Verizon Sucks. Yup. They suck. This is an example of one of the most irresponsible companies I have ever had to deal with. One of their customers has been spamming me literally for the entire year, sending over a dozen spams a day to me, every day, possibly even more. The headers clearly indicate that the spams were being sent from a Verizon DSL customer, and traceroutes and IP lookups confirmed it.

I have emailed nearly every one of these spams to abuse@verizon.net.

And yet, the spams continue to come. In fact, they've been getting worse. Verizon has not lifted one goddamn finger to put a stop to it, and not once ever responded to any my complaints beyond the normal automated response. I do not even think they read their abuse email, let alone take action against abusive customers. It must be a spammer's paradise.

Well, finally I got fed up with the continuing spam enough to call them on the phone. I've wasted many hours over a period of months... as I said, almost a year, trying to get Verizon to take action against this person using official channels with no luck.

Did you know that Verizon publishes no phone number for security or spam issues? They have no phone number for spam, no phone number for network security, no NOC number, not even a phone number for complaints. They just have their idiotic little abuse@verizon.net email address which they ignore.

This is supposed to be a large, responsible corporate entity? I don't think so.

Well, I called their customer service and spent an hour arguing with the customer service tech. I told the lady that I was being attacked. She couldn't find a phone number to call. She couldn't handle the situation herself. I asked to talk to her superior. She refused to hand me up the line, refused to give me a phone number ... any phone number, that could deal with this issue of one of their customers spamming me continuously. Then she tried to convince me that it really wasn't Verizon's problem... that they couldn't track the customer down despite the fact that I was getting spam after spam from the same IP address. I again asked to talk to her superior and asked for a contact ... a human contact that I could talk to rseolve the issue. Again she refused, claiming that no such number existed, that she couldn't pass it on to anyone, and that she couldn't deal with the matter herself. In short, Verizon has an obvious unsaid policy to ignore all complaints, no matter how serious they are. They basically don't give a damn about their customers or by victims effected by spammers who are their customers.

Verizon seems to have intentionally set up their system to make it impossible to talk to a human being who might be able to track security or spam issues with their customers down. Verizon is intentionally trying to funnel all abuse reports to abuse@verizon.net, and then is intentionally ignoring those complaints, costing people like me god knows how much time and money in dealing with these spammers.

Verizon, it appears, is a spam haven. And that makes them liars as well. They have pretty looking customer relations messages and try to make themselves out to be spam fighters but when it comes right down to it they allow their customers to run rampant on the internet and either ignore or intentionally do not take action against those customers who have become massive sources of spam on the internet.

I should know, I'm one of the victims. Frankly, I believe that this irresponsibility makes Verizon liable, and maybe some day I'll decide it has gone too far and sue their asses for the several thousand spams I now have in my archives (along with all my abuse complaints which they have been ignoring). Lets see, $50 a pop times a couple of thousand... hmmm. But not today. Litigation should only be used as a final resort and I haven't reached that point yet. For now I am content reporting this massive abuse by a large corporation to the people who care... others who get lots of spam from verizon, have complained, and not gotten a response or action. Maybe eventually the bad press will force Verizon to take action but from what I've seen so far I really doubt it. Nothing short of a massive fine or court action is likely to change the way Verizon does business, and that's a fairly sad commentary for the Company. It puts them right up there with AT&T and Sprint for ignoring spam complaints (yes, Sprint has the same problem. There is a massive spammer called TEMD.NET which runs their spamming operation over Sprintlink, I get spams from them several times a month and complain about each one, and Sprint, like Verizon, has not lifted a single goddamn finger to stem the tide).

The wonderful thing about the internet is that you can Vent on it.

-Matt (written 30 September 2002)