Slashdot Mirror
Verizon Can't Do Math
Blogger George Vaccaro recently had a problem with his Verizon based on an unfortunate miscommunication of currency. The crux of the matter was that he was quoted .002 cents per kilobyte for data during a trip to Canada but was charged .002 dollars. Normally this would have been an easy fix, however several humorous calls later the Verizon reps still were unable to discern between the difference between the two rates. You really have to hear it to believe it. Kudos George, you have the patience of a saint.
they did it on purpose; i used to work on one of their dsl tech support contracts and it was a nightmare to say the least.
lose != loose
Looks like decimal numbers just don't make any cents to their customer service reps.
On a more serious note, it also looks like they can't read or spell, since the rep read "$0.002/KB Sent" as "0.002 cents/KB," as evidenced in the call.
Did you listen to the tape? If some one keeps quoting you 0.002 CENTS/KB what more can you do? Its up to verizon to train their staff to understand their own rates. Yes it seems like a mistake. But its on verizon. This guy did the smart thing and had the staff memeber write down that they had quoted him right. Also if you actually listen to the call you'll know that he said he had no comparison to base this off of, because he is on the unlimited plan. So yes he thought it was cheap, but thats no excuse for FIVE (TWO that we heard actually quote the price) quote the wrong price repeatedly. You simply can't defend Verizon and say this guy set out to swindle them.
According to his blog, Verizon has contacted him and said they'd waive half of the data charges. They still don't get it.
My understanding from the audio is that he originally had a rep double check to make sure the rate was .002 cents instead of .002 dollars. He even had the rep make a special note of this on his file. He also says he had an unlimited plan before, so he didn't know what the reates were supposed to be like. Regardless, I don't think it's his fault because Verizon is admitting they quoted him .002 cents, they just don't do the math correctly!
He was suspicious and had the initial customer service rep make a note in his account stating that the rate is .002 cents per KB. You did read his blog and/or listen to the audio, right?
.002 dollars... they correct him that it's .002 cents.
And if you'd listened to the audio you would know that they refuse to accept the price being
The only way he'll get this fixed (his bill adjusted to the price he was quoted) is to get Verizon's attention in the press. Or something.
Can you do math now?
Here before all but 8486 of you.
> It's morally on par with keeping the extra money when a clerk accidently hands you too much change.
No it isn't! When the clerk hands me too much change, the clerk gets screwed because their till comes out wrong and the store thinks they are skimming. This is morally equivilent to buying an item that you think may have been priced too low through a bureaucratic error. If you hesitate to do that, then think back to the last time that you heard of a company refunding money (voluntarily, not through a class-action suit) to customers because they accidently overcharged customers due to a bureaucratic error.
He told the supervisor at the end of the call he had recorded this, and told the supervisor he was going to put it "on his blog" and the supervisor replied "go ahead." So this guy actually had the blessing of the supervisor to post this! Then again she thinks at the time she is in the right... Good luck to her with that
.002 cents times 35893
The other day I had to help someone in payroll understand that 0.5 ("point five") hours really is equal to 0.50 ("point fifty") hours.
Don't they teach this stuff in 5th grade anymore?
it's a blue bright blue Saturday hey hey
Verizon can do math. When they make a mistake that costs them money because they thought 1 cent > 1 dollar, then I'll believe it's math, and not robbery, that's at work.
--
make install -not war
This is what happens to those who flunked out of.. grade 4 math.
I am the maverick of Slashdot
It wouldn't work -- they could just ignore you. You'd have to get them on the hook for something else first.
Oh, by the way: by reading this post, you hereby agree to pay me (pinky to mouth) one billion dollars.
You've read it; you can't un-read it!
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
This is Slashdot. If I didn't RTFA, what makes you think I read your post.
And yes, I just reply to random threads with this post.
And I thought I sucked at math when I couldn't remember how eigenvectors work the other day...
Thank you Verizon for lowering the bar for me.
He should have started out the call by asking simply if they charge 0.002 dollars or 0.00002 dollars per kilobyte. Just never use the word "cent" in your side of the conversation.
The original audio is on putfile: http://media.putfile.com/Verizon-Bad-Math
I believe the audio on PutFile is longer (27 minutes verse the YouTube's 22 minute version).
