Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Customer Asks For Itemized Bill, Verizon Tells Her To Get a Subpoena

Posted by Soulskill on from the customer-is-always-right-when-backed-by-a-court-of-law dept.

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."

61 of 415 comments (clear)

  1. I assume... by msauve · · Score: 3, Informative

    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
    1. Re:I assume... by jaymz666 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      They charge a fee to provide a list of itemised calls on my cellphone bill, that alone shows how little regard they have for being transparent about what they are charging.

    2. Re:I assume... by Dryanta · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Typically the LEC can bill for intra-LATA charges however they see fit due to the kludge of complexity the original anti-trust left recovering charges from another carrier. Because these rules are so convoluted and don't even make sense to the carriers themselves they tend toward official policy being "we say so and get a subpoena if you don't like it." As a telecommunications agent and broker, much of my interactions with carriers is resolving billing disputes and bogus charges. I got $ 14,000 back for a client in one instance where I had to file a California Public Utilities Commission grievance and escalate to the top tier of AT&T consumer affairs department. Most consumers don't even realize they have recourse and that the carriers are terrified of regulating bodies... but knowing how to handle these things is why people like me make money.

    3. Re:I assume... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2

      if your cellphone bill is mailed then I can understand why itemized billing costs money; remember the giant iPhone bills everyone was getting?

    4. Re:I assume... by BoogeyOfTheMan · · Score: 5, Informative

      Only if you want it in print, you can view it for free on your myverizon.com website.

    5. Re:I assume... by index0 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      If a company wants to use brand name recognition, it works both ways. Good and Bad associations.

    6. Re:I assume... by lennier1 · · Score: 3, Informative

      Strange.

      In other countries they're required by law to provide you with an itemized bill and sometimes they'll even give you a small bonus (e.g., doubling your FTP quota) if you choose their online billing system instead of having them send you a hardcopy.

    7. Re:I assume... by Runaway1956 · · Score: 2

      The United States doesn't actually have 50 "states". In fact, there are - uhhhh - 46 states, I think, and 4 commonwealths. In practice, there is almost no difference between a state and a commonwealth. But, there are some subtle legal differences. Some of those differences come into play when discussing issues of "states rights".

      I did a couple quick google searches, and I find as much mindless drivel as anything. If you care to learn more, you'll have to devote more than 60 seconds to research, sorry.

      --
      "Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
    8. Re:I assume... by Solandri · · Score: 5, Interesting

      The problem is not only with external carriers. Verizon's internal billing system just seems to be a convoluted mess of kludges. About 3-4 years ago, a friend of mine with Verizon Wireless bought a house. Her landline phone service was Verizon RBOC. One day they sent her one of those "Consolidate all your Verizon bills and get a discount!" flyers and she signed up. She started getting bills which showed both her landline and wireless charges, and she dutifully paid them.

      3 months later she got a phone call from Verizon Wireless about her account being overdue. She explained that she had consolidated billing with her home phone service and had paid. They insisted they hadn't received any payment. She called Verizon RBOC and they confirmed that she had consolidated billing and had paid her wireless bill. But nothing she or they could do could convince Verizon Wireless that she'd paid. They shut off her cell phone service, messed up her credit score, then eventually closed her account and gave her phone number to someone else before finally getting the whole thing straightened out about 6 months later.

    9. Re:I assume... by belmolis · · Score: 2

      "states rights", and more generally, the relationship between the states and the federal government, derive entirely from the Constitution. The Constitution makes no distinction between states and commonwealths - as far as it is concerned, they are all states. The fact that a few states call themselves "commonwealths" is therefore of no relevance to states rights or other aspects of federalism.

    10. Re:I assume... by gregor-e · · Score: 2

      Mental Floss has an interesting blurb on the distinction between commonwealth and a state.

  2. Can we get this judge... by houstonbofh · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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...

