It's because of the strike.
Verizon has pulled employees in from all over the place to their call centers to work 12 hour days, and Verizon has basically told them to just give customers whatever they want in order to keep the calls shorter so that they can keep up with them all.
Also, since a lot of the scabs were pulled down from higher positions, they are generally better employees than the ones usually found in call centers, in that they totally grasp the concept of customer service.