"In December I installed Verizon FiOS," the reader wrote. "Getting information from Verizon other than 'we come out and install it' was like pulling teeth. Neither the sales staff or the technical support number could answer my questions."

The reader's questions seemed like ones that any customer might want answered before installation of the fiber optics system. Would it use the current coax cabling already installed in those rooms of his home that had cable TV? For security, could the FIOS cable be buried into the house, with no cable showing on the outside as with his existing phone lines? Since the wireless router would have to be installed in a central location in his house, would he need to set up a CAT5 cable for the router or would Veriizon do that as part of the installation?

"Five phone calls resulted in completely different answers to those questions," the reader wrote. "In the end, I buried the cable and drilled the hole in the foundation myself. But the system was finally installed, and professionally. The fellow did a good job. You could see that the cable had been buried and a box put in, but just barely. There was minimal disturbance to the yard."

So the reader was satisifed, but that wasn't the end of it. "A week later I stopped a second crew from a second contractor that was painting utility marker lines (brighter and bigger) on the grass and my concrete driveway -- over the top of the ones left by the crew a week earlier. They were about to bury a second line under a duplicate work order. I called Verizon, and was told that they didn't have control of their contractors, I had to call the contractor doing the work. Huh? Two days later a third team -- and third contractor -- appeared while I was at work, painted a third time (including bushes and the side of the house) and installed a second cable. This time they left the yard a mess. Again, Verizon told me I would have to talk to the contractor. The contractor came out, admitted they had been messier than they should have been, admitted that it was clear a cable was already in place, and then fixed up a bit. But the yard is still a mess by comparison, especially given that the work was unnecessary."

Perhaps by sheer coincidence - but perhaps not -- by the next morning the reader's yard was even messier. "That night, for the first time in my 30 years as a home owner, my yard was vandalized. The doors and windows were egged, and my Christmas lights were ripped from the bushes. No one else in the neighborhood was touched, and we live on a cul-de-sac. So, apparently, you don't complain to Verizon."

If you've run into a vendor who punishes you for complaining, call my voice mail at 1 888 875-7916 or write me at Foster@gripe2ed.com and make your voice heard on the Gripe Line.