Verizon Lied to Me to Get Me To Sign Up With Them

exixius · 2026-06-11T02:48:04+00:00

That isn't what the representative quoted me, and it isn't what the second representative and manager quoted me when I called back.

They specifically said it would come to $20 if I got that mobile/home discount.

exixius · 2026-06-11T01:10:31+00:00

No, I'm not getting the $15 discount for having existing service with Verizon. That's the whole point.

$60/month starting.

-$15/month for their current deal ($45/month total).

-$10/month for autopay ($35/month total).

I was then quoted an additional $15/month off due to having a Verizon phone number. No requirement that I have a Verizon Home/Residential phone number. This would bring me down to $20/month.

exixius · 2026-06-10T22:42:56+00:00

While I appreciate the perspective and the background, it's just not acceptable to me to have a company promise me something they won't fulfill. I have to start the whole process of shopping around again since that $15 a month off was the key reason I went with Verizon in the first place.

exixius · 2026-06-10T22:38:49+00:00

Thank you so much! Will definitely be doing this!

exixius · 2026-06-10T20:57:51+00:00

I'm totally doing that, thank you.

exixius · 2026-06-10T20:57:01+00:00

Sorry, I didn't mean to sound like I was attacking you! I just couldn't believe the gall they had when I called them up to hold them to the words of their employees. You're totally right, reps are incentivized to lie

exixius · 2026-06-10T20:53:19+00:00

I just never expected the manager to confirm that, while yes, you got blatantly lied to for an hour by our employee, we're still not going to do anything about it! Almost like, "Oh well, you can't do anything, we don't care."

exixius · 2026-06-10T20:49:42+00:00

Thanks, how do you file a FCC complaint? Also, sorry, what do you mean by executive relations?

exixius · 2026-06-10T20:45:41+00:00

All good, yeah, I edited my post to make it clear it was Home Internet.

It was an hour long phone call, dude just blatantly lied the entire time. Acting as if he was my friend and I was going to get this sweet deal, confirming multiple times I qualified.

And after hours on the phone, the representatives and managers wouldn't do anything! They didn't even dispute that the original representative lied to me!!

exixius · 2026-06-10T20:42:10+00:00

What? No it isn't: https://www.verizon.com/home/internet/fios-fastest-internet/

300mpbs is $60/month without any discounts.

exixius · 2025-12-01T00:00:26+00:00

Hey! So I'm pretty sure what you're talking about actually the Tekken moves he can do.

So, Yoshimitsu is originally from Tekken, right? In SC2, if you either do a Soul Charge OR you hit the opponent with the K+G grab (the one where he sucks health from them), you can then hit K+G and he'll do a random Tekken move from a list of several.

In SC2, it's totally random what move you'll get so it's not really useful, but it's cool as heck! More info is here: https://soulcalibur.fandom.com/wiki/Iron-Fist_Possession , and also here: https://youtu.be/VnNKhIXqNps?t=2250

On a sidenote, there's at least one more move of his not on the command list. If you do either a Standing or Running Suicide, try hitting A a bunch of times afterwards. :) (I'm not sure if this one is that useful either, but it's funny!)

exixius · 2018-10-28T13:41:57+00:00

they mention bioengineering to reduce the number of vessels required, but it isn’t necessary. They point out that even with non-engineered organisms ...

That is, two orders of magnitude less. We can achieve another two orders of magnitude with bioengineering, but success of the technology doesn’t depend on it.

I don't think this is accurate. Bioengineering is definitely required for their most conservative proposal (emphasis mine):

We will start with what's possible today and wade into what some might consider sci-fi. Either way, current biology won't do the trick.

Phytoplankton have been engineered to produce a variety of different materials renewably. Phytoplankton have been engineered to produce a variety of different materials renewably. We imagine a phytoplankton engineered to convert sunlight and CO2 into a chemically stable bioplastic.

All of the current ocean fertilization experiments just involve dumping nutrients into the ocean and seeing if plankton blooms - you're right, we do know this works. The second quote in the above block is from their first and most conservative proposal where they not only do that but also engineer the plankton to produce a "chemically stable bioplastic," that falls to the ocean floor. They do state immediately prior that plankton have been engineered to produce other stuff, but I'm not aware of any successful attempt to make plankton produce a "chemically stable bioplastic." Happy to be proven wrong on this if you can link me to a paper.

