Dear Verizon Wireless,
I’ve been a customer of yours for the past two years, and during that time, you’ve been oh-so-helpful to me and my family. How, may I ask? Please, let me just highlight some of the finer points of our relationship:

• I started out as a wide-eyed freshman in college on your single-user rate. Upon receiving my LG VX4400 (at least, I think that was the model number; you folks don’t offer it anymore), which you pushed on me like a crack dealer trying to get rid of evidence, citing the “amazing clarity” of a digital phone, I found I could not activate it at my home in Maryland. I had to wait over a month until I could travel to one of your stores to have the firmware flashed. During this time, you tried to slap my family and me with roaming charges, regardless of the fact that we had called you to let you know that you screwed it up. Only after calling you a second time did you finally relent and give me free roaming until then.
• You know that digital phone you gave me? Apparently, such a phone is so advanced that it doesn’t work outside of a digital network. So, essentially, I couldn’t make any calls the minute I was outside your service areas. Oh, and my parents said I sounded like I was talking from a tin can when I called them from it. Clarity, my ass.
• My sister wanted to jump on to the cell phone bandwagon, too. So, we switched over to a family plan and then were amazed to discover that America’s Largest Network kept on dropping her calls. I would be mid-sentence and think she was struck dumb, only to discover my phone (which I had downgraded to an analog-only tri-band Samsung) and your network had dropped the call because she or I had only one bar of reception. I suppose having the country’s largest (and most archaic, mind you) network means that both she and I can get cut off pretty much anywhere we go. Wow, how convenient!
• Your new online account viewer is so advanced, allowing me to find out all sorts of interesting things, like which phone I currently own. However, you neglect to give me other pertinent information, such as when my contract technically, you know, ends. You folks were careful to note, however, that I was up for a New Every Two upgrade in September, leading me to believe that my contract ended in September as well. So, I switched to Cingular and had a blissful two weeks of excellent service, only to find you had slapped us with an early termination fee of $175 per phone because we had ended our contract two months early. But, like I said before, I combed through both bill and online account, and found no mention of a final termination date.

Because of this, I now am going to be poor for the next two weeks until I can get paid. Thanks a lot for two years, Verizon Wireless. I’ll miss you like a hernia.

-Ben

PS: Screw you.