"Its interesting how Verizon's mistakes always seem to work in its favor"

We spend a lot of time ripping on Verizon around these parts. And why not? They’re trying to stack the chips on their side, and we’re flailing aimlessly just to get one or two of them back for the consumer. No, they’re not Big Brother or anything radical like that. They’re just exploiting regulations created before the widespread use of cell phones. We’re just trying to keep the stories balanced. And so, courtesy of Ed Foster’s Gripe Line, we bring you some Verizon billing issues. Be wary of these if you plan to sign up for Verizon’s phone/Internet/cable FiOS plan. They plan to bundle that with wireless next year, so it becomes even more of an issue.

“My contract with Verizon Wireless had long expired and I decided to finally get a new phone one Sunday,” another reader wrote. “When my bill arrived two weeks later, I had about $30 in overage charges. I never go over my minutes as I live in a rural area and get no service when I’m at home. Apparently I chose the wrong day to get my new phone. I went into the store on the 17th of the month and my month for my billing cycle didn’t change over until the 19th. With the new phone I also changed my plan from 400 to 450 minutes at the same price. Essentially, I walked into the Verizon store with over 300 minutes and left with about 30 minutes. They prorated the last couple of days of my billing cycle, unbeknownst to me, and then charged me when I went over their proration. No one ever warned me that I would have only a few minutes to use for a couple of days while my billing cycle ran out. Thankfully, with some serious strong-arming on my part, they refunded the overage.”
See how simple it would be to fix that problem? Train your employees. Let them know what happens to the customer account when they do X and Y and Z. And make sure they tell the customer. We’re actually surprised sometimes at the lack of knowledge demonstrated by Verizon sales reps. We’ve seen the enormous manuals they’re given. We’ve heard of the training modules. Yet they consistently come up short when we ask for information. This next one is classic, and reminiscent of this issue, which was posted just last week:
“I was billed 30 cents for two text messages. Small potatoes, I know. But who sent the text messages? Verizon did — advertising new phone deals. If they do this on a widespread basis, is this a great racket or what? You send an innocuous text message ad, then bill for it.”
We’re sure it cost Verizon peanuts to send out their blocks of advertising text messages. Why do that, and then charge the customer for it? Or is that their new business model to gain SMS profits? Another complaint was that Verizon says it takes three to four business days to process an online payment. “Is it really true that in this day of instantaneous money transfers that it takes up to four days to move money from one computer to another?” asks a reader. This is one point on which we’ll defend Verizon. They’re just covering themselves. The payment does go through instantaneously (trust us on this one). But if there are complications, the three to four day buffer period gives you time to correct it. Still, there are always going to be problems like this in the telecommunications industry — in any industry, really. This is just a reminder to be cautious. [Gripe Line]]]>