Me: Hi Verizon, I want to change my family’s account for internet and wireless
Verizon: No problem. Send us 500 pieces of documentation.
Me: Hi Verizon. I sent the 500 pieces of documentation.
Verizon: Great! It will be 6 weeks until you get your refund.
Me: (Makes note on calendar) Thank you.
Me: (6 weeks later) Hi Verizon. You issued the refund check as a debit card to my deceased husband’s name. Can we fix that?
Verizon: Oh we don’t do that. Here’s the number for our refund department.
Me: Hello Verizon Refund Department. I would like to get the card changed to a check to deposit into my husband’s estate account. Or, can you just issue the refund check to me?
Verizon Refund Department: Oh, we can’t do that unless you give us 500 pieces of documentation.
Me: Um. I already did that.
Verizon Refund Department: Oh, not us. We are not Verizon. We are their vendor. Send us the documentation and it will take 4-6 weeks to process.
Me: Bangs head… collects 500 pieces of paper… (Check to arrive in 4-6 weeks…)

There are times that I can handle the stupid pet tricks involved in settling an estate. It’s an annoying but necessary evil. And it’s something that they don’t tell you about ahead of time when you are doing estate planning. It feels like a dumpster fire that never ends.

This is just lousy customer service by a conglomerate that only cares about profit, not a customer’s request. I talked with Verizon MANY times to get the account changed to my name, the new contract signed, the phones anointed with holy water, (doing the estate hokey-pokey) and the many MANY pieces of paper that they required collected and sent to their offices. We discussed whether I wanted a refund sent in my husband’s name, or in mine. (They agreed and I filled out paperwork to have the refund sent to me. Well, that didn’t happen.) I even went into a physical office to get additional paperwork signed. Guess what?? They tried to get me to sign up with a more expensive contract than I wanted. It was an attempt at bait-and-switch and I didn’t play the game.

Sometimes I wonder what people do who are not as savvy in the ways of business and finances. Do they get suckered into something that they cannot afford or do not want? Do they hear the details in their grief, or do they get confused and don’t feel like fighting it? I am… flummoxed.

Grief sucks. Paperwork sucks. It all sucks.

So say we all…