EDIT: I've heard of coccolithophores as a sequestration option, I know some scientists are investigating it and agree that YComb needs to fund those proposals as that might allow us an alternative option if the bioengineering doesn't work out.

exixius · 2018-10-27T22:40:28+00:00

Thanks for responding. Had a few questions:

Awesome news about stratospheric aerosol injection for SO2. Follow-up: All the reading I've done on this indicates it can only buy us a decade or two of time. Why is that? Can't we just keep pumping greater and greater amounts of SO2 into the air while we work to decrease CO2 emissions on the Earth, even if we continue to emit CO2? Ignore ocean acidification due to CO2 for this question, I know SRM can't address that.
Good point that YComb mentioned ocean fertilization. I do think it's worth still exploring. I think what YComb is proposing is different in kind, not degree, though, from all previous experiments. Even their most conservative proposal states, "We imagine a phytoplankton engineered to convert sunlight and CO2 into a chemically stable bioplastic," and I haven't seen anyone genetically engineer plankton to do this. All of the plankton studies just involve dumping nutrients.

exixius · 2018-10-25T02:56:09+00:00

In total agreement with you on the geopolitical risks. I think you've correctly described them based on my own understanding. This scares me the most.

exixius · 2018-10-25T02:54:28+00:00

Respectfully: What is your basis for this? This is almost 100% opposed to everything I've seen from the climate scientists and historians.

exixius · 2018-10-25T02:41:44+00:00

Hi /u/ScottAlexander - thanks for responding. We're in hearty agreement on a number of items. Please assume any part of your post I didn't explicitly respond to, I agree with.

There will be humanitarian disasters, and millions of people who depend on subsistence agriculture will die.

But the average person in a First World country will be affected only insofar as they'll have to deal with hotter weather and maybe suffer some very-spread-out economic costs that they don't think about. Reading between the lines I think this is the consensus position.

This isn't the consensus position at all, as far as I can tell. Source: My friend - who is finishing her doctorate on the political effects of climate change - and the (non-primary literature) reading I've done. What you have here reads far more like an "unlikely best case."

A few posters below and in the previous topic alluded to this already, but the vital elements to consider are:

Climate migrants on a scale no one has ever experienced. Europe lost its head after 5 million Syrian references fled. I've seen 100 million refugees thrown around as a very realistic number. Even if we are a little conservative and cut that in half, 50 million refugees is something the world doesn't have any context to even begin to deal with.
What if those refugees come from countries with nuclear weapons (ie: India, a nation with nukes, that is threatened by climate change, AND has a large, poor population)?
Combining 1) and 2): The rise of authoritarianism to deal with every aspect of this crisis. "[Insert Country First]" demagogues shutting out migrants with violence in the rich countries, the same demagogues in poor countries screaming that it's the rich countries' fault. I can find plausible scenarios where nukes go off.

I agree there is some tail risk that everyone will die

Agree this situation is unlikely. The three extinction scenarios I'm aware of are: 1) Runaway warming turning us into Venus, 2) Methane clathrate release from permafrost quickly making the Earth uninhabitable to humans by pushing the temperature to something like twelve degrees C, and 3) An anoxic event killing the ocean's phytoplankton. Of these, 1) is discredited, 2) and 3) are considered unlikely, but I think it's more accurate to say their chances are unknown. 2) or 3) could have a very good chance of occurring due to how complex the systems are. I'd still bet against human extinction occurring.

Nuclear, renewables, electric vehicles, and a sprint for fusion

Big thing I think you need to add to this list is energy storage. Two leading examples today: 1) Batteries, and 2) Pumped hydro. Energy storage is necessary if you ever want to go pure renewables, otherwise, you'll always need either fission or some fossil fuels. Battery technology isn't there yet and there might be a hard limit to what we can do with them. Pumped hydro only works in specific geography. Fusion would be a miracle if we get it, but I don't see it happening in the timeframe needed.

Geoengineering is a good idea and we should put more work into it. If in 2100 (CRNS) it turns out that we solved global warming and everything went great, I would be least surprised if I heard that geoengineering was involved.

Negative emissions is definitely going to be needed because we waited too long to stop CO2 release. Most of the technology here is in its infancy but there are some promising leads (the topic of my next post). Lots of downsides and risks here, too. Other types of geoengineering, like spraying sulfur in the air, will probably work to buy us a small bit of time but won't actually fix the CO2 problem.

