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Customer Asks For Itemized Bill, Verizon Tells Her To Get a Subpoena
suraj.sun writes with this quote from an article at Techdirt:
"A woman, who called Verizon to try to find out about the $4.19 she was being charged for six local calls, was told by Verizon reps that the only way it would provide her an itemized bill was to get a lawyer and have the lawyer get a subpoena to force Verizon to disclose the information. Instead, the woman went to court (by herself) and a judge told Verizon (.docx) to hand over the itemized bill info. 'It is a basic matter of fair business practice that a consumer should be able to contact a utility about a charge on a bill and learn what the charge is for and learn that the charge was correctly applied. The only verification that Verizon's witness could offer that a charge like [the customer's] $4.19 measured use charge was accurate and billed correctly was her faith in the accuracy of Verizon's computer system. The only way that Verizon would offer any information about a past charge in response to a consumer inquiry was to require that customer to hire a lawyer and subpoena their own usage information. By no reasonable standard could this be considered reasonable customer service."
that this is Verizon, the RBOC, not Verizon Wireless. With VZW, you can view itemized billing on-line. Doesn't the landline company offer a similar capability?
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
Can we get this judge to look into medical billing too? It is the only place worse than cell phone billing, and not by much. Both are worse than used cars sales...
What he said !!
Where's my meds !!
Nothing will change; the utilities will keep fucking us over every chance they get. I'm not sure why this still surprises anyone.
Our political system is so locked down by corporations that there is less of a chance of meaningful change here than in China or even North Korea. I'm not saying we're as bad as those places, but we're certainly headed that direction and there is literally no way to change that within the current system.
Nothing will change in the United States without a revolution, which would first require a huge sea change in the culture to even be remotely effective.
Again, chances are slim. May as well move to Europe or Canada as soon as possible.
Le français vous intéresse?
To determine that by no reasonable standard could Verizon's customer service be considered reasonable?
Nice that they were stupid enough to pursue it to court - now their competitors can use the decision in their ads....
The company just keeps track of the minutes, and one never got a list of local calls. this was true at least in the 1970s when I had measured service in CA. With unlimited local they don't report either.
"Subpeona"? Could the editors possibly invest in a copy of Firefox - it comes with a spellchecker.
to top it all off the judge assessed a civil penalty of $1000 dollars against Verizon, as a deterrent for treating customers badly in the future !
Common carriers are already required to maintain toll records for a period of at least 18 months under the Commission’s existing rules, see 47 C.F.R. 42.6.
Verizon has call detail records for all incoming and outgoing local calls, regardless of whether you have local measured service or not. I access them all the time for tracking down deadbeats. The BS you see on TV is just that --- BS. There is no need for a trace or keeping people on the line for some period of time. They have the call detail records for each call, even if it is not answered (which is whey when I get copies of those records, they have a column that indicates if the call was answered or not).
I tried to get Sprint to itemize a "sales tax" item on my company's bill (many mobile phones + 4G/WiFi hotspots) that added to about 17% (NY sales tax is about 8.5%). It took 2 months and several dozen emails through my dedicated account rep, two different divisions of Sprint, to finally get me the raw data in pieces that I put together and explained to them. It was legit, but they do charge a tax on a tax, which they're probably withholding from the government in a neverending lawsuit against "taxing taxes" while they collect interest.
The telco cartel runs the US. Except where some other cartel has staked its flag deeper.
--
make install -not war
in the EU. Watch what happens next.
I can't believe they even tried it. Surely America has quite a low, cheap court to get accept such a case and they would have to send their own team of lawyers to for $4?
This is essentially corporate bullying, she should have tried to get them on that.
Sorry to disagree with all of the Verizon bashers, but I think this is just a case of bad training of call center staff.
I have been in the telecom industry for 20 years, and I've never heard of such a thing happening. As far as I know, all customers have a right by law to see the call detail they are being billed for. Customer service staff are trained on how to treat CPNI (Customer Proprietary Network Information) confidentially and what can and cannot be done with the information. There is an element of that training that usually involves how entities other than the customer (e.g., law enforcement agencies) can get access to the CPNI of a customer, and the only way to do that is with a subpoena (Sorry Jack Bauer!).
For most call center staff and direct supervisors, training always seems to be an issue. The customer service rep was probably just confused. People make mistakes. Do we have to sue to solve every problem? (Don't answer that . . .)
lnstead of clogging our courts with a stupid case like this, couldn't the customer just hang up and call back to get a different rep? Or how about this simple line, "May I please speak to your supervisor?" Or how about calling Verizon's executive offices or main number and ask for a customer ombudsman? Most big companies like Verizon have such a group. Here's another tactic: Call Verizon and select the option for canceling your account. You'll be routed to a retention group who will bend over backwards to save your account.