    1. Re:Can we get this judge... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      I'm a physician and I couldn't figure out what the charges meant on my last hospital bill. Turns out the hospital couldn't either. They had to drop the charges. This sort of thing happens all of the time and I'm constantly telling patients to look at their bills and appeal things that don't make sense. Ah, American medicine. The best there is ....

    2. Re:Can we get this judge... by kidsizedcoffin · · Score: 3, Informative

      I've found that insurance companies don't always want you to know either. My current explanations of benefits from my insurance company will not tell me what any of the procedures are, and I've found they won't tell me what they are when I call either. It is only by eventually matching it up with the itemized doctors' bills later, that I'm able to have any idea why a visit warranted 4 charges. I would not think this would be a good way to get people to report fraud.

    3. Re:Can we get this judge... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I was once charged for a doctor from another state (a neurologist) when I had a straight forward no complications thyroidectomy. I turned it over to the insurance company's fraud department. I've also been charged because someone had the same last name as I. Again, turned it over to the fraud department.
      My experience is that if you report the 'error' as an 'error' nothing gets fixed. If you report the 'error' as fraud. It gets fixed.

    4. Re:Can we get this judge... by hairyfeet · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Well if anyone can provide a website for said judge, or an email address I think we all need to send that judge a thank you note. It is so damned rare in this "the corps are always right" atmosphere to see a judge use good old fashioned common sense and apply simple fairness when it comes to the little guy dealing with supermegacorp he really does deserve to know he is appreciated.

      I just wish we had judges like that in MY area, instead they are bending over backwards here for these natural gas wildcatters who are causing all kinds of tremors and tearing shit up all over the place, and we all know once they've gotten what they desire they'll disappear and leave the state the cleanup bill. But it is nice to know there are still a few good judges using plain old common sense out there, even if they are few and far between. You sir have my heartfelt thanks.

      --
      ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
    5. Re:Can we get this judge... by Beryllium+Sphere(tm) · · Score: 2

      A friend of mine had a phone call with a hospital billing department where they insisted that yes, during her hospital stay her mother had had a prostate exam.

    6. Re:Can we get this judge... by black+soap · · Score: 2

      When my grandmother had a stroke, the insurance company actually sent a rep to the hospital to go through the itemized bill and dispute charges one line at a time. Some of the charges were for administering drugs that can not be given together (neither of which were actually used), others were for equipment that made no sense, or for a hospital room in a different wing. The rep came by every day, and apparently successfully disputed about half the line items on the bill. The insurance company rep was given the itemized version of the bill as common practice by the hospital, and they actually sent the rep in person each day for several weeks. granted, this was more than 20 years ago....

    7. Re:Can we get this judge... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I've found that insurance companies don't always want you to know either.

      That's my experience too, and it's the part that baffles me. Does anyone know why? I would have thought they had a vested interest in reducing costs, but maybe they don't? Is it because they just scale premiums with cost? Does their profit increase as costs increase? If they encourage cost increase for that reason, then that is downright evil. Somewhere between Saruman and Sauron-level on the sinister scale.

      I went to my primary care physician (tvc.org) recently to have him spray a little liquid nitrogen on a wart on my foot. It took the family doctor a grand total of 5 minutes, most of which was friendly chit-chat. My insurance (Empire Blue) was billed $550, but that was knocked down to $450 thanks to the in-network contracted rate. That's $90 per *minute*, or $5,400 per hour. Now, I understand that medical school is expensive, but $5,400/hr? Really?

      Even if you assume the doctor spent two times as long doing other stuff related to my visit behind the scenes (15 minutes total), that's still $1,800/hr. Sure, there's lots of overhead with a building, nurses, receptionists, etc. But lawyers and CPA's somehow manage those costs while being paid a "measly" $200/hour.

      I called my insurance company and spoke with the insurance fraud department, but they said that $5,400/hour was normal and expected to spray one wart. (Procedure codes "17110" and "99214 25" for those of you following along at home.) Turns out that they pay the same amount whether the doctor spends 25 minutes or 25 seconds. But even if he had spent a full 25 minutes, that still comes to $1,080/hour (!).

