How does Verizon stay in business?

I have no idea. We are going on a week of trying to order DSL Internet to our apartment.

1. We ordered DSL Internet on 8/19/08 via online. 48 hours later, we hadn't heard anything (via email), so I wrote and email and called customer service. Customer service couldn't find the order, so we made a new order. Call this order #2.

2. About 24 hours later, I receive an email confirming another order, not the order placed on 8/21/08. Call this order #3. We call customer service trying to figure out what is going on.

3. Customer service declares they cannot help us, and promise a call back by end of business day (on 8/22/08). I also receive an email in response to my email about the missing order of 8/21/08. We never received that call back.

4. On Monday, 8/25/08, we call customer service AGAIN. We finally get to talk to a guy in India, who is kind and helpful and gets us the order we want. We are told we will need to call back to cancel the other orders that are floating around in the system, but otherwise all seems to be worked out. We are forced to wait an additional week for internet service, but sometimes that happens.

5. On Tuesday, 8/26/08, we receive a call from the agent at the other end of the email. After refusing to listen to anything we had to say, she proceeds to cancel the order made on 8/25 (the order we want).

6. We call customer service AGAIN. After being hung up on twice by customer service reps, we are still in limbo about if and when we will get our DSL internet. All of the sudden, customer service reps are very rude from the outset, and refuse to assist us or to transfer us to someone who can assist us. It is as if there is a note saying "being rude".

7. In the midst of all this, we discover that Verizon has some other address on file, a place we have never lived. I'm uncertain how Verizon stays in business, we can't be the only ones Verizon has screwed over.

The situation is not yet resolved, and we have used several hours worth of cell minutes (the only phones we have) in an attempt to order DSL internet. I hope that you, reader, never have to deal with Verizon.