Michael just wanted to upgrade his DSL to a faster plan. Yet Verizon jerked him around, each successive rep saying something different, until he was told the upgrade would burn his house down. What?

This poor guy was a Verizon customer for seven years, dutifully paying his bills on time, until he decided it was time to upgrade to a faster plan than the one he had. His neighbor had that faster plan, and when he checked his address online, Verizon's site told him the upgrade was available. But when he tried to make that upgrade...well, it didn't go quite as planned.

The summary? Seven phone calls, 1 hour and 42 minutes between 11:50am and 12:42pm. What did that earn me? Absolutely nothing but utter frustration and torture.

Each of the seven reps told him something totally different, from "that's not available at your address" to "that's not available for an upgrade" to "that's only available online"—and four more. But the best one has to be the last.

I directly asked "why is it I can open a new account with 7MB but I cannot order it as an existing customer?". Her response: "your home cannot handle the 7MB speed. If I put in the order for 7MB, it will burn your house down".

The upgrade will burn your house down. That has to take the cake as one of the craziest things ever said by an ISP rep. Needless to say, Michael is no longer a Verizon customer. [Consumerist]