I'm using a list. Please don't take this as being snippy. I started smoking yesterday after 51 days of being nicotine free, so they really did get the best of me...

1.) Billing was a mess. If you're not a Verizon home phone subscriber, billing goes from being a mess to a total wreck. I was a TV and Internet-only subscriber only (we use cell phoners exclusively (Cingular)); I was billed twice to my Amex. I was being charged $5 more per month from internet than originally quoted, making it the same price (almost) as my Comcast connection and it didn't seem any faster. However, Comcast was already fast, so I'm not whining about the speed per se.

2.) I called billing and customer service to say that the bill online is inaccurace. It didn't have any of the TV charges that I was hit for on my Amex. 5 different phone calls to five different reps, who all promised a supervisor would call me to straighten it out. Never got a call back. I waited for a total of a month.

3.) Phone menu is by far the roughest, most frustrating thing I've ever dealt with. If you have to call to try and straighten a problem out like mine, you'll see. The menu will consistently route you to the wrong personnel.

4.) Once you get to a human, my experience was that about 90% of the time, the people are underinformed, quick to get snippy, and they make promises they don't keep. God as my witness, I was nice on the phone every time. 5 unreturned requests for supervisor call-back. 1 intentional hang up. 1 intentional dumping to the main menu. Blood was boiling by then. This is like something you read about in the Times. Experiencing it was something I can't even relate very well. Truly astounding.

5.) MultiRoom DVR has a lot of bugs. Satellite boxes frequently can't read the hub DVR, causing you to have to reset the box. When you reset a box, you lose all customizations on your box (like channel list edits), and sometimes even your scheduled recording setup.

6.) Internet connection goes down if your PC has a "sleep mode" setup in the Power Setup in Windows, which mine does.

Final straw was getting a second charge on my Amex without ever receiving an accurate bill. That in my mind has to violate some FTC regulation. The fact that I'm paying to terminate my agreement early in light of the fact of all these problems really does highlight one point...well two...$180 to get away from Verizon is cheap. And in my mind, Verizon exploited every loophole in a system that in the end fails to uphold any resemblance of consumer rights.

Now I'm sure there are Verizon-fans on this board who will read this and cannot relate to what I went through. For that, you are lucky and I wish you continued luck. But for the way I was treated, I'll never sign on w/ Verizon for anything ever again, and I advise my friends and family to do the same. I realize that their problems revolve around FiOS being so new, and their infrastructure is struggling to meet the supporability demand, but their overall treatment of customers, and their notoriety for billing issues, will probably not change over time. Google "Verizon Class Action Suit" and you find that their billing practices have been called into question many, many times, over some seemingly very shady practices.

Verizon FiOS TV (the department) can't handle the demand and their representatives are hostile. My advice to all: steer clear unless you're totally fed up with your current provider. I was on the fence. And I jumped. And I really regret it. I may hug the Comcast tech when he's at my house tonight.