Also, Andrea (the call rep) leaves her contact information at the end. Maybe someone here can explain this simple concept to her? Her phone number is 1-888-581-1070 (Ext. 2234)
If you call the number currently it says "The mailbox for Andrea is full"...
http://almostsmart.com
I wanted to write Verizon Wireless directly to thank them for providing us with such excruciating entertainment.
Funny thing...The link now leads to a page to purchase new Verizon products instead.
Does anyone at Verizon begin to understand the nature of this public relations fiasco yet?
It's nice that he recorded the conversations. What he needs to do next is write a letter (not an email) and mail it to them explaining the problem, specifying a date that he expects it to be resolved by, and state that he requests a confirmation letter be sent to very that the bill has been corrected. Document everything. Write down dates, times, phone numbers called, and names. If that doesn't work, follow up with a second letter stating that you feel they are not acting in good faith, give a second date for them to comply, and add at the bottom that the letter is being CC'd to the Public Utilities Commission. Then forward a copy of the two letters to the local PUC with a a cover letter explaining the problem and asking that they investigate. Phone companies HATE the PUC and they will jump when you mention them.
Every time I've had an issue with the phone company this always resolves it. I've only had to write to the PUC about a company twice. Usually mentioning the PUC to the company will wake them up without you having to write a letter.
Slashdot: Failed Car Analogies. Amateur Lawyering. Anecdote Battles.
You were transferred to supervisors. You should request to be transferred to someone who got an A in high school math. Odds are good there are one or two underachievers hiding in the call center, but there is no way in hell a person like that would get promoted to (or want to be promoted to) supervisor. On the next call, just say "Please go from cube to cube and ask each employee what their best high school math grade was. When someone says 'A' rather than 'huh?' or 'freshman', or anything else: transfer me to them."
That's right, you would say that you got "20 cents" in change. You would not say "point 20 cents" or "point 2 cents".
Similarly, given $0.002, you ought to say "point 2 cents" or "point zero zero 2 dollars" - never "point zero zero 2 cents" as Verizon reps did repeatedly.
Whoever modded this up might work at Verizon.
What you said is all valid, but you said it as though it illustrates the problem. It doesn't.
Yes, $0.20 is the same as 20 cents. That's not disputed. The problem is that Verizon quoted (repeatedly) "0.002 cents", but charged "$0.002". "0.002 cents" can be rewritten as "$0.00002".
I would love to find out how this ends.
I am also considering sending a note to Verizon to find out whether they now know the difference. (Online contact form, mailing address varies by state, find yours here.)
Side note: Why doesn't the cent sign (" ") appear on /.? (I pasted one in between the quote marks on this line. But even using the escape code I found here doesn't work...
The thing is, he's tried, repeatedly, to get them to quote what they actually charge. They refuse, and this appears to be a trained response. They quote one rate, then charge 100 times that rate, and refuse to admit there's a difference.
If someone else tried to do that to them, they wouldn't stand for it for a moment, and you know it.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
...should teach these people a lesson and pay them their salary in cents!
- RG>
Hey pal, this isn't a pleasantforest, so don't waste my time with pleasantries!
That's because "cent" literally means "one-hundred". As in "per cent" (1% of a unit == 1/100th of that unit), or "centimetre" (1/100th of a metre). Thus, "cent" is already a fractional unit -- it's very name connotes that it is a 1/100th fraction of a larger unit (in this case, a dollar).
20 one-hundredths of a dollar (or 20 "cents") is thus correctly $0.20. There is no error is usage here -- the unit itself denotes the fractional part when written as a whole number of "cents".
It's no different than the fact that when we talk about a 2 000 000 000 Hz processor, we usually call it a "2GHz processor". The zeros didn't just disappear -- "G" represents "Giga", which is the prefix representing the large value of 10 to the 9th power.
As such, the error in this case is purely with the fact that the Verizon reps the gentleman spoke to have no idea what they're talking about, and get confused by a decimal point. They probably don't know how to cancel out the units in a multiplication: 0.002 cents/KB * 35893KB causes the KB on both sides to cancel out, leaving us with 0.002 * 35893 cents (== 71.78 cents). There is nothing to be confused with here -- you can't just multiply two numbers and then make up what unit you want it to represent because it's some unit you're comfortable with. I can't say that I'm charging someone 0.002 cents per KB for 35893KB, and then charge them 71.78 rutabegas. Or 71.78 emus. Or 71.78 Libraries of Congress.