      Here's where it gets even worse. My homeopathic doctor charges $15/hour for the exact same service that my medical doctor charged $5,400/hour for. (Actually, she does it for free, since it only takes her about 2 minutes, but if it did take longer for whatever reason, that's what it would cost.)

      But homeopathic doctors (mine, at least) aren't covered under my insurance, so I have to pay in cash. To add insult to injury, it's not even tax deductible (until the 7.5% IRS rule kicks in).

      Furthermore, with my Cadillac insurance plan, my visit to the medical doctor cost me nothing directly. No copay, no deductible, and no co-insurance. My nearest indirect cost is the $1700/month premium (more than double my mortgage, BTW) that is 100% paid by my employer. (Hey boss, if you're reading this, thanks!) The net result is that it's actually *cheaper* for me to go to the $5,400/hour provider than to the $15/hour provider.

      I used to wonder why "health care" costs were increasing so rapidly. Now I know one of the reasons first hand. No one has any incentive to reduce cost. Not the insurance, not the doctor, and not even the patient. There is no connection between the pain of increased premiums and the action required to actually reduce those premiums.

      Another reason that that affects me is that in the last three years, my employer has paid over $60,000 in health insurance premiums, while our "explanation of benefits" have totalled less than $2,000 in that time. A different plan would be more appropriate for me, but laws and the tax system severely penalizes choice and competition by making employer-provided benefits deductible above the line and forcing them to provide certain coverage for everyone, rather than what's appropriate to each.

      One action costs me $15 (cheap provider), and costs all policy holders nothing. The other action costs me $0, but all policy holders are charged $450 (spread out so that my portion is only a fraction of a cent). Now multiply that by millions of patients and health-related events and think of the effect.

      So what do we do about it? How do you incentivize someone in my position to put the good of the many (lower insurance premiums for everyone from the $15/hour provider) over the good of themselves (higher direct cost due to uncovered services)? How many people even bother to fin

    8. Re:Can we get this judge... by swillden · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Does their profit increase as costs increase?

      No. Their profits decrease as costs increase, and they do care about minimizing costs.

      Not all of them are particularly good at it, though. Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by incompetence.

      --
      Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
    9. Re:Can we get this judge... by PC+and+Sony+Fanboy · · Score: 2

      I went to my primary care physician (tvc.org) recently to have him spray a little liquid nitrogen on a wart on my foot. It took the family doctor a grand total of 5 minutes, most of which was friendly chit-chat. My insurance (Empire Blue) was billed $550, but that was knocked down to $450 thanks to the in-network contracted rate. That's $90 per *minute*, or $5,400 per hour. Now, I understand that medical school is expensive, but $5,400/hr? Really?

      That's crazy! Though, simple procedures like this are easy to do at home. I'm not saying that you *should* self-administer medical treatments, but things like this are easy to do at home and super-cheap. As far as I'm concerned, it's a waste of everyone's time to get warts burnt off - do you go to the doctor to brush your teeth or shave? Because that's about how complicated it is.

      And I'm canadian, and so it isn't even a question of cost, just convenience.

      If you want to know why costs for serious procedures are going up in the USA, It's because simple ones are easier to do, and make them the same amount of money, if not more. There is way more demand for wart-removal than there is for cardiac surgery ... and the way the legal system works in the USA, few doctors want to take the chance of getting sued when all they're trying to do is help.

    10. Re:Can we get this judge... by jimicus · · Score: 4, Informative

      I wonder. What percent of the *actual* cost does $40/month cover? What pays for the rest of it? And what would a 5-minute wart spray cost in your country?

      I can't speak for the GP, but here in the UK the NHS doesn't have a great many funding sources. Obviously they are paid for with taxes (the actual amount that goes to healthcare isn't specifically itemised in our tax), but the NHS also carries out some private procedures for medical insurance companies and charges them - I don't know how much profit they make from this.

