I've been trying to pay Verizon for my FIOS service ever since I got my FIOS account setup about six or seven months ago. You'd think it would be easy, right? Big businesses should make it as easy as possible for their customers to pay them, right?
You'd think that would be the case - but Verizon hasn't made things easy for me in my experience as a Verizon customer. Verizon Wireless is a different story, but this is plain old Verizon, or so I thought.
So to be clear - here's my situation:
- A FIOS business account
- No Verizon phone services (my company uses VOIP)
- Receiving paper bills, with an account number
I tried registering through verizon.com, and that was my major mistake. It seemed like it was possible - they even have a link for FIOS customers that don't have a phone number, but I kept getting errors through that process. All other processes through verizon.com require a Verizon phone number for the account.
Then I read this at Verizon's customer forums:
After doing the hold thing, and being transferred multiple times and calling at least twice, someone at Verizon finally said that IF you do not have a home phone number, regardless of whether you have one-bill or other features, you cannot pay bills online. You have to either mail your payments or do it via telephone. Ridiculous as the push to go one-bill and the convenience of the same is taken away when there is no ability to pay online. Hope this helps. - marinerslvr
That was disheartening, but I decided to persist. Maybe there was a way if I kept asking questions. Finally I found some helpful folks at the e-center (866-233-3249) - the support site for verizon.com. They said that FIOS accounts without phone numbers have to pay through verizon.net, and gave me the support number for verizon.net (888-649-9500). I had to call there twice, but eventually found my answer!
The answer was that you can indeed pay for Verizon FIOS online, but you can't do it through verizon.com, you must do it through verizon.net - aka Verizon Online. My experience with Verizon DSL started to come back... aha - you need a verizon.net email account to actually login. But wait - I don't have one. You are supposed to set one up when you activate FIOS, but I didn't. My company already has its own domain for email. OK, fine, I'll do it.
The second call to verizon.net (888-649-9500) informed me of this - to pay an account which only has Verizon FIOS on it, you need a verizon.net email account. They connected me with Verizon Online technical support (don't know the number, sorry), who helped me with my email account. Voila - once I logged in, I was able to view my bills, make one time payments, and even set up recurring payments. AWESOME!!!
They still have a problem with this...as great as FIOS is, I'm definitely going to go back to Comcast after this year...this is ludicrous. I can't believe how hard it is to pay one bill...takes me 45 minutes every time I call up because I have to be transferred 4 times before I get to the right place. It almost seems like they've purposefully made this difficult. RIIIIDICULOUS!!!!!
Believe it or not they are getting better. I just noticed that it is at least possible for me to login to verizon.com without a phone number. Previously I had been only able to register and login at verizon.net.
I was not able, however, to upgrade my service. It appeared possible, but then when I got to the end of about 10 pages pointing me in that direction, I was instructed to call and speak with a representative. Ugh!
I'm trying to register at veriozon.net but it's trying to make me download software for my FIOS which I already have!
My wife and I went through this EXACT same scenario this week. I never thought I'd feel hatred for a company - but THIS IS ABSOLUTELY ASININE. I cannot believe it is so difficult for me to GIVE THEM MONEY! I'm trying to pay them and they won't let me. ARRRRRGGGG!!!!! I HATE VERIZON RIGHT NOW.
I'm a little relieved that I'm not the only one having this problem. This is making me so angry - I want to pay them but I have no idea how! And I haven't even been getting paper statements. I hate Verizon with every fiber in my being.
Your blog helped so much! My boss was having the exact same problems you described, and your advice proved very useful. After spending 45 minutes on the phone getting bounced around Verizon customer service to no avail, we found this posting and followed your suggestion. Within 5 minutes his problem was resolved - fantastic! Thank you!
Hi Marissa, Glad to help and thanks for commenting!
Thanks, this was helpful - I finally found phone support at 888-338-9333. The number to pay by phone is 800-345-6563. The website to make a payment online is http://verizon.com/payonline
and it actually worked.
Thanks for the post! It was great help! It's really ridiculous what we had to go through just to PAY verizon.
The number for tech support, which helped me set up the verizon.net email, is 888-553-1555.
It is a Nightmare trying to Pay my Verizon bill (one time) on line. I did find a way once several months ago. at that time a fee was requested to use a credit card. THANKS BUT NO THANKS. I'd rather pay by us mail, or switch Service Companys.
That sounds like it was a monstrous headache. Makes me glad that I’m an employee and subscriber of DISH Network. Now I can’t claim we’re perfect either but the effort is definitely there. I see it everyday, the continuous striving to create the best possible customer service experience and find better ways to make everything from paying bills, changing programming etc.