Really, there is no excuse for this. Verizon should hire a grade 8 math teacher, and give their customer service staff a "how to use decimals and cancel units" math training day. I'll even volunteer to do it (although I'm over qualified). I'll even offer them a huge deal -- I'll just charge them 0.002 Gigacents an hour for my services.
Yaz.
These guys work in an environment where *every word* they say on the phone is scripted and approved by management. So of course it's deliberate.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
Interestingly, the YouTube video is 11.8 MB and the PutFile audio is 14.8 MB. So YouTube IS actually saving you bandwidth. Neither, however, can do anything to save your faith in humanity.
+0 Meh
The problem with them admitting defeat and actually charging the rate they've been speaking is that it makes them liable to charge the quoted rate to everyone else.
Imagine if they grabbed Johnny B., that guy over in tech support that has a math degree. He'd get on the phone and say, "Yeah, that's right, Verizon is quoting the wrong price, you should pay 72 cents."
Three days later, thousands of Verizon customers who were quoted the same rate demand equal compensation. Then Johnny B. has to find another low-wage job that has nothing to do with his major.
These reps could have secretly realized what they were saying, just as they were passing the call to their boss. No one wants to make the million dollar decisions, so playing dumb is better than playing unemployed.
The only way this blog campaign is going to be successful is if Verizon realizes they're creating a public relations problem. Therefore I recommend people email Verizon, referencing the customer's blog and name (George Vaccaro), and explain why his bill should be 72 cents instead of 72 dollars. Here's a link to Verizon's email page:
. jsp
.002 cents to .002 bananas. Multiply by 3600 and you get 72 bananas. Now since we switched cents to bananas, replace bananas with cents and you get 72 cents. Which is $0.72. I don't believe explaining the difference without a switch in units has been effective in either the phone calls or the emails.
:)
https://www.verizonwireless.com/b2c/contact/email
I really like the bananas explanation: Convert
Good luck everyone!
my blog
This is about 16 minutes in:
.002 dollars and .002 cents? .002 dollars.
George: Do you recognize there is a difference between one dollar and one cent?
Andrea: Definitely.
George: Do you recognize there is a difference between half a dollar and half a cent?
Andrea: Definitely.
George: Do you therefore recognize there is a difference between
Andrea: No... There's no
George: Of course there is.
We know where leadership by an anti-intellectual "strongman" who scapegoats minorities and likes boisterous rallies goes
This isn't about a failure in math. This isn't about someone who didn't know the difference between $0.002 and $0.00002. If you think this is a math problem then you are not clearly following the money. This is a larceny problem. This is about a problem regarding a profound lack of honesty. This is about a company with an apparent policy of lying, cheating, and stealing from their customers.
:-)
This is not mysterious. This is not even funnny. Unless Verizon can clearly show me that they've chosen to staff their support teams from tech to top supervisors with the mentally handicapped, then the only sane conclusion is that their customer service (forgive the ephemism), is expressly designed to bludgeon, exhaust, and abuse customers into accepting that they've been lied to and cheated. This is not ignorance. This is not stupidity. This is an utter vacuum of integrity. This is a den of thieves. Let the buyer beware.
By the way, just sharing my own personal experience, yours may vary, but I traded with Verizon a few years back... I received several outrageous charges. I tried to get some service. I called dozens of times, attempted access through all of their phone and online resources. I never achieved a single meaningful interaction with a single employee of Verizon, and to this day would rather french kiss a wall outlet, or spend long hours sitting on a CuisinArt with the frape' button depressed, than do business with them again. Isn't somehow nice to see some things never change
--Genda
I think I might have approached it like this: "Ok, so 1 kilobyte costs .002 cents, right? So how much is 2 kilobytes? .004 cents, ok? How much would 5 kilobytes be? .01 cents? Still wtih me? Ok, how about 50 kilobytes? .1 cents, right? And 500 kilobytes would be 1 cent, you still with me? If 500 kilobytes is 1 cent, how much is 1000 kilobytes? 2 cents? Ok, 1000 kilobytes costs 2 cents, how many of those did I use? About 36, right? So if each one is 2 cents, then that should be about 72 cents, right? So how come you're charging me almost 72 DOLLARS?" The point is to NEVER let them multiply anything by .002, always keep it in scale, always keep it in cents, scale it up until you're talking whole cents, then go from there.
