It’s not a Verizon Wireless issue. It’s not a Verizon Fios issue. It’s a problem linking my 5G Wireless and Fios accounts. The technology is working fine, but I can’t log in to pay my bill for the 5G service I purchased in July; I only see my bill for the landline account my wife won’t let me drop.

Yet tech support employees keep transferring me back and forth between the 5G and Fios teams, which are both branded Verizon, but can’t seem to interact with each other. And every so often I find myself sent to someone in sales. Yet they are all labeled unvaryingly as Verizon Agent, 

I feel like I’m caught in a time loop, where I can occasionally jump a few steps ahead based on what I learned during the last iteration. Yet the narrative authority rests firmly in the scripts the frontline tech support agents are trained to follow.

I spent a half hour connected to a manager who said there was just one more step I needed to follow, but it was the step I had already told 20 other agents I couldn’t complete — the very reason I contacted tech support in the first place.

Here is how my 22nd loop went. I was told “No need to worry, rest assured I will not transfer you and we will resolve this for you.” 

After I got no response for 10 minutes, I got a brief “Still on it,” and a minute later the 23rd agent was asking to review the details — which was by this time an HOURS long queue of me stuck explaining to agents exactly what failure would result from each step their script told them to take.