Verizon Hits Florida Mom With $9,100 In Overage Charges

I work at one of the major carriers. I've seen some massive bills before. Usually it's international roaming data or something like that. This is pretty crazy, but I can guarantee you that they sent so many notifications about this. They should have shut her down for excessive usage though. Other carriers shut you down once you've been billed for an excessive amounts of overage (hundreds, not thousands).
 
jcollett69 said:
This crap is ridiculous. We need a law that treats this stuff like credit card debt; she should be able to file a fraud report and have the charges removed or reduced to something like $50.
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LOL...by making it "like credit card debt"...It also means that Verizon and collections agencies can file lawsuits and get in absentia summary judgements against you, that is just as good as a guilt verdict. Before you have a chance to fight said judgement it means Verizon can garnish your wages, and seize your assets including bank accounts. ...It also means that Verizon can sell off your debt to sleazy collections agencies that don't care A BIT about report/bill inaccuracies. And since you have a summary judgement against you, you're legally guilty until you prove otherwise.


Making your cellphone bill "like credit card debt" is a laughably terrible tragically BAD IDEA.
 
Hmmm A tech support employee for Verizon told her that her phone had hit on Amazon more than 400 times in a span of days I'm sorry but there no way by just going to Amazon more than 400 times in day is going rack up that much data and something sounds fishe here unless your watching non stop video and what even more puzzle gone from 490 to 560 in a day that 50Gb almost non stop video playing.

That why we need get rid of data caps because BS like
But people really need lean to install a Data Monitor Usage apps for each device and love god turn off Hotspot mod
 
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Bandalo said:
I've only had to deal with them a few times over the past year, and they've been pretty reasonable when I talked to them. I know everyone has a different experience though. I don't like to jump on the bandwagon of immediately assuming the telco involved is evil incarnate. It's most likely a simple technical glitch that may be compounded by a stupid front line customer service rep. In the article it mentioned this lady was getting data overage warnings left and right. She signed up for more data and more data via text, but she never once called Verizon to ask WTF until she got the bill.
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The question is what have you dealt with their CS for? I was a verizon customer for years, and their CS and incessant inexplicable fees that kept increasing are why I ditched them for both land lines and cell phones back when I did. While you could navigate run of the mill problems, the wheels came off the bus once your problem wandered off the script, and the script apparently said that technical glitches are the customer's problem and there is no way to escalate them to a technical team.

I switched back to AT&T, because while they had more technical glitches at the time (which seems to be a thing of the past), they did the right thing and got them resolved promptly every single time.

omnipoint/t-mobile had the nicest customer support ever. It's just you couldn't fix the lack of a network by comping me more access to a nearly non-existent network.
 
just a question: is $118 a normal phone bill in America?
In Brazil i pay ~$110 for a 20Mbps DSL+2x5GB cell phones data plans+free wi-fi when traveling + free fixed phone calls in all the country + free cell phone calls to the same provider. And they still call me twice a month offering "lower cost products"
 
vzw is still the largest network and they will continue with their antics to bait customers. i just feel bad for ppl who are always watching their data. luckily for me, i'm still on unlimited data. i can't believe someone can actually use that much GB on their phone. my wife can get to 50 gb if she uses it excessively in a month's time span.
 
raz-0 said:
The question is what have you dealt with their CS for? I was a verizon customer for years, and their CS and incessant inexplicable fees that kept increasing are why I ditched them for both land lines and cell phones back when I did. While you could navigate run of the mill problems, the wheels came off the bus once your problem wandered off the script, and the script apparently said that technical glitches are the customer's problem and there is no way to escalate them to a technical team.

I switched back to AT&T, because while they had more technical glitches at the time (which seems to be a thing of the past), they did the right thing and got them resolved promptly every single time.

omnipoint/t-mobile had the nicest customer support ever. It's just you couldn't fix the lack of a network by comping me more access to a nearly non-existent network.
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I had an odd technical issue with one of those kid's wrist-phone devices. They had to jump through a bunch of hoops since we bought it used on eBay, and their system was reporting it as lost/stolen. They eventually got in touch with the original owner and got the mess cleared up and the device activated. Definitely an off-script issue.

