WCAX.COM Local Vermont News, Weather and Sports-FairPoint Customer Wants Out
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Montpelier, Vermont - March 27, 2009
Vermont utility regulators are getting worried about the future of FairPoint Communications after receiving a flood of consumer complaints. We've told you about customers having trouble getting FairPoint service. Now, a man says he can't get rid of FairPoint.
John Martin held up his latest telephone bill. "That's how this all started," he explained. "My bill didn't get in on time so I tried to call them and say, Where's my bill?"
Martin lives in New Hampshire and works in Saint Johnsbury, both served by FairPoint. But since the North Carolina-based phone company took over Verizon's land line system, Martin -- and thousands of other customers -- have complained about multiple problems with billing, email and phone service connections.
He told Channel 3, "And so then I called the Attorney General's office about it and still haven't heard from FairPoint since then -- and that's it. I just want to cancel my phone service with them. And there's no way to contact them to do so."
Martin says FairPoint never responded to his emails, and all he's been able to get by calling customer service is an automated menu. But Martin says he's gotten no answers from FairPoint and so he's sent them his last bill. He'll rely on his cell phone.
Vermont Public Service commissioner David O'Brien says state regulators want more than answers. They want evidence that the company has ironed out its problems. "This is very troubling," O'Brien said. "This is to our core that customers are not getting through and not getting service and not getting answers. And getting bills that are flawed. I mean, this is the last sort of thing we ever want to see at the Department of Public Service."
Vermont regulators don't have a lot of options, but under one condition of the original FairPoint deal, they could order the troubled phone company to keep all its Vermont revenue in Vermont. Otherwise, it may come down to a search for another buyer.
FairPoint issued a statement on Friday acknowledging its problems. The company says it has resolved its billing problems and is now focusing on getting customers connected or disconnected.
Nationwide there's been a "flight" of customers away from land lines and toward wireless phone service. But the Vermont Public Service department says FairPoint has seen twice the average rate of land line disconnections throughout New England.
Andy Potter - WCAX News