If none of those work, you can always go to the Web site of either the FCC, your state's Public Utility Commission, or the FTC and file a complaint. These complaints actually get worked by real people, and the problems usually get resolved pretty quickly. Any of those options would cost our taxpayers far less than the route this person took.
and i bet that cost verizon 3 grand to show up in court or more, now if everyone wants change you begin to see how it works....sue them back....
Landlines are going by the wayside as they are just cost prohibitive in the current atmosphere. Verizon wants to encourage people to go with VoIP or wireless service. I believe Verizon's wireline division just went through massive cutbacks in personnel not too long ago. Personally, I don't see a need for a landline anymore and I haven't had one since 2001.
I know it's unfashionable to RTFA or links, but in this case everyone should read the judge's decision. It's very simple to understand, very clearly written. If only "click through" agreements were this easy to understand.
I have left slashdot and am now on Soylent News. FUCK YOU DICE.
4.19 scam
That's a necessary charge that mobile carriers are allowed to put on bills as it's needed to fight online child pornography. You see, children are being exploited all throughout the world, and people are using their mobile phones to spread it. There's so much that it costs $4 from each of the 100 million customers. Now, $400 million sounds like a lot, but it's needed to fight child pornography and counterfeit purses coming over the border. By putting the $400 million into executives' and board members' pockets, they can concentrate their efforts to find child pornography and snuff it out as soon as they discover their networks being used to spread it. That's also why they're getting rid of the unlimited data packages. Think about it. $4 charge to all customers, broadband caps on data usage, *and* removing the Hot Spot feature they advertised before but have since been removed, FIGHTS CHILD PORNOGRAPHY!!! Without it, child exploitation will spread like wildfire and nobody will be safe from it. Sweet Sister Mary Francis!!! Can't anyone else see this???
I have month after month of problems with Verizon Fios Billing.
It was finally sorted out after a good time, but they were charging me all kinds of things when I was told my bill would be a certain amount of month, and each month it was ridiculously different and incorrect and as they tried to fix it each month it get screwed up further.
In the end, I was credited for paying too much due to their stupid billing department... and the bill finally was what I was "SOLD" when I subscribed.
FIOS is a great service, I've had it for a long time now, but Verizon is well known for absolutely terrible billing errors AND very poor customer service when it comes to correcting those problems and fixing them.
Luckily FIOS is worth putting up with those problems, but you have to be vigilant with Verizon.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WdKwRdWocco
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fp6ccIiZp1Y
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=
http://verizonmath.blogspot.com/
I left Verizon Wireless in the late '90s precisely because they were billing me for things that I couldn't identify and that they wouldn't itemize.
Let me tell you how "leaving them" worked out for me. After lots of attempts to get them to itemize, I just paid everything and said cancel (my initial agreement period was over and I was on monthly). Then, I got a bill from them the next month—for the same monthly service, including things they wouldn't itemize, as before. I called them up.
Me: WTF? I quit last month and paid off.
Them: Yes, but you re-opened your account.
Me: WTF? How did I do that? I haven't talked to you since then.
Them: We don't know. But there is this charge that you incurred that means you continued to use the service.
Me: How did I incur the charge? That sounds like the same amount I was asking about before?
Them: Must have been local calls or sth. We can't tell you. But it's there. So your bill / account is back also. You owe for the month.
Me: But I threw away the VZW phones, like, three weeks ago!
Them: Sorry. Pay up.
Me: Get your supervisor.
Song and dance, yadda yadda, I ended up giving in, paying off the month again, and cancelling again.
Next month, WHAT DO YOU KNOW, another VZW bill lands in my mailbox for monthly service AS USUAL.
I called again, same song and dance, only this time I also wrote a letter to corporate describing the sequence of events and suggesting that I was ready to take legal action. Then the retention department or someone behaving like a retention department called me and asked if I didn't really want to stay. I was so livid my head nearly exploded. Then, finally, this last person agreed to cancel me and I stayed cancelled...
Until I got a COLLECTIONS LETTER for another VZW monthly amount. At first I refused to pay in case it was going to go this way every month again, but when two or three months had passed and just that one charge seemed to be left, I paid the collections bill and that was the end of it.
But you'll never get me to go back to VZW unless every other telecom has been carpet-bombed. Even then, I might prefer tin cans and strings to VZW.
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
Basic methodology of running a governmental entity or monopoly, keep information away from the riff raff.
get iphone,act like at&t
Join the Slashcott! Feb 10 thru Feb 17!
