Verizon's telemarketing costs you minutes

We stumbled upon this story and couldn’t let it go to rest. It appears that Verizon actually deducts your plan minutes when it places sales calls to you. We’ll let that sink in for a minute, then repeat it. Okay. When Verizon calls you to sell you upgrades to your account, minutes are being deducted from your account. Excuse us? We know we seem appalled at many aspects of the cell industry, but come on. This is beyond absurd. We can understand being charged if you did something wrong to warrant the call, but this is a sales pitch…from the company providing your phone service! This particular call was in reference to the customer’s text messaging plan. He had gone over his text messaging plan by a few dollars, and Verizon was calling to offer him an upgrade. Fair enough, right? Though it doesn’t help that they had sent a text message letting him know he was approaching his plan limit, when in fact he had already exceeded it. Verizon doesn’t charge when you call their customer service line, but they charge you when customer service calls you? Well, that’s not totally accurate. It’s not customer service calling, it’s a salesperson. Either way, though, it makes little sense. This particular caller’s experience lasted 57 seconds. And as we learned from the Verizon contract, they can round that up to 1:01, meaning it’s a two-minute billable call. The best part, though, is the victim’s author’s conclusion:

This is actually a brilliant ploy by Verizon Wireless: 1) Call customers to offer them new plans/services and charge them for the airtime 2) Increased airtime causes customers to go over their allotted minutes 3) Profit 3) Call customers again to offer them a new minutes plan since they went over last month. Charge them for the air time. 4) Profit . . . . 100) World Domination

So, remember this from now on: When your cell carrier calls you, they’re wasting your minutes. Get off the phone within 45 seconds. [Contempt for the World]]]>