My mother, who is 79, asked me to help her find a new internet/home phone provider. She lives in Irving, TX, so her options for "high speed" internet were limited. TWC and Verizon are the only high speed providers in her area, and she wants to keep DISH, so TWC was ruled out. Verizon had decent prices, and all was going well until I submitted the form with her personal info, which includes info for a credit check. My mother's first name is Gay (she was born in 1934, when Gay was not an uncommon name for girls) and Verizon's site refused to accept that her name is Gay, and asked for her legal name to be entered. I double and triple checked everything else on the form, resubmitted, and the result was the same, Verizon refused to accept the form until her legal name was entered.
After three attempts, I contacted Verizon tech support. They advised me to enter only Ga on the form, instead of Gay. I told them that doing so would cause trouble with the credit check since Ga as a first name would not match the SS# or birth date on file with credit bureaus. Tech support insisted, so I entered Ga for her first name. The site accepted the form, but the the credit check was blocked due to Ga not matching her personal info with the credit bureaus. Tech support couldn't do anything else, and customer service couldn't help either.
I've spoken with a few of my friends in IT, and they agree that Verizon's site has a filter on the word gay. The word gay is not allowed on Verizon's site, and the filter can't differentiate between a name and a word. This pisses me off for many reasons, and my mother is also very upset. I'm not sure what to do about this. Verizon's tech support and customer service are useless, but the larger question is why Verizon has put the word gay into their site's word filter? Who should I complain to at Verizon? Any suggestions would be helpful.