I had to read the TFA to figure out I didn't have to send $4.19 to help a phone company from some remote country
what was the $4.19 charge for?!
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
Verizon and Comcast customer service looks suspiciously similar to Soviet Union customer service.
Go try turning in your cable box yourself at a Comcast customer service center. I dare you. (Don't plan on doing anything else that day)
They throw a few dollars extra charge onto several million bills every month, knowing that only a small fraction of people will dispute a 4 dollar charge. $4 a month times 12 months times 10 million customers is $480 million dollars extra a year.
The T-mobile pre-paid plan is no better. There is no way to get a record of your calls, either on-line or on paper. I know, I've tried. You simply take their word for it as the minutes are drained away from your account. They do keep a call record somewhere. It's beyond me why I can't be allowed to see it over the web.
I don't disagree with the fact that our political system is locked in the hands of corporations, but I do disagree with the idea that it is getting worse. Look back over the history of the country and you'll see that that has always been a problem. Labor rights and consumer protection have definitely improved over the last century and I expect that they will continue to improve as incidences like this spark internet outrage, while 20 years ago they would go completely unnoticed.
A revolution? In a democracy? Who are we going to vote for when that's over? I'm serious. I just don't understand the concept; all of our leaders are up for reelection in the next couple years, how is that different than removing them from office at gun point (besides being much more pleasant for the politicians)?
Went to one of the cheap prepaid wireless providers and never looked back. Instead of paying verizon $35 a month I'm paying these guys $6 or $7 a month. Caveat, I don't use a lot of minutes, but my wife does and her prepaid cost is $30 a month. Yeah the customer service sucks, but if you just need a phone and not all the whiz bang stuff, you don't need to get raped by vzw.
They've been robbing me every month,their unlimited data isn't really unlimited,even when it was blocked prior to the many charges,rot in hell crooks
I'm 31 and, being a long-time grad student then unemployed, haven't had anything except a catastrophic medical policy since being kicked off my parents policy the day I turned 22. Now, whenever I had a really bad cold or something, I'd still go or old family doc. He worked almost entirely on a cash-basis; pay at your visit, or arrange payments, etc. (We are in an area with a lot of Amish, who pay cash for everything, so it was a good win-win practice.) A typical visit cost $75-100 plus whatever prescription you might get.
Well, he passed away a few years ago. Winter before last, I had a terrible cold and lingering cough that I finally decided needed checking out. No longer having a doctor, I went to a walk-in clinic in our area run by a large well-known hospital system. When I arrived, nobody else was waiting. After filling out my paperwork and noting that I had no insurance, I had: 5 minutes with the nurse, who read my vitals; 5 minutes to take a chest x-ray; and 5 minutes with the doc who listened to my chest, looked at the x-ray, and sent me out with an antibiotic. The whole visit lasted less than 20 minutes.
When I walked back to the front desk and asked how much I owed, the receptionist stared at me blankly.
"I'd like to settle up now you see," I said. She seemed very surprised. "Oh, I have no idea what it will be. We will send you a bill."
That made me a bit uneasy to say the least, but I figured, "Hey, my old doc was $100 for a similar visit, at worst I may be looking at $250, right?"
Well, over the next 7 months I received a grand total of almost $1,750 in charges spread across 5 different bills. (Doctor's bill, x-ray technician's bill, clinic bill, a bill from the parent organization, etc.) The most egregious was a $460 "facility use fee," which, after much calling and bitching, was finally dropped. Apparently it was incurred simply by walking in the door.
By the way, the friend recommend the clinic -- who was sick with the same ailment I had and who held some insurance through his job -- paid a grand total of $35 after his policy co-pay.
The moral is twofold here.
One, medical billing is akin to brutal rape in a pitch black room.
Two, the fact that the MedicalMafia asks for, and then insurance companies pay, those unconscionable fees is the whole damn reason that our system is so farking broken.
We were talking in the office one day and someone was complaining about some difficulty they'd had with customer service for a company from which they'd bought something. I mentioned that the "salt in the wound" is that there isn't even a person that you can get mad at (threaten, intimidate, assault) anymore. It's not like there is a PERSON somewhere who can say, "Ah, yes. I took such and such action on the Smith account because..."
The order was created in the computer either by the checkout scanner or by the automated form on the website. The order was filled and shipped by an automated warehouse (In our warehouse, even the pallet trucks are tied into the system and automated. It's a little unnerving to see these unmanned trucks just whipping big pallets of raw materials and finished goods to and fro in the factory.). The invoice was automatically kicked out in a billing batch run and mailed. No human ever laid eyes on it or had any knowledge that your order ever existed.
Think about that.
