George Stahl/Special to the Sun

There are 15 families in the area of Dodger and Gary Streets off of Columbus Ave. in Bodfish that have been engaged in a frustrating battle with Verizon, the carrier of their Digital Subscriber Line, (DSL) service for the past 21 weeks.

Five of the Verizon customers affected by the disruption spoke with the Sun in a state of frustration over the response, or lack thereof, they have been getting from the company. The families were reluctant to have their names published for fear that the other services that Verizon provides for them would be disconnected or somehow disrupted. “We were reluctant to come to the media about the problem,” said one of them, a stock broker who uses the Internet to conduct business out of his home. “We were scared that Verizon would cancel all of the services to our homes. We didn’t know where else to go, though.”

The situation began in June, when several of the 15 homes had no service. The outage grew until all 15 were affected. Their service was not a total shut down, but the Internet access program was working intermittently – usually coming on around 10:00 p.m., and lasting throughout the night until about 6:00 a.m. “But it’s not always that consistent. It can come on any time after 10:00 p.m. and quit at any time,” said a school teacher in the group.

They called Verizon when the problem started and a serviceman from the local Verizon Service Center came out.

It was determined that the problem was not in any of the houses, but the problem was related to something in the line.

“They responded in good time to determine that the lines in our homes were working; the local serviceman was wonderful. That is probably the only saving grace in all of this,” the stock broker commented.

According to the customers this reporter talked with, the families’ telephone lines have had no problems, just the DSL. Apparently, the same line is used for both services, but the DSL is on a different frequency as the phone.

According to one of the frustrated Verizon customers, the service technician took a reading around the Verizon line at the telephone pole and found a slight amount of electrical bleed over from a nearby Southern California Edison (SCE) transformer.

The technician pointed out that this could be the source of their problem and that he would report that back to the Verizon office.

The customer who first discovered the problem, contacted SCE and said an SCE technician came out and checked the transformer. Shortly after seeing no more activity around the telephone pole on which the transformer is located, she contacted SCE.

“I was told, according to Edison, the transformer was not leaking. I immediately called the area Supervisor for Verizon, Rich Adams,” she said. “Mr. Adams told me that he would set up a work order for troubleshooters from Verizon to come out and pinpoint the problem. The next step would then be to have specialists come out and fix it.”

After time with no activity passed, the band of customers called Verizon again. “We were told that a man named Robert Denning, who is the supervisor over most of the western states, cancelled the troubleshooters. We were given the name of his supervisor, Ronald Morris and his phone number,” the school teacher said. “Ronald Morris is a bully. His response to our situation was to just ‘be patient. They are working on it.’ We were referred back to Robert Denning,” she continued. Another customer, an elderly couple, said they were told by Morris, “The solution to our problem was to cancel service with Verizon and to find another carrier.”

“I have wasted so much of my life on this nonsense. I have called and called, and when I’m told that someone will be out, I have taken days off of work, waiting. Only to see that no one comes out when I am told that they will,” the teacher said.

In the meantime, since the problem began in June, the stock broker takes his laptop to McDonald’s to conduct business, the elderly couple has been to the local Verizon store to purchase a $50 Air Card with a two-year contract on it, the school teacher purchased a Data Plan at $25 a month for her iPad, in order to use the Internet on her iPad for her school needs. “We were told by Verizon to keep track of the days that are not working and to then call Verizon to get credit on our accounts. This is usually about a one- to two-hour phone call after explaining the whole thing to someone at an outsourced location and we get told we will be credited from $19 to $25 for our trouble,” said the woman who reported the problem.

“All we want is to be able to talk to someone at Verizon who can actually help us, or even to tell us that it will never be fixed. Not to tell us to be patient that they are working on it or that it’s not their problem, but Edison’s. That’s the frustrating part,” they all said, just looking for a real answer.

According to the customers, they have received only the following two e-mails from Verizon, since the problem began.

From: Denning, Robert J (Bob) mailto:bob.denning@verizon.com

Date: October 31, 2011 9:16:11 AM PDT

Subject: RE: DSL service

Name withheld,

I have asked for assistance from our external affairs department to help us convince Edison of the need to replace the power transformer.  I believe we will succeed and resolve the outage shortly.

 I sincerely apologize for the inconvenience.

 Regards,

 Robert Denning (Bob)

And

From: Denning, Robert J (Bob) mailto:bob.denning@verizon.com

Date: November 9, 2011 8:54:49 AM PST

Subject: RE: DSL service in Bodfish

Name withheld,

We continue to work this outage today.  We continue to work with Edison to resolve the power influence knocking out the DSL signal in your area. 

I apologize for the inconvenience.

Regards,

Robert Denning (Bob)

After several phone calls and e-mails to Verizon, Mr. Jarryd Gonzales, Verizon Media Relations Rep. e-mailed the following to the Sun.

Thanks for the opportunity to provide a statement for your story. "We are working to help identify the cause of the intermittent service issue. This includes continuing to work with utility providers. Our customers are our highest priority, and we will continue to work until the issue is resolved."

Best, Jarryd Gonzales, Spokesperson, Verizon Media Relations/California.

The customer group has filed a complaint with the Better Business Bureau. If others have had a similar experience, please contact the Sun at editor@kvsun.com.