The problem with that is that as the consumer you are always pulling the short straw.
They (Verizon in this case) have all the power. When he doesn't pay, they can simply terminate his service. The continuity of service may be worth more than $71 to him.
Worse, they can probably (in according to the contract) increase the amount when paying late, put the matter in the hands of a collectors agency (which will charge even more) and register him on some blacklist.
As there will be no notice of the nature of the conflict, it will be difficult to get service from other companies just because he is noted as a bad debtor.
The consumer can only try to contest the claim. The company makes sure this is difficult by putting idiots in the callcenter that make him feel helpless and surrender.
Handling of e-mail and written letters usually is no better. He can write an elaborate message and still get a meaningless "we are sorry but the amount is $71" reply.
His only way to get some message through may be to pay the bill and terminate the contract, but even that may be unpractical (because it runs for several years and early termination is not possible or incurs an extra fee).
So, in fact he is completely dependent on the acts of the company and its stupid employees.
We see the same thing here with phone, cable, energy companies and over here it has started when businesses were being run "the American way". So probably it is more familiar to Americans.
Honestly speaking, everyone around me left VZW dissatisfied. I was lured to VZW by their coverage, but then found out their customer services is worse than shit.
They sold me this phone protection plan, just said the plan would replace my phone in case it is damage. However, when I came back with an accidently dropped and damanaged phone, they said I had to copay... I was never told about the copay part, and the customer service had never provide me with the leaflet (even though they claimed they did, but I kept all the receipt and leaflet into one place).
Not at all. They can credit him the full use of data in Canada on his recent trip (generously declining his offer to pay the correct $0.71) purely as a customer retention move. They can also choose to "clarify" how they express the rate in future (I've given them several suggestions in a comment on his blog) to avoid customers "misunderstanding" the rate. Neither of which (IANAL) means they have to refund everyone else who claims they called in and got that rate quoted to them. And indeed, that's my prediction of how this will turn out.
I think this guy has Verizon somewhat scared. I mean, the audio he has is pretty condemning, and seems to make it clear that point zero zero two cents is the standard quote that they give all their customers. That is why they've emailed him with an offer to take half off his bill. They're giving him a settlement where he agrees that Verizon is right. If he pays half, which agrees that Verizon is right, then none of the audio or other evidence he's collected could really be used it court. In no way does Verizon want to make any appearances that they were wrong, or they would leave themselves wide open to a class action lawsuit.
I think the Google calculator really makes things very clear.
Also, I can't help but ask what the average math completion level is for call center people in that particular industry.
I ran into this sort of problem just last week, with an otherwise competent employee trying to do some measurements for a recipe. The recipe was given to her over the phone, and the person only specified the numbers. It turned out the numbers were in fluid ounces but her measuring device was labeled in millileters, so she ended up flip-flopping randomly between fl. oz. and ml in her calculations, leading to all sorts of problems.
"A case in point: in 1999 the Mars Climate Orbiter mission failed due to metric system data entered into software that was designed for English system units. As a result, the satellite crashed into Mars. The total money lost in the failed mission, including development, launch, and mission operations, was $327.6 million!" Article on Introductory Chemistry.
Rubies and Pearls are not what you think.
tech support no matter where you do it has its share of problems. i have a feeling if you had an Indian guy with an accent he would have undertood the problem. it his high time that we look at where is our education system going.
anyway very hilarious
Well, if reading $0.002 as "0.002 cents" is such a common mistake, then using prices less then 1 cent should be avoided. "$2 per Mb" would not have caused any misunderstanding. But probably Verizon marketeers need some misunderstanding...
First of all, why is Johnny B working customer service if he has a degree in mathematics?
.002 cents and .002 dollars ....we should all just give up right now.
