Verizon will not let me pay my bill.
For months now, I've been using Verizon's online bill delivery service to recieve and pay my monthly phone bills. It worked like this: Every month, when my latest bill was ready, Verizon would send me an email containing a special URL. At that URL, I could view my bill and then pay it online.
Apparently, Verizon has recently changed the way they deliver online bills. Unfortunately, they did this in a very badly thought-out way, and at exactly the wrong time for me. You see, as of this month, Verizon sends me an email with a URL that leads to their new online billing site, where I have to enter a username and password before I can login and see my bill. "Don't have a username and password? That's easy, just create one," the site says. "All you need," it goes on to say, "is your billing phone number and a copy of your latest bill."
Of course, since I've been paying my bills online for well over six months, I don't have any paper copies of my previous bills. Verizon has them all, online. And I can't see them until I create an account. But never fear! They've thought of this. If I merely enter my phone number, they'll get it all figured out for me. Sadly, I have just moved, and had my phone number deactivated. And the system chokes if you enter a phone number that is not active. It won't let me register without an active phone number. Since I don't even have a new number through Verizon (I've switched to using my cell phone primarily), I have no phone number to give them.
So, in order to find out how much I owe Verizon and pay them, I must login to their online billing system. In order to login, I must create an account. In order to create an account, I must have a previous bill or an active Verizon phone number. Since I don't have an active phone number, I must have a previous bill. But I can't access my previous bill until I login.
Thank you, Verizon. Thank you so very much.