      Pros:

      - If I'm sick, I don't have to worry about paying for healthcare.
      - I have no idea how much of my money goes to healthcare but there is no earthly way it's anywhere near the $1400/month someone earlier on said their employer was paying. The NHS is almost certainly considerably cheaper per patient than the US system.
      - I'm not banned from taking out private medical insurance (I don't know where Americans get this idea that socialised healthcare immediately means a ban on private healthcare) - lots of people do. There's not a great deal of benefit for really serious illness - you'll generally be seen quite quickly for that under the NHS.
      - Prescriptions are a fixed cost per-item (about £8, IIRC). If the item costs £1, the NHS is making a stonking profit; if it costs £50 it's making a stonking loss.

      Cons:

      - If I have a condition which is uncomfortable but not so serious that my health is really threatened unless it's seen to FAST and it cannot be dealt with by my GP, it can take a long time to get sorted. I'd have to visit my GP who would refer me to a specialist (maybe several weeks wait), I'd spend about 5 minutes with a specialist who would order more tests (another 6 weeks), once I'd had those tests I'd get another visit to the specialist who would discuss what, if anything, they showed (another 6 weeks wait). If necessary, the specialist will book me in for a procedure of some sort (another 6 weeks). It could easily be 4-6 months, and that assumes the specialist finds something they can do after the first round of tests. They may not, in which case I may have more tests and returns to the specialist to look forward to. This is the sort of thing people pay private health insurance to avoid.

  3. Nothing will change. by koreaman · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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?
    1. Re:Nothing will change. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      Have you been to Canada recently? Our government is more in the pockets of corporations, as least in regard to utilities and wireless service, that the U.S. could ever dream of.

      Except for healthcare. We have that part covered.

    2. Re:Nothing will change. by koreaman · · Score: 2

      Well, that sucks... I had hoped Canada was at least better off. Europe certainly is, although like most places it's moving in the wrong direction.

      --
      Le français vous intéresse?
    3. Re:Nothing will change. by MachDelta · · Score: 2

      I don't entirely agree with GP. There are some area's that definitely need work (CRTC, i'm looking at you...), but on the whole I don't think Canada is near the plutarchy that the US has become. YMMV.

    4. Re:Nothing will change. by newcastlejon · · Score: 2

      I think I agree with your point re positive vs. negative freedom, but not the example you give: there are many things that are bad for society that are rightly criminal but for me the nanny state is exemplified by laws that restrict things that harm the individual only, if anyone at all.

      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. I suppose it might weigh on the conscience on someone that causes a now lethal accident but if that person can't accept that it was my own dumb fault then it's their problem, no?

      --
      If God forks the Universe every time you roll a die, he'd better have a damned good memory.
    5. Re:Nothing will change. by epine · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Nothing will change; the utilities will keep fucking us over every chance they get. I'm not sure why this still surprises anyone.

      You're part of the problem, but this doesn't surprise me at all. Greater society is to blame. I've been reading and thinking intensively in the area of economics and the foundation of wealth. Why are some societies better off than others? Ideological purity? I think not.

      The people thinking above the scale of the last quarterly profit report are widely in agreement that wealthy societies have superior social institutions. This shows up most of all in discussions about the rule of law. If you think rule of law makes a society impervious to corruption, you're smoking the drapes. But on a larger scale, there's a lot to it. There are certain kinds of financial and legal shenanigans that we implicitly don't accept, where someone in Africa would be posting "I'm not sure why this surprises anyone" about intermittent refrigeration.

      America is the most effective venture capital market in human history for good reason: pragmatic presumptions about rule of law are right more often than wrong. You think the Russians drink for no reason?

      This is a bit like people thinking there's a health care crisis in America, completely blind to the retirement savings crisis. These are not compatible crises, to the discerning mind. Yes, the health care system is mired in lamentable suckitude. Rule of law is the nucleus of the fruit, not the whole thing. The flesh of the fruit is the venal nature of business and politics as usual. Yes, we've noticed.

      The reason that