Second of all, if people need a degree in mathematics to know the difference between
That's nothing. I'm currently in collections with Telus Mobility (ironically it's majority owned by Verizon) for $9500+. Why you may ask, because I bought two evdo PCMCIA cards on an unlimited data plan for $20 for the first three months, then $100/month afterwards on three year contracts. Sounded like a good deal, I could RAdmin clients in my car (pull over first of course) so I bought two. One for me and one for my other tech. Then I find out a few months later that 1. The data plan the rep signed me up for applied to blackberries, not pcmcia cards and that unlimited actually means 250mb with a $.20/kb charge. What I actually got for my $20/month was included 1mb. Not knowing any better, I did 2 gigs of transfer one month (don't know the exact details of all months, I'd have to look them up) After three months of trying to get it sorted out and paying their ransom, they cut me off. Been fighting it since. Apparently there are two issues: 1. the rep signing me up under the wrong plan, 2. the definition of unlimited. I contend unlimited means without limits, they assert the fine prints say 250mb. Seeing as my contract has no fine print, nor reference to any tariff's or other contract, I don't know where they get this idea. It's really screwed me up, seeing as they filed against my credit bureau, we now have to wait until this is cleared up to buy the house we were planning to this winter. I can't get credit for a pack of gum at the moment. Now, comparatively, I have a Rogers Portable modem which is external, and for $50/month I get a 30gb cap. Yet somehow, it's all my fault. Oh, they did credit my bill $400, and another $800 for the misunderstanding (which brought it to $9500.) They did however fail to credit me for the $128.40 I did pay, you know, for what I agreed to.
- The Google Toolbar has a spell checker button AND it works, consider that before hitting submit next time k?
I am writing in regards to the incident recorded at http://verizonmath.blogspot.com/ for the charges of George Vaccaro. He was originally quoted at a rate of .002cents/kb, and this was confirmed multiple times by customer service reps as the rate he was expected to pay. In doing the proper math, his bill should result in a charge of 72cents, not the $72 he has been billed.
What concerns me is not that he may have been misquoted, but that the quote was confirmed to be correct multiple times, and yet, the billing charge remains the same, stated multiple times, due to a simple math error. I fear this lack of proper math skills in both quoting and billing will be applied to my account. I will not continue to have an account with a company that cannot rectify its own math, as I fear this incorrect math will be applied to my account, and it too will result in a bill that is *100 times* larger than it should be.
Verizon needs to correct this math error, charge him the rate he was quoted, and repeatedly confirmed, which results in a charge 72cents, or $0.72, and also publicly apologize not only for the frustration and time loss it has caused to Mr. Vaccaro, but also to assure other customers that they will not be treated the in the same fashion.
I am, and always will be, an idiot. Karma: Coma (mostly effected by
This is a particularly blatant and well-documented example, but it's not surprising. Verizon regularly lies to consumers, actively or by omission.
When I signed up, I had no credit history, so they charged me a large deposit which was to be returned after a year. When I called after over a year asking where my check was, they told me that I had to request the deposit to be returned. Who has ever heard of such a thing? Why didn't they mention this when I started the account? They were simply hoping I would forget that I'd paid the deposit or wouldn't be willing to fight them for it. How many deposits have they just kept in this way? Or put another way, how much of other people's money became Verizon's because of deception? How much money did they steal?
But what can you do about it? There's no accountability. "George" and "Andrea" are either absolutely incompetent or dishonest, but they don't even tell you their full names. You can't link the voices on the phone to actual people. Even if you could, there's no channel to complain about them. And there's certainly no way to link the absence of an action to a specific person, so there's certainly no way to hold them accountable for not sending my check. And unfortunately, you can't just switch to a more honest phone company, because I don't believe such a creature exists.
I think the most that can be done is to take them to small claims court each time. If you go through all the work to do so, you'll almost certainly win. But they're betting most people don't have the time to fight them, and...well, they're right.
"Are you calling to complain about a mathematical error in your billing? If yes, press 1 now to speak to a representative in a country with a more effective educational system than yours, if no, press 2."
I was wondering if school kids here understood the difference, I tried this with two 6th grade students and both of them knew the difference.. I am amazed that more than a couple of adults at Verizon could not figure it out.. not exactly a scientific study but I seriously feel that the US needs to work on its education system, particular schools and high schools. The US universities are of excellent quality but I figure only a very small proportion of your population would be eligible to study there given their understanding of basic school education. Vasanth
I have had this very same problem over in the UK. Orange mobile quoted me in pence/kb for their Orange World internet (free for evening and weekends, charged at fixed rate in the day). I got my first months bill in at nearly £300. They made exactly the same 100 fold conversion error in the quote. Unfortunately for me they wouldn't recognise the error, and had to pay.
