Bad service, 911 outages prompt Vermont investigation into FairPoint

FairPoint Communications is a major provider in northern New England. But Vermont’s Public Service Commissioner, Chris Recchia, has found that FairPoint is far from popular, as he and his department have been increasingly hearing from angry subscribers.

“We had this big peak in complaints of things like missed appointments” Recchia told local TV, “they would make an appointment or commit to doing something and not show up, and not notify the customer, incomplete and non-complete repairs.”

This week, the Department of Public Service Commission found that customer complaints of shoddy service and failing emergency lines just keep kept mounting. Between September and November, the commission received 388 protests.

Worse, said wcax.com, “To add insult to injury, last Friday a massive phone line outage caused about 100 missed calls to 911. And it wasn't the state's 911 system that failed this time unlike a similar outage back in August.”

So, Commissioner Recchia has requested an investigation by the Public Service Board to look into Fairpoint’s service quality.

This decline in service follows months of mishandled labor relations.

In August, FairPoint ended contract negotiations with CWA and IBEW. Instead, it imposed a contract that froze pensions, increased health care costs for active workers, slashed retiree health care, ended restrictions on subcontracting and outsourcing, added a two-tier wage plan and more.

The Charlotte, North Carolina company lists revenues of over a billion dollars and operates in 17 states – mostly in rural areas. In response to FairPoint’s actions, several thousand union workers in New Hampshire, Vermont, and Maine walked off the job.

The situation prompted an angry statement from Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders:

“FairPoint is clearly putting the interests of the multi-billion-dollar hedge funds, which own the company, ahead of its workers and ahead of its Vermont customers. The company’s plan to freeze pensions, eliminate future retiree health benefits, force workers to pay hundreds of dollars more a month for health care and outsource jobs will only result in worse customer service.”

Meanwhile in nearby Maine, 800 call center workers and technicians are on strike, and FairPoint customers have suffered similar disruptions in service. Maine public advocate Tim Schneider told Fairpoint subscribers “...that they are eligible for bill credits covering the duration of the outage on their next statement.”

Vt. requests investigation into FairPoint (WCAX.com, Dec. 3, 2014)

Fairness@FairPoint (website)

Sanders Wants Probe of FairPoint Service Interruptions (Sen. Sanders news release, Dec. 1, 2014)

Public advocate reminds FairPoint customers to request bill credits for lost service (Bangor Daily News, Dec. 5, 2014)