With widespread outrage over missed appointments, no GPS, and the inability to log in to work apps, many say a $20 credit is not enough to make up for the incident.
A massive, 10-hour Verizon outage yesterday took large swaths of Americans back to the pre-smartphone era, causing outrage and in some cases significant consequences.
„I got locked in a parking garage and couldn’t get out due to no cell service to call“, one person says. „Missed appointments, late to meetings.“
The outage is resolved, but Verizon has not provided a detailed explanation of what took down its network, only that it was not a cyberattack. „This was a software issue and we are conducting a full review of what happened“, a company spokesperson tells us.
Verizon’s handling of the situation has come under intense scrutiny. One person, unaware of the outage, spent hours troubleshooting their inactive device with customer service agents who had not been briefed on the situation. The company plans to issue a $20 credit for everyone affected, which many account holders are calling „unacceptable“ given the inconveniences it caused.
Even worse, Verizon also won’t proactively apply the credit to affected accounts; you have to go into the Verizon app to redeem it when it’s ready. The company might be banking on customers not following through. Some say the whole ordeal made them want to switch carriers.
Many people experienced disruptions at work due to the inability to place calls, send texts, use internet-connected applications, or receive two-factor authentication texts. „Can’t even work right now, they ought to compensate for missing work due to the outage“, one person says.