Forgoing the fact that they misrepresented the Orange World internet completely by saying it was entirely free, it's still a poor show on Orange's part.
I guess I am just lucky it's free in the evenings and weekends, I would hate to see my bill otherwise.
This is a lesson to UK Orange customers, buy an unlimited Vodafone PCMCIA card. It's much cheaper.
Signature v3.0, now with 42% less memory usage.
Here's the information for Andrea. At the time of posting this, her voicemail box is already full.
Andrea: 1-888-581-1070 (Ext. 2234)
Try actually thinking for yourself. It's quite refreshing.
Yes, it's funny. Yes, it's scary.
No, it's not at all surprising.
This is the result of a whole generation of schoolkids who don't know how to do arithmetic. All they know how to do is work a calculator. These are not the same thing.
And it must be said that the customer here is really not very good at explaining the arithmetic. I understand that he is impatient, angry, resigned, but what he mostly does is repeat himself. He does not explain himself well at all.
Liam P. ~ "Intelligence is a lethal mutation." (me)
You know what bothers me? That all the people at that call center have the right to vote.
IANAL but this seems like a huge class action pitfall for them. From the fact that none of the employees were trained to understand the concept of rates in cents versus rates in dollars (which is a reasonable thing to train them for, since they quote in fractions of a cent but bill in dollars in cants) verizon seems pretty grossly negligent. Similarly the potential size of the class is huge (every person who has every asked a verizon rep for a rate quote), and the damages are significant (99% of the roaming costs). At this point, if some enterprising class action lawyer gets on the case I think verizon is basically boned.
Thanks to everyone for the words of support. So you know, at this point the $72, if I decide to pay it, would be well spent for all the laughs this has provided.
.002 cents?" That just seemed to be the root of the issue so I figured with the management level people I should cut to the chase.
.002 cents/KB, confirmed the rate, the one who wrote the first note in the account. .002 cents/KB on my notes, but then left me a voicemail saying the charges were correct and there would be no credit. Conveniently she never mentioned units in her voicemail, just "point zero zero two." .002 cents/KB but didn't realize I was being billed 100x that rate so I escalated - after asking twice for a supervisor, the third time was a charm.
Thanks also for correcting the people who accuse me of being less than sincere. I'd have to have Jerky Boys skills to have pulled that off not being sincere. After re-listening to it, I wished I had realized how funny it was, and thrown in "oh god, god and baby Jesus help us!"
To clear one thing up that people don't seem to understand, I have the unlimited data plan in the states, and no concept of per KB cost. I was heading to Canada so I called verizon to find the voice and data rates. The rep told me the rate, and I actually worked out roughly in my head and out loud the per megabyte cost - I didn't nail it down to $.02 cents per meg, I just roughly estimated it at $1 per meg - thats the degree of accuracy I cared about. I would spend a few bucks, but I wouldn't spend closer to a hundred. I did think the rate was low enough to think something might be wrong, so I reconfirmed the rate with her - ".002 cents / KB?" - "Yes, thats correct." Then I had her note the quote in my account to be sure.
Also, in the states, since the plan is unlimited, and as many posters have pointed out, you could easily use gigs/month, if you were streaming video or audio ala SlingBox. So the thought that I could pay less than a dollar per meg, even $.02 (if I had computed it exactly) didn't seem impossible, or crazy, just slightly suspicious.
I make a great hourly rate, and this clearly hasn't been worth the hours I've spent for the $71 thats in dispute. It's been about false advertising and the principle that if you quote something at a certain price, you should really charge that price - certainly not 100 x that price, and certainly if the mistake is on your side. And its been pretty hysterical following this thing.
Also, to those who think I could have done better or planned this - I was blindsided by 3 levels of customer service rep thinking that 2/1000s of a $ is the same as 2/1000ths of a cent. I did the best I could while in disbelief, and even confused myself at times. I had talked to 2 other reps, one on a different call, and one before the first supervisor (the handoff is in the beginning of the audio), and they all seemed incapable of understanding basic math, so I thought to myself of the AOL cancellation guy Vincent Ferrari, and said to myself "you better record this."