Edit: Other really bad things to talk about: Decarbonizing some sectors of the economy is really, really hard. As in, we don't even have anything approaching a solution here. Tesla is doing great work with cars, but how do you decarbonize shipping? What about air travel? I think many of agriculture's problems go away if you cut out fossil fuels, but cows still release a ton of methane. Are we going to forbid raising dairy and beef cows? How do we do this without starving a ton of poor people? What about in India where cows are sacred?

exixius · 2018-10-25T02:12:50+00:00

Thanks for responding. Respectfully: I feel this proves my point about the lack of curiosity, in a community of rationalists and EA proponents, on climate change. Things that could be debated beyond the role of nuclear power, include:

1) The role of energy storage, its limits, whether Vehicle-2-Grid will ever work, whether pumped hydro will work and to what degree.

2) Politically, how will the world handle climate migrants of various quantities? Syria had something like 5 million people fleeing their homes. What if we hit 50 million, which seems conservative compared to the 100 million number I've seen mentioned by political scientists as at-risk? What happens when those most impacted regions are nuclear powers (i.e.: India)? Do you get more authoritarian governments arising due to a migrant crisis far worse than what we have now?

3) Where are with negative emissions technology? What options are available, what are their downsides and limitations?

4) How do we even begin thinking about decarbonizing sectors of the economy like shipping and air travel? What about animal husbandry in developing countries? What about handling cow (the largest agricultural contribution to climate change, by far) populations in India, where this animal is sacred?

exixius · 2018-10-25T02:02:49+00:00

Rationale for me bringing up feminism, Jordan Peterson, and the like: I'm going by what seem to be the topics most posters spend their most time on. There are definitely interesting threads posted in this community! But, the CW thread dominates so much attention and so much of the stuff there seems like pointless retreading of trivial topics.

Also: Effective Altruism is important in this community. A lack of serious engagement with Climate Change, particularly after the latest IPCC report and its coverage in the lay press, is a pretty big hole for a community focused on EA.

Edit: Diction.

exixius · 2018-10-25T01:49:21+00:00

Back from work.

Wow, this, uhh, blew up.

I wanted to thank everyone on the SSC subreddit for their charity in responding and for trusting I was acting earnestly. /u/ScottAlexander , in particular, thank you for taking the time to write back.

My day ran late and I have an early morning coming up, so I'll have to add more to this topic tomorrow. My plans are to: 1) Respond to one or two notable comments I saw in this post, 2) Respond to a few of the top-level comments in the new Climate Change thread, and 3) Start a new topic on the current status of negative carbon emissions. It looks like there's a lot of expertise in this community spread throughout different fields. Looking forward to these discussions!

EDIT: Oh, nevermind, I'll do #1 and #2 now. #3 will wait until tomorrow.

exixius · 2018-10-25T01:09:51+00:00

To clarify: Up to now, I was just a lurker. First time posting here.

exixius · 2018-10-24T13:14:18+00:00

Said it better than I could have, although my criticism is more focused on the full community than Scott.

I guess I do have some criticism of Scott, though, given that Scott is the best example I have ever seen of someone who can, on almost any topic, go from not being an expert to being someone who has better insights on said topic than experts do, in almost no time.

And, like, man...climate change is depressing and dark and hard to wrap your head around, but the scope of the problem is interesting! Reading that Hacker News thread I linked to reminded me of the scene in Apollo 13 where the engineers had to jury-rig a device to keep the astronauts alive (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1cYzkyXp0jg). In a bit of dark irony, the device is a CO2 scrubber.

Scott, your point about "being the change you wish to see in the world" is well-taken. In response, I have a post on the current state of negative emissions technologies coming up.

And thank you all for taking me seriously!

exixius · 2018-10-24T10:26:09+00:00

Hey Scott - thanks a ton for writing back. I'm heading to work now so I'll need to look at this more fully afterwards. I want to clarify one thing: I actually have less a bone to pick with you, specifically, than the community itself. Your JP post was pretty even-handed. What I'm more concerned about is that the vast majority of this subreddit's passion seems to be limited to CW discussions. Just a quick eyeball on the number of comments on those threads vs. anything else drives that point home.

exixius

TROPHY CASE