I'm not saying you haven't had a crap experience with them, but I haven't had one yet. I did have a TON of crap customer service issues with Cingular (back before they were bought by AT&T). After that I was on AT&T for years, and had a huge, huge headache with them trying to get a phone unlocked.
 
geok1ng said:
just a question: is $118 a normal phone bill in America?
In Brazil i pay ~$110 for a 20Mbps DSL+2x5GB cell phones data plans+free wi-fi when traveling + free fixed phone calls in all the country + free cell phone calls to the same provider. And they still call me twice a month offering "lower cost products"
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I think the average is around $80 or so for a single line. Usually includes unlimited calls and texts and 10-ish GB of data. It can vary widely across providers though. Add about $10-15 in "regulatory fees" like the privilege of calling 911 and subsidizing the telco's new tower upgrades. Add another $15-20/month for each line.

I have 2 regular lines plus a basic phone-only device, unlimited calling, and 12GB/month of data and my bill is around $125/month.
 
Stuff like this isn't uncommon. People don't change their behavior but their usage goes up. Usually its because they accidentally disabled their Wifi somehow and didnt notice.

Having read the article - however - it is clear that something went awry.
 
geok1ng said:
just a question: is $118 a normal phone bill in America?
In Brazil i pay ~$110 for a 20Mbps DSL+2x5GB cell phones data plans+free wi-fi when traveling + free fixed phone calls in all the country + free cell phone calls to the same provider. And they still call me twice a month offering "lower cost products"
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It depends. If you have an account with one of the big primary Cell Phone companies and you have a smart phone, this is a pretty typical bill.

When I was with Verizon my monthly bill was about $85, but I only had a 3 GB plan, and I had employer discounts on that.

When I switched to Project Fi, I now have a $25 - $35 phone bill every month. This is because Project Fi charges by the GB ($10 per GB), and unlike other carriers you only pay for what I use. If I only use 600MB in a month, I only pay for that 600MB. Because I spend most of my time on Wifi, I thus don't need so much data, and my bill is comparatively pretty cheap!

If you use a lot of data, something like Fi is not going to wind up being quite as good of a deal.


My bill for August was as follows:

Smart Phone line: $20 (Includes unlimited text & talk)
Tablet Only SIM: $0
~750MB of data: $7.25 (both phone and tablet combined)
Regulatory Fees: $3.75

Total: $31.00
 
Unless my math is off, 80GB in a day would be downloading 1 MB/s for literally the entire day.
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
Stuff like this isn't uncommon. People don't change their behavior but their usage goes up. Usually its because they accidentally disabled their Wifi somehow and didnt notice.

Having read the article - however - it is clear that something went awry.
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It would be great if phones had better visibility about which app uses how much data, if there were say a buggy or corrupted app it would be easier to pinpoint it or at least block certain apps from background data access or set individual data limits on them so email and important stuff still works. Throttling actually seems to be a good thing in these occasions. Go over your average significantly and fall back to 2g speeds until the user takes action. Or give us a real time monthly bill meter next to signal strength. Even credit cards have spending limits, cell accounts should too.
 
Miikun said:
It would be great if phones had better visibility about which app uses how much data, if there were say a buggy or corrupted app it would be easier to pinpoint it or at least block certain apps from background data access or set individual data limits on them so email and important stuff still works. Throttling actually seems to be a good thing in these occasions. Go over your average significantly and fall back to 2g speeds until the user takes action. Or give us a real time monthly bill meter next to signal strength. Even credit cards have spending limits, cell accounts should too.
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You mean like this? :p

Screenshot_20160915-161048.png


As long as I've had Android devices, I don't think I've ever seen one that doesn't. Its built into the OS.
 
If this holds true and she really did use all that data, that woman truly has to be some kind of dumb ass. I'm going to try to give her the dumb ass benefit of doubt and say Verizon screwed up. I wouldn't go to Vegas with the odds though.
 
I know but there should be an option. Like having to tell your bank to NOT overdraft your account.

The only reason they allow charges for more money than is in your account is to make money on fees.
 
umeng2002 said:
I know but there should be an option. Like having to tell your bank to NOT overdraft your account.

The only reason they allow charges for more money than is in your account is to make money on fees.
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At the same time they kept telling her that she was over. So much so that the turn off the ability for them to warn her that her bill was racking up as she got tired after 50 notifications telling her that she was over. At what point does the person have to take some responsibility? Using your overdraft analogy. If the bank called you and said you are out of money and you said fine, and kept using your card. Then they called you again every time you used it and you finally block their number is it fair for you to bitch that you are being hit with over draft charges and your account was over drafted because you weren't kept from going over?
 
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