u/Goddess_Za

My family and I have been with Verizon for over a decade. 13 years, to be exact. We made the decision to leave because even tho we have repeatedly asked them to lower the bill, they do for maybe a month but then add on little hidden, nonsensical fees that raise it back up. We pay nearly $4,000 a year! We were "grandfathered" in on some plan that back when it was great, was great, but we've looked into it over the years and the price was still the better option for the service. However, the last 5-6 years that has changed. Service has gone waaaay downhill. That goes for fios/internet, too, which we have. We also have Verizon home phone services. So basically, everything Verizon. Some of the issues, aside from the nigh-$4k bill:

• My mom will be at home in her office and her phone will cut in and out terribly. That means when she's talking to clients for a project she's working on, she had to leave the area that she needs to be working on it to go to another area to try to talk to them.

• When we're at the grocery store we always shop at or our local bakery or other non-rural places where we should have service without issue, our service cuts out and we can't make calls, send texts or even get online, nor does GPS work.

• Wifi/internet cuts out or lags occasionally.

And no, we don't live in a rural area, we live in the city-burbs, about 15 minutes from most major cities and 15 minutes outside of the nation's capital. It is not a dead zone, not even close to one. I won't say we have amazing infrastructure, but it's pretty great. We used to love Verizon. My father worked for them for years and retired from there so we stayed with them out of sentiment. But after years of crappy (not even close to the words I want to use) service and a near-$4k yearly bill, it was time to leave.

So I was the sacrificial lamb and left first on Saturday. I left to a privacy forward MVNO, one that I researched and decided to test out before my family made the switch. However, after porting out, I quickly realized my voicemails didn't port out with me. What the freak? So I research and see that according to a Verizon employee in the Verizon community help, "the voicemail box is retained for 9 days after the disconnect occurs. However, voicemail recovery will require that the line of service be reconnected within those 9 days." So I make the decision to immediately port back over to Verizon because as many of you know, when you have relatives who've passed, the only way to hear their voice again sometimes is through saved voicemails.

I spent Saturday until last night, 4 days without service, and over 10 hours on the phone, being disconnected, transferred, etc. with tech people who claimed they could help, but could not. I fortunately have a VOIP number that allowed me to call from an old phone but they could not call back on that number. I spoke with over 15 people. On Monday, they claimed the issue was my Sim card, so they sent me another one. I got it yesterday and called customer support to walk me through everything so that I didn't have to worry about having issues and needing to call in the middle of the process. I spoke with someone who claimed after all that that my number STILL wasn't ported over - even tho I'd started the process on Saturday, and that I still had to wait several hours to have it completely ported over. Mind you, I'm doing all this just to get my voicemails back. So I wait and at 7 p.m. something, my number FINALLY ports over, but I still have NO SERVICE! So I call customer support AGAIN for what felt like the hundredth time. I FINALLY got one "the best tech support" guys on the line and he was great. Actually got my line back up and working. I gave him his kudos because he deserves it. He did what literally no one else and 15+ other people could not.

But then it came time to talk about my voicemails. He tried to help me but he "has his limits" even tho he's the best tech person. I'm not gonna hold him, he is the best, but I understand he has limitations to what he can do, so he transferred me to another tech support department, tier two, who should be able to help me. I explain again what the situation is and that I'm looking to have my voicemails recovered because obvs that's what all this hullabaloo was about. Multiple people told me that after porting out, the voicemail box is deleted. I'm sorry... what? No, because a, why aren't my voicemails my own, on my phone? And b, according to that Verizon employee tech person on Verizon's community thing, "the voicemail box is retained for 9 days after the disconnect occurs. However, voicemail recovery will require that the line of service be reconnected within those 9 days." So what do you mean I just spent 5 days without service and finally got ported back in, only to be told my voicemails have been deleted? The way I'm barely holding on to my sanity right now. My anxiety and depression have taken hit after hit over the past few days. Only to be told I'm never going to have those voicemails again? They claimed I could've gotten them back had I saved them. I said I did save them! They said we mean archive them. I'm like.... what!? What the hell do you mean? Then she says in our disclosures it says to save them. I said I DID SAVE THEM! She said, I mean archive. She said after porting out, connecting with another service, they got deleted; It's in our disclosures. I said WHAT disclosures!? She said the one about porting out. I said I didn't get any disclosures or reminders! Wtf? The person I talked to in the port out department when going through that process didn't say anything about saving anything! She says well it's in our disclosures. I'm sorry, what the fuck!? You mean to tell me that my voicemail box was just... deleted and there's NO WAY with ALL THE TECHNOLOGY AT VERIZON'S HANDS that they can't restore my voicemail box!? And WHY would that Verizon tech person on that community say that a restore is possible if it wasn't the case!?

