Going to online billing doesn't seem to help make the process any more efficient. "I just got my first e-mail from Verizon since I converted from paper to online billing," one reader wrote. "I was amazed to see this line in the notification: 'Please schedule your payment at least 3-4 business days prior to your due date to allow time for your payment to be applied to your account.' So the 18 days between the e-mail date and the due date is really only 14. Is it really true that in this day of instantaneous money transfers that it takes up to four days to move money from one computer to another? My grocery store debits show up in the 15 minutes between the time I walk away from the register and the time I get home, yet Verizon, with a market capitalization of $120 billion takes four days to get to my bank? Who thinks up this stuff? Clearly not someone who wants to maximize the user's benefit from online financial transactions."

And if a customer does happen to make a mistake, Verizon's procedures are likely to compound it. A former Verizon Business DSL customer writes of what happened when he forgot to update his credit information. "For three months after that I was using the service without paying. I freely admit it was my mistake, but Verizon compounded the error by never actually telling me I had not paid my bill. Before you ask, since I was doing direct-pay via credit card I didn't receive monthly statements. As a business customer I expected at the very least to get a 'so ... you gonna pay your bill?' phone call or letter or even an e-mail. Never happened. I even had occasion to call Verizon tech support a few times because there were problems with my connection. Never said a word. Eventually my service was disconnected. I called and still nobody could tell me anything. After four days on the phone with representatives from customer service and billing I finally got someone who was able to tell me what happened. The worse part was that not only had my service been disconnected, my account had been completely deactivated. This apparently meant I would have to go through the whole set-up process again ... taking at least two weeks. Since then I've avoided using Verizon directly as much as possible. I'm using a regional provider for DSL/phone/long distance service now and have never been happier. Verizon started offering FIOS in my area last year, but it'll be a cold day in hell before I consider it ... no matter how tempting."

Which all-in-one service provider is giving you multiple problems? Tell us about it by posting your comments on my website or by writing me at Foster@gripe2ed.com.

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