the reassuring announcer said.

How could Verizon have the gall to use such a commercial at a time when they were pushing the widespread installation of a system that negates that feature we’ve always taken for granted?  Every time I saw the commercial, I’d fume.

My son and his family live a block away and we talk almost every day. One day I realized that no one had been home and the answering machine never came on when I phoned for the last several days. This seemed odd. When he came over to visit, I asked if his machine was broken and after going round and round, we came to the realization that my phone couldn’t call his. I could call everyone else’s number, he could call me, but I couldn’t connect to his line from my FiOS line. This seemed unbelievable.

Verizon sent out a repairman who couldn’t have been nicer. I really enjoyed the four hours he spent at my house repeatedly calling his office trying to troubleshoot the issue.  The solution involved a switch which was installed somewhere because my son at one point called Verizon to get FiOS and then changed his mind. I don’t even pretend to understand that.

While talking with the nice young Verizon techie man, I told him about the late night calls and my anger over the FiOS power supply issue. In the course of a whole afternoon you pretty much exhaust all your Verizon conversational topics. I remarked that at least I’d never have to deal with calls to check my line’s power supply again.

About six weeks ago the problem with calling my son’s house happened again, but this time they settled it remotely from the Verizon office within a few minutes.

Then three nights ago, the phone started ringing in the middle of the night again. If it’s a serial killer, it will all be much simpler.