So at this stage my mental health has taken multiple hits and I'm so fucking tired and depressed, and my ibs has flaired up so I'm not feeling good at all. I'm going to go into the store and see if they can help me but at this stage I feel hopeless. And FUCK VERIZON! Greedy ass corporation supporting shit politicians and having shitty service and no fucking care for their overcharged, underserviced, and undersupported customers. I hate Verizon so fucking much. I'm leaving them for good and never looking back.

Anyone else go through such a shitty experience? Did you get your voicemails back? How? It has been less than 9 days, which is what I'm holding onto, but idk.. I feel it's a lost cause.

So I finally completed AV on LF (hesitated hard because I don't love ai using bimoetrics n all that shit, but no site doesn't use ai anymore ffs), and I'm on a page where they say REVIEW TERMS OF SERVICE, which was updated 8July2026. And even though it's somewhat moot, I still review for all sites because I wanna know what type of shit they saying they can do with my likeness and anything I upload. And I know I'm one in a million on this site and so many others, so what are the odds of them using my stuff, right? But honestly, are y'all reading this shit? Not only is ai getting out of hand, but I'm sooo sick of all these websites saying they have a right to our stuff, just because we use the website!

They always saying what we can and can't do, but they can do any and everything with our content!

Under Content in their TOS they state that your content is not confidential (well duh, we're trying to sell it). But they also say we grant LF and it's parent/other company(ies) "perpetual, nonexclusive, worldwide, royalty-free, transferable, sublicensable license to our content that allows [them] to perform any act necessary to operate [LF] and [their] related products and services. This includes reproducing, making available or displaying to public, distributing, creating derivative works, and otherwise using your content, including... training and enhancing [their] ai systems and models solely for content moderation purposes. This license also includes [their] right to use, in connection with promoting you or your account, any name, username, voice, image, or likeness provided with the content, and to do so in all media or distribution methods now known or later developed. Except as required by law, you hereby waive any moral rights you might have under any law to object to the treatment of your content."

They claim they won't sell our content to other platforms but "in the event of the sale of their parent company or its assets, any licenses you have granted [them] may be transferred."

Then, under Ai Features, they say "although [they] work to ensure accuracy and fairness, ai features may produce incorrect or misleading information ("hallucinations") or reflect unintended bias. Users are solely responsible for verifying any information provided by ai features before relying on it." Uhhh, WHUT? If the only way to get immediate assistance is via this ai chat, how would we then be able to verify if we aren't finding the answers or help under FAQ or their help center? And... hallucinations!? Seriously? So we're just to accept that we're calling ai's fuckups hallucinations now, like that shit was made up in our minds and not by artificial intelligence? And unintended bias!? That's unacceptable in this day and age, but we all know what that's about.

But on the flipside, they do have this positive little note that "ai-related use of creator content is strictly limited to training internal moderation systems. [They] will not use private or sensitive content (e.g., private videos, chat logs) for commercial ai product development or external data licensing." Yippee 🫩 I mean, that is a win, I guess but that should be a given, not an exception or bonus. Ugh.

Then, the next page after accepting their TOS, it says "Your information is in good hands!" Queee? Is it? Cause I don't trust you at all after reading those TOS.

Now, I know this is hardly any different from ig or twitter or reddit whatever, but it is in that the site is for SW and we are actively trying to make money on there, regardless of what form we do so in. So my issue is that they have the right to use our likeness and content to possibly make money and promote, and then not give royalties or anything off of what they use from us. Imagine walking down the street and seeing your face used as an ad for LF without your consent or knowledge, and your inner circle doesn't know that you are on LF but you're outted by that ad. That's what they're saying they can do. Or coming across a website where there's a clip of your content being used in an ad, unbeknownst to you. And I can't STAND the use of ai in/for everything now! UGH. Why can't they just use people to do it, as it's been for years? They make enough money off of us to pay them! But no, it's a few bucks cheaper to use ai 🙄🙄🙄🙄

I know, I know, we can't help it because we're just trying to make money and there are really no "moral" SW sites out there 🤣🤣 But serially, I just get so sick of these companies being so shady and underhanded with their TOS and throwing in such extensive jargon that they know the average person isn't going to read or understand. It's just beyond frustrating that there is no site where we can just be and make money without the company training their ai off of us and without them having to pay royalties if they do use a content creator's content.

I know I'm screaming into the void. Thank you for reading. I just needed to get this out. UGH

Sorry if someone has already asked this. I searched in the sub but didn't really come across anything pertaining to not using ai for AV (ie, not YOTI, persona, etc.).

I'm new to findom, but always been dominant by nature, just been lurking for like 2+ years because I overthink way too much. Anywho, I need to do my AV, but I do not want to use an ai AV site. Yes, yes, ai is everywhere, and you can't get around it, etc., etc., but I would rather not voluntarily give my likeness to ai. I've googled but when you google for av using "no ai," all the results show goddess damned ai results! I've tried without using ai in the search bar, but it still shows ai results. Ugh. Can't get away from it!

Does anyone know of any non-ai AV sites? Or am I shit out of luck? Any advice? Thank you kindly!