Also, I had tried other approaches - I didn't always just jump into "do you know the difference between $.002 and
I am really surprised that I haven't gotten any resolution at this point from Verizon, it seems like it could be a huge can of worms for them, but hey, I guess I should't expect much.
Anyway, thanks again for the support, kind words, funny comments etc. I'll keep the blog updated so anyone interested can see the resolution.
Finally, here is the wrap up:
1. Rep who quoted me initially
2. Brie: rep I called first, went through the same stuff, she seemed to get it, even noted
3. Trent: First rep on 1st call, same nonsense, quoted
4. Mike: Supervisor - first guy I battle on the mp3 - as you all heard ".002 cents/KB"
5. Andrea: Floor Manager - ".002 cents/KB... its a matter of opinion"
All 5 confirmed the rate as ".002 cents/KB", the last 4 "thought" this was the same as "$.002/KB" and claimed my bill reflected the quoted rate.
Thanks for playing.
I've worked in a call center (Comcast High Speed Internet Technical Support). It's nothing like that. I don't think even the most nazi call center boss you can find would do that. For two reasons:
1) Nobody would work there.
2) A recording would do the job far better.
Basically, how it works is that you are told to give the customer accurate information to the best of your ability (although slanted in favour of the company). You also follow guidelines while in the call, to keep in accordance with company policy. You can get in trouble for going outside of those guidelines, but they are guidelines, not rules. The whole reason you are there, instead of a recording is to keep the customer happy.
Now, what I would have done in this case (and would have gotten full support from my supervisor), would have been to credit the ~$60 back to the customer's account, and inform him that he will see the credit on next month's bill. (We actually were only allowed to credit a maximum of $50 without going through the billing department, but the point remains).
No, I think the short and sweet of this story is that Verizon employs morons. (And just a tip, if you ever call Comcast, and get someone with a Texas accent, ask if they are from Lubbock. If they say "yes", then just hang up and call back).
I just got finished fighting with Rogers. Their math is okay, but they seem incapable of delivering a bill to me. The letter from their president bragging about what great service they offer, no problem, but an actual bill, no way.
So when accounts receivable called I told them I would gladly pay them when they honored their end of the contract and provided me with a monthly bill. The rep thought that was quite reasonable but her boss disagreed.
No, but that's irrelevant because he has permission -- twice. Once at the beginning of the call when the recording says "this call may be monitored or recorded for quality control or training purposes" and again at the end of the call when Andrea tells him it's OK to post the recording on his blog.
everything in moderation
1) Instead of spending a half hour, an hour or whatever wading through automated support and going through various levels of customer service trying to resolve an issue simply fill out a complaint form on the FCC's website. The form is available here. Within a few days a representative from the phone company will call you and politely ask what they can do to take care of this problem. I have used this succesfully several times in the past. I think once you get the FCC involved the phone companies are generally much more interested in resolving the issue quickly and to your satisfaction. Of course this probably won't do much if your problem arose in Canada.
2) If you can't get your problem resolved and want to switch providers there is a way to weasel out of your contract with no obligation. This is absolutely the last thing the phone company will ever tell you and most people aren't even aware it's available. Tell them you moved to an area where you no longer have service and they are required, by law, to terminate your contract for you. I myself have never used this but I have several friends that have done it succesfully. Some providers may require you to provide some proof of relocation, like an apartment lease or something. Not that I'm advocating this [ahem], but many apartment companies post their leasing agreements on their websites where you can simply print it out, fill it in and fax it to the phone company.
I'll bet an English teacher would get equally mad with you.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Whoa, sorry -- should'a looked it up first. The smallest U.S. coin ever minted was 5 mills. So says Cecil Adams. But the smallest unit of accounting is officially the mill -- so the fueling stations are actually not allowed to advertise $1.4999/gal -- they'd have to advertise $1.500/gal if they did that.
We had a similar problem with rogers (for our cell phones) a few years ago.
Now I have the problem of being assigned an account number my bank and their system won't recognize, so I can't pay it. I get a bill every month, but my bank, nor their website, nor their customer service department can process payment.
- The Google Toolbar has a spell checker button AND it works, consider that before hitting submit next time k?