Verizon Hints at Apology as Service Outage Brought Nation to a Standstill
A widespread outage crippled Verizon's cell phone services for most of Wednesday, leaving hundreds of thousands of customers in the dark. The company confirmed that it had finally resolved the issue, with service restored by 10:30 p.m. local time.
However, before returning normal operations, Verizon acknowledged its mistake, stating, "Today, we let many of our customers down and for that, we are truly sorry." They added that those affected would receive a $20 account credit as a gesture of goodwill.
Eligible customers can expect to receive a text message informing them when the credits are available for redemption via their myVerizon app. Business customers will be contacted directly about receiving the credits.
The outage had been a major concern, with Downdetector tracking over 175,000 Verizon customers nationwide experiencing issues at its peak, including more than 10,000 in New York City alone.
New York City's Emergency Management agency reported no significant disruptions to essential services, but advised affected customers to seek alternative carriers or landlines for emergency calls during the outage. In the event of emergencies, residents were encouraged to visit police and fire stations or use the city's LinkNYC kiosks, which offered free calls, internet access, and dialing 911.
Following the incident, New York state Assemblymember Anil Beephan Jr. called for an investigation into Verizon's service disruptions by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). He expressed concern over the "ongoing and repeated" outages, stating that they have had a significant impact on public safety and caused inconvenience to residents and businesses.
The FCC said it was monitoring the situation but did not make any further comments.
A widespread outage crippled Verizon's cell phone services for most of Wednesday, leaving hundreds of thousands of customers in the dark. The company confirmed that it had finally resolved the issue, with service restored by 10:30 p.m. local time.
However, before returning normal operations, Verizon acknowledged its mistake, stating, "Today, we let many of our customers down and for that, we are truly sorry." They added that those affected would receive a $20 account credit as a gesture of goodwill.
Eligible customers can expect to receive a text message informing them when the credits are available for redemption via their myVerizon app. Business customers will be contacted directly about receiving the credits.
The outage had been a major concern, with Downdetector tracking over 175,000 Verizon customers nationwide experiencing issues at its peak, including more than 10,000 in New York City alone.
New York City's Emergency Management agency reported no significant disruptions to essential services, but advised affected customers to seek alternative carriers or landlines for emergency calls during the outage. In the event of emergencies, residents were encouraged to visit police and fire stations or use the city's LinkNYC kiosks, which offered free calls, internet access, and dialing 911.
Following the incident, New York state Assemblymember Anil Beephan Jr. called for an investigation into Verizon's service disruptions by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). He expressed concern over the "ongoing and repeated" outages, stating that they have had a significant impact on public safety and caused inconvenience to residents and businesses.
The FCC said it was monitoring the situation but did not make any further comments.
Verizon's just about apologized for its massive outage lol what took 'em so long?!? I mean, it's not like they went dark or anything... 175k+ customers affected, yikes! And the fact that business customers gotta be contacted directly is just extra 
On a serious note, it's wild that an Assemblymember is calling out the FCC for not doing more. Like, come on, we need to hold these companies accountable when they mess up this big! 
The $20 credit thing is cool and all, but it's just a small band-aid on a bigger problem... 
. 10:30 pm is nothing, what about the people who had to deal with this for an entire day? 
And don't even get me started on the FCC, just waiting for someone to complain so they can jump into action... or not 
. It's like we're all just pawns in a game where our loyalty is constantly tested and we're the ones who end up paying for it 
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. I mean, who lets their service go down for millions of people? It's just ridiculous. And to make matters worse, they're only offering a $20 credit as an apology? Come on! That's not even enough to cover the cost of a decent dinner. And what really gets me is that business customers are being contacted directly, but individual customers like me have to rely on their own devices and apps to get credits? It's like they think we're all just happy with some token apology and don't care about our actual experiences 
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Like, what even is that? The fact that they apologized and offered a $20 credit is pretty cool, but it's not enough. I think they should've had a plan in place for situations like this before it happened.
. Maybe Verizon can also look into improving their backup systems so this doesn't happen again in the future?
I'm actually kinda glad Verizon is owning up to their mistake 
! A $20 account credit is a pretty sweet gesture of goodwill, don't you think? 
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. And the LinkNYC kiosks are like a lifesaver (literally) 
. It's all about finding the silver linings, right? 
. And good luck trying to recover from that, NYC's emergency services had to redirect people to landlines and police stations 
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i mean, i know mistakes happen but $20 credit? yeah okay lol but seriously though, this is a huge deal esp in new york city where ppl rely on their phones for emergencies. and good luck trying to get help from customer support i bet they were swamped 
. Like, how hard is it to keep our service on? I'm still shaking my head thinking about all those people stuck in the dark... literally 
. The FCC needs to step in and make sure these kinds of outages don't happen again 
. And they just casually apologize and offer us $20 back? 
. We deserve reliable service, especially when it comes to emergency calls 
. This whole thing was just so frustrating and it's only because Verizon finally fixed their issue that we're back to normal 
. And a $20 account credit as an apology? Please, that's not even enough to cover the inconvenience and stress they must have caused 
And now we're left wondering if they'll be able to prevent something like this from happening again in the future 
. They really should've had a backup plan or something 
.