So, being a lover of the concept of FIOS, I decided to forego my satellite internet service and try one of their bundles.  “It’s a no brainer”, I thought.  How could they screw this up on me?  Ha ha ha, I am so naive.

Well, the service works great: high speed internet access, check.  Nice TV channel selection and picture quality, check.   Easy online account management to pay your bill online, BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZT.

Here’s where the fun starts.  Verizon.com is where you primarily login to see your bill, so you might assume you could, you know, pay your bill there.  Hah.  I’ve been trying to ay my bill for weeks and all it says is:

 Our bill payment page is being improved at the moment. To pay your bill now, please sign in to www.verizon.net.

Sure, I can do that!  Oh, wait, I dont know my password cause I never use that site!  Sure, whatever, pasword reset request, insane password strength requirements, good to go right?  of course not.  Trying to pay my bill there, I’m greeted with:

  Because you have a bill that combines Verizon services, we need to direct you to the My Account Sign In page on Verizon.com to make your payment.

You seeing the problem here?  Yeah.  So, I know, I’ll email them and let them know their online payment system is totally fucked, I’ll just click on the “Contact Us” link at the top of the page and…

 

Server Error in ‘/residential’ Application.

---

Runtime Error

Description: An application error occurred on the server. The current custom error settings for this application prevent the details of the application error from being viewed remotely (for security reasons). It could, however, be viewed by browsers running on the local server machine.

Details: To enable the details of this specific error message to be viewable on remote machines, please create a <customErrors> tag within a “web.config” configuration file located in the root directory of the current web application. This <customErrors> tag should then have its “mode” attribute set to “Off”.

Verizon, you suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck!

Sorry Dell, you want to continue to employ either incompetent or outright lying customer service staff who tell you your order is cancelled and then don’t really cancel it, you’re going to get badmouthed on blogs. When a customer calls you and says they want their order cancelled (especially when you say an item is in stock and then email saying shipment has been delayed a WEEK) YOU CANCEL THEIR ORDER.

I should have looked at the ResellerRatings for Dell before making the stupid mistake of ordering from them, but no, I had to try and save a few bucks from the wonderful NewEgg which has never given me a single problem. I won’t ever make that mistake again.

Well, anyone out there looking for a new handheld smartphone with SSH, you can give up on the Helio Ocean. You would think a phone with 3G, a full qwerty KB and a minimum $60/mo service fee would probably be a potential dream tool for your average sysadmin geek. I emailed helio about the possibilty of getting an SSH client on the device last week. After the usual initial ‘we don’t know what you’re talking about’ email, I politely asked again about whether they would either consider creating one or allowing a 3rd party developer to do so:

“…As a potential customer, one of many potential customers looking for a qwerty-enabled, SSH-capable 3g device, I do need to know quite specifically if any SSH applications are planned or already under development for the Ocean. Could you find out for me?

Regarding 3rd-party development, I’m quite happily employed actually, does your reponse mean only employees and no third party developers can write applicattions for the device, if no 1st party SSH client is planned?”

The last sentence was because the original reply said I could consider applying to the company in order to write an app. No, thanks for the thought. The response back to this email was even more disappointing than the first one:

“Hello from Helio, this is Randy, Thank you for your inquiry.

Chris, Secure Shell is only security programming, since Helio doesn’t allow you to access certain personal information such as bank sites and online shopping. There really is no need for the SSH client. Although, we may still be coming out with updates for this service, please continue to check www.helio.com and clicking the sign up for updates tab. Also, in regards to third party development some third party applications will not work with our services. Thank you and have a wonderful day.”

Now is it me or did he just say that the device is basically useless? You have a great network like 3G but you cant even check your bank balance? Is your device REALLY that underpowered that SSL encryption is beyond your capability? Wow, thanks for saving me the time and money from even considering your device!

I really dont have any nice way to say this, so I’m just going to say it straight on:

Surely the only injustice greater than silence is continued silence. I will be silent no longer, and I only hope others do the same.