Verizon is Stupid
March 30th, 2005I know that others are and have been posting screenshots of broken interfaces. But this one hits in a very idiotic way.
It used to be that I’d email the odd photo from my cell phone to flickr. Sometimes I wouldn’t feel like naming it or having any text to go with it. No biggy, flickr had a default and I could count on that default. If I decided to give my email a subject and body copy, flickr handled it admirably (and still does).
Verizon, on the other hand, not only charges me to email the photo, it decides to add multiple paragraphs of needless marketing shit to my message, without giving me a choice. I discovered this after returning home from work yesterday.
Why, Verizon, do you have to try to own my photos that I have taken with a phone that I bought? Why do you think I would seek out cables and software to GET AROUND YOUR SHIT? Because you are stupid. Your stupidity isn’t going to make flickr users suddenly run out and buy Verizon phones.
My invoice to Verizon:
Advertising on flickr page: $5000, with $4000 going to flickr (even though they’ve been bought).
Marketing Consulting: $250,000, payable immediately. o
March 30th, 2005 at 9:52 pm
Yeah. Verizon sucks so much, I’ve had to have 4 of the exact same phone replaced over the last 6 months and THEIR SERVICE SUCKS MAJOR ASS IN HARVARD YALE. I’m still not sure why I’m keeping a phone that rings in one spot (and only one) in my house.
March 30th, 2005 at 10:13 pm
I feel your pain. Cingular was doing the same thing if I sent photos via my phone, but Flickr has somehow managed to de-suckify the garbled email mess they get from me.
Not related to the phone, but to Leta & Heather: I hope they’re both doing better today. It sounds like yesterday was pretty rough emotionally.
Our 23-month-old has been fairly worry-free, but living vicariously through some of your experiences, I’m even more thankful for that.
March 30th, 2005 at 11:21 pm
I couldn’t BELIEVE all the Verizon ad crap that showed up when I sent my most recent phone-photo to Flickr. I was, shall we say, ENRAGED. Verizon is the only cell service that works where I live (can you say boondocks?) so I’m stuck. Grrrrrrr…
March 31st, 2005 at 2:56 am
Flickr is working to eliminate all these junky messages. Check out this thread (http://www.flickr.com/forums/bugs/1988/). I think the Verizon one was reported recently, so it probably hasn’t been ‘desuckified’ yet.
March 31st, 2005 at 3:48 am
We definitely agree about this.
i dont even pay for cable. take away the ads and take your fucking box off of my building and i’ll consider it.
March 31st, 2005 at 6:38 am
This is a poor idea by Verizon and not very well thought out. The equivalent is prefacing a voice call with a recorded message using James Earl Jones voice saying, “the following call is being made possible through Verizon’s cellular service. For only $29.99 a month you canÖ”. In essence Verizon is double dipping by charging you for the service then using it to advertise their company. That’s shitty.
March 31st, 2005 at 7:26 am
Cingular does the same shit when you mail a photo from their phones. It’s really shitty to put advertising on top of something that you are already paying for.
March 31st, 2005 at 7:26 am
Verizon is the devil! I have always thought so.
March 31st, 2005 at 8:35 am
To put it simply, I DESPISE Verizon. Toby Joe and I boycotted them years ago when they charged us for three months of DSL we never got. I called and called and thought I had worked it out. And instead of actually removing the charges for the DSL we never got, they charged us AGAIN for yet another installation fee for DSL we never got.
In the end, we never got DSL and we were both out 400 dollars. I hate them. I tried to buy ihateverizon.com and it was already taken by none other than verizon. I wrote about it over and over again in hopes of getting their error noticed. Finally, some guy out of nowhere, years later, wrote me this nasty email about how I shouldn’t be bashing verizon on the internet and that I should take it down, etc.
I need to stop now. I’m getting worked up again just remembering. And it happen four years ago.
March 31st, 2005 at 8:38 am
Plus, they have by far the most offensive logo ever created.
March 31st, 2005 at 9:03 am
it’s nice to know that someone else feels the same way..I can’t keep a conversation going for more than three minutes before it cuts out and disconnects, and yes, the flickr shit is one of the worst. Hope the Armstrong family is doing well.
March 31st, 2005 at 10:29 am
Verizon can suck a fart out of my asshole.
March 31st, 2005 at 12:30 pm
Verizon should be the next blurb whore. (Did someone already say that?)
April 1st, 2005 at 11:18 am
check out this post:
http://newyorkguide.blogs.com/uknyc/2005/04/lifecaching_blo.html
April 1st, 2005 at 11:47 am
Thanks a lot Mr. Armstrong. Now I have this song going through my head:
Thanks for the mammaries…. (Bob Hope keeps popping into my mind for some reason)
April 1st, 2005 at 2:35 pm
I’ve never had any problems with Verizon. I think it all depends on where you live and/or want to use your phone. Where I’m from Verizon=good, Sprint=bad.
April 1st, 2005 at 2:57 pm
I heard something on the news the other day that said Verizon customers had the most complaints (most of it due to billing discrepancies and the charge for early termination). Poo on them.
April 1st, 2005 at 3:06 pm
man, time to swtich to T-mobile. They’re great. don’t impede my personal ditial ‘posessions’ or anything. unless the service sucks in UT, i highly recommend em.
I upload to flickr frequently enough, and other than have a flat data service that I pay for (like $3/month), I can go nuts uploading pics, free of unwanted advertising/whathaveyou.
April 1st, 2005 at 3:45 pm
yea, hack your phone. that’s what i did.
i just now did it after saving over a years worth of photos– being to cheap to pay to have my own damn picture. and i feel freeeeee.
http://flickr.com/photos/ropedancer/sets/179051/
April 2nd, 2005 at 10:59 pm
My troubles with Verizon started back when they called themselves GTE. They couldn’t fool me with that name change. You can read my rant at my link. There’s a couple of other rants there. Sometimes I’m just a great big whiner…
April 11th, 2005 at 7:53 am
T-mobile are a joy to be on network with. No sucktastic mesages with any of my stuff. Generally I just bluetooth photos of my phone over to my laptop and flickr em that way. Not much use in a hospital granted.