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."

Comments

Here it is

[elashish14]

• Being a dick: $1000

Sounds like a..

[ickleberry]

4.19 scam

Re:Nothing will change.

[Culture20]

Take seatbelts - the oft-given example - if I don't buckle up I might die in a crash but it doesn't harm anyone else.

Incorrect. You are now a 180Lbs loose object in the car. Where your children were safely buckled, your dead body bounced to the back seat and injured them. Or you're a 450Lbs object wedged behind the steering wheel... This is slashdot after all.