It's not like you can call them up and complain to the person that made a certain determination. They hire people off the street to sit in the call center and read what's on the screen. If you owe $50, it's not because someone looked and evaluated the situation. It's because that's what the computer says you owe. If the computer had said $55 instead--THAT WOULD BE THE REALITY.
All that remains is for the computer to become the final arbiter. Not being able or allowed to question or even review the automated data is precisely how that will come about.
I must admit I'm a bit surprised. I know of several countries where it is mandatory for bills to contain enough information to check that they are accurate, so obfuscation and adding charges together under one header (for example "expenses"). can be challenged in court.
A company asking to take to court before they detail their bills is hiding something - this needs a MUCH deeper look.
Insert
I've exchanged and returned equipment at the local Comcast office multiple times. There's usually a short line (2 - 6 people ahead of me) but it's always been painless.
Of course, I've always phoned or IM'd with a Comcast CSR at that point, so the computer knows I'm coming.
There was some confusion about a modem - one part of Comcast believed they owned it, and were demanding its return, while another part believed we owned it and refused to accept its return.
Ultimately I got a CSR to put a note in the file that it was in fact our modem, cursed out one or two more people who called asking me to return the modem, and it was all OK.
The preferred solution is to not have a problem.
Seriously, I've found a civil and detailed letter to the president or CEO of a company will usually elicit a response.
In Verizon's case, there appeared to be no way to find out when DSL was coming to my neighborhood, from Verizon's web site, through customer service, nothing. So I wrote the company president and asked. Less than a week later, calls came in from both a customer service rep and an engineer with the answer: late 2012. Not what I wanted to hear, but at least it was an answer.
.
Prisencolinensinainciusol. Ol Rait!
"Keep the money coming and nothing happens to the nukes" - comment I heard somewhere about Pakistan
I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.
Bought a water filter system at walmart and they over charged me by about a $1.60. They had undercut Walgreen's price by about $0.50 but ended up charging more. So, I called them up and they said just bring the receipt by anytime to get a refund. When I did do that, they refused to refund. They figure they can blow you off over a small amount but it is just on those small amounts that they compete with other stores so it is hugely dishonest. The alternative might be shopping on line, but amazon has taken more than six days now to ship an in stock order that I placed with them rather than buying at walmart. Customer service is dead.
- This is unreasonable!
- THIS! IS! VERIZON!
So who is going to ask for an itemized Verizon bill just because they now can?
I was promised a flying car. Where is my flying car?
Living in Europe we don't have Verizon, but I hear nothing but bad things about them online. Don't you guys have alternatives?!
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
... of a story from about 10-15 years ago here in Denmark. It was so absurd it made the news as a major story, and needless to say the company (KTAS) ended up accepting the customers position and disregard the bill in question...
The customer, an elderly couple with just one old phone with a rotary dial and everything, one day received a quarterly bill for an amount around DKK 200.000 (about $37.000) and this was some years ago, remember? - They contacted the phone company (KTAS A/S, now a part of TDC A/S) asking if it was an error. No, it was a bill for calls they've made so they just had to pay up. But what was on the bill? - Well, they weren't subscribed to an itemized bill so no, they couldn't be told that. But the phone company offered to get a retroactive itemized bill. It would be more expensive but if they paid in advance (after all they did owe the company a lot of money) they could get one. "Okay, how much?" they asked. A quite large number was quoted. "Why?" they asked. "Well, the retroactive itemized bill cost double the prepaid one, and you have to pay for expenses relating it, like paper, printing ink, handling and so on. "But how can that add up to that much?". "Well, there's 450.000 calls on the bill, and we can fit 80 calls on a single page of paper... That's about 5.500 pages of paper, and then we have to mail that to you..."
The couple went to the media that eagerly picked up the story. The bill was sent free of charge. Turns out the bill was 99.9999% calls to special internal service numbers, each call always between 2 and 5 seconds, made around the clock 24/7, and what's more, they were overlapping which is quite impossible with a single line. They complained to the phone company citing the overlapping calls. "No. We see no errors on your line" was the response. But we can - at a charge - send a technician to test it. The technician found no errors with the phone, the phone jack or the line to the junction. "We have checked everything. You made those calls. Just pay up." was the result.
The couple went to the media again. The media hit the CEO (a former politician) hard with the case, and he was forced to make internal inquiries. The very next day the couple got a letter saying that due to the computer malfunction their bill was 'incorrect' and that they would receive a new bill soon. The bill arrived and there was only the normal charge on it. But they never got an apology in any form.
