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Verizon Denies DSL Because of Subscriber's Name

Posted by kdawson on from the gravel-in-ya-guts-and-the-spit-in-ya-eye dept.

mikek2 writes "When retired Philadelphia-area doctor and Vietnam veteran Dr. Herman I. Libshitz went to upgrade his dial-up connection to Verizon DSL, he was informed they wouldn't complete the order because his last name contained an expletive. Repeated calls to several levels of management at Verizon failed to resolve the problem, with several managers suggesting he change his last name. It all worked out in the end, after the Philadelphia Enquirer intervened."

16 of 493 comments (clear)

  1. Most famous Lipshitz by BadAnalogyGuy · · Score: 5, Informative

    People who have odd names (it seems especially prevalent in the Jewish community) are at a serious disadvantage in the culture that considers the name odd. This is the reason that the most famous Lipshitz ever changed his name to Ralph Lauren.

    1. Re:Most famous Lipshitz by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      What? Surely the most famous Lips(c)hitz is
      Rudolf Lipschitz after whom Lipschitz continuity is named. Come on guys lets stick ti "stuff that matters".

      By the way it looks like Herman should have kept the "c", if indeed his family did at some time drop it for ease of spelling.

  2. This has nothing to do with his name.. by XaXXon · · Score: 3, Informative

    It has everything to do with the EMAIL ADDRESS he apparently wasn't willing to change. They wouldn't grant him the address he requested. All he had to do was pick another email address and he would have been fine. I'm sorry, but you are not entitled to any email address you want.

    1. Re:This has nothing to do with his name.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

      That's 7 words...

    2. Re:This has nothing to do with his name.. by dotancohen · · Score: 4, Informative

      If I moved to Israel I would hate to be told that "Michael Smith" sounds like a rude word in the local language and I couldn't use my normal email address.

      What does Michael Smith sound like in Hebrew? I cannot think of a single dirty Hebrew phrase that sounds like Michael Smith, especially since Michael is a Hebrew name ("Mi CaEl"- "Who is like God?" in Hebrew).

      Jewish people here occasionally have a chuckle at the name of our Friends Of The Zoos society.

      Potz is more of a Yiddish term than Hebrew, though I do believe that most American Jews are of Yiddish-language decent. In any case, nice one! The Kia car company is another funny one in Hebrew, the name means "vomit".

      --
      It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.
  3. Summary and Title are highly misleading by rolfwind · · Score: 5, Informative

    They gladly gave him DSL. What they didn't do was allow a username/email address with 'shit' in it and he insisted since that was part of his name. I'm glad he got his way in the end, but he wasn't being denied the service itself.

  4. Re:Wait, what? by Standard+User+79 · · Score: 5, Informative

    I read the article. They wanted him to change his verizon email address. They were fine with giving him dsl service, etc.. Most likely it was a problem because some programmer hard coded a prof filter in email creation.

  5. Re:Obviously.. by RDW · · Score: 2, Informative

    Good thing he didn't live in Scunthorpe.

  6. Ouch! by beadfulthings · · Score: 5, Informative

    The "National Enquirer" is a notorious scandal sheet.

    The "Philadelphia Inquirer" is a respectable daily newspaper.

    I just felt the need to point that out.

    --
    "Here's what's happening. You're starting to drive like your Dad..." - Red Green
  7. not the National Enquirer... by cigaretteroutine · · Score: 3, Informative

    Speaking of names that have bad connotations... plz fix our newspaper's name to its correct spelling of Philadelphia INquirer rather then ENquirer. (we have our many flaws here, but our newspaper is at least mildly legitimate)

  8. Re:Change of name by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    I could be wrong, but I think that the joke is that the problem was with is first name, Herman, and not his last name, Libshitz.

  9. NPR by Pancake+Bandit · · Score: 2, Informative

    This was on NPR last night. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=93218205&ft=1&f=7

  10. Re:'Swearwords' outdated by GearheadX · · Score: 4, Informative

    It's because words such as this are derived from a 'lower' dialect of English than the English which was spoken by the nobility when the French took over England. A lot of the words we consider swear words today are words derived from the language of the peasants that no noble would be caught dead saying.

  11. Re:Monopoly by MindlessAutomata · · Score: 5, Informative

    Heh, and someone else said SpeakEasy is a competitor in his area, and they provide better service.

    "Monopoly"? You didn't even check; you just want to bitch about big business.

  12. Re:Obviously.. by bhima · · Score: 3, Informative

    It's a couple of things... one they don't want the notoriety, two they don't have store in fucking to sell the signs in, and three they aren't that interested in the whole enterprise. My suggestion of Fucking Sign vending machine was greeted with odd looks.

    There was a kid from a neighboring town who wanted to sell T-Shirts but I don't think that ever got approved either.

    --
    Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.
  13. Re:Monopoly by xeoron · · Score: 2, Informative

    Sure there is. Most of the major ISP's offer DSL in the markets that Verizon does, such as Earthlink. Now with that said, in my experience, all this ends up being is Verizon DSL without dealing with Verizon, which works out well, because the Earthlink is a lot more friendlier