"For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong." -- H.L. Mencken (1880-1956) --
I can't ever trust Verizon with handling a bill. Does anyone remember the Verizon math episode a couple of years ago? If not you should check it out at http://verizonmath.blogspot.com/ . In short, there was a customer who was going on an international trip. He asked what the cost of data would be. They quoted him at .002 cents / kb, but later charged him .002 dollars / kb. It took him over 2 months talking with and emailing many customer service reps before someone understood the difference between .002 dollars and .002 cents. He recorded the phone calls and it is quite entertaining to listen to how dumb people are.
When I was trying to find out how many minutes we spent using our land line earlier this year, I got the same "you need a subpoena" line. So I reduced our land line service to the bare minimum where each outgoing phone call costs 10 cents, installed 2 line capable wireless phones, and set up magic jack for outgoing calls. At least now I can figure out how many calls they think I am making. Their "customers service" policy is costing them money. We want a basic land line for emergencies/protracted power outages or I would have dropped them all together.
In Soviet Russia, Comcast cable box turns you in.
(Then, don't plan on doing anything else.)
Sorry. Couldn't resist.
They limit the number of public physicians and limit their pay. The rest have to open up a private practice and compete against the public or just go somewhere else, which seems to be much more viable. Many open up side practices for elective surgery such as plastic surgery/botox/etc, but all this is not incentive enough for them to stay in the country when they can just go somewhere else and get paid much more. Meanwhile, for anything other than general illness, the public have the choice of paying high prices for private care or go on a bloody long waiting list for public healthcare.
None of you have the balls there to get things sorted you end up playing straight into the hands of companies like Verizon they force you to use the courts for something that is your right so they win , think about it they are making you spend money to get what is your right wake up USA you are geting crapped all over more and more by the day
My friends give me a hard time about not owning a cell phone, and yes, it's hard to justify, at least until these gems of corporate malfeasance and fraud present themselves. They wont get a dime of my money. Why subject yourself to fraud? Verizon is quickly completing it's corporate arc and circling the toilet bowl. --edfardos
Here is the short version:
1) Joined Virgin Mobile, got a cheap phone (upgrade on previous - a Nokia 6300), stayed on the contract for 2 years past contract expiry
Note: Virgin Mobile is a re-seller of Optus
2) Moved to TPG - another re-seller of Optus
3) Paid final Virgin Mobile bill - Call it August 2009
4) October 2009 - Received another bill for 1 month plus $8 of 'weird' charges - some type of SMS?
5) Queried Bill. Had discussions. Virgin would not move. Weighed the hassle, and just paid the bill; had the weird charges waived.
6) Rang Virgin Mobile. Explained that my phone had been moved to another provider. Nicely asked them to stop billing me. Advised that they can't bill me as they have disconnected me.
6) November 2009 - Received another bill, this time with more weird charges.
7) This kept happening until April 2010 .. more charges would appear on my old 'disconnected' account, and they kept sending me bills. Several times I had the bills reversed.. but to no avail.. new charges kept coming up.
8) I wrote a formal letter of complaint to their legal dept demanding that they stop billing me, and stop harassing me with bills for a disconnected service. No reply.
9) I received a formal notice from Virgin Mobile that they would be taking legal action to recover my debts (of $0 ) if I didn't pay.
9) So. Finally. I researched the areas of law appropriate to this, looked up the details of the consumer watchdog and communications ombudsman and wrote up a long list of things to say .. and called their tier 1 support.
I didn't give the person an inch. After opening with "I have a complaint, can you please listen to my complaint and take action," she first put me on hold, then she hung up. By now I was furious. I rang back - and got the same person! She asked if there was anything I could do, so I said "You can start by not hanging up on me". She denied this.. and I started to complain.
It took me more than 5 minutes straight to get through the list, from beginning to end, including mentioning the letter I said sent to their legal dept, that I would be escalating this to legal action if I received *any* more bills or legal notices of any kind in relation to this matter, or if my credit rating was impacted by their accusation that I had not paid for an account for which is disconnected and that I would be requesting that the court compensate me - in particular because this account had been closed nearly 1 year before.
Luckily, this first time person was recording everything and had her immediate supervisor on hand. It took them more than 30 minutes, while I waited on hold, to sort it all out.
I received notification in the mail that my account was disconnected and that the 'final bill' had been zeroed.
So, thank you So Much Virgin Mobile Australia... it took you more than 10 months to finally stop billing me for a disconnected phone service and to stop billing me.
It's not worth it. It really isn't. Nothing can replace your time.
Actually, they should be required by law in the US to provide itemized bills - All utilities, leases, medical billing, legal fees, and consumer purchasing are required prior to payment to present an itemized bill for view within a specified period (varies by state) following the request. (Under the FTC'c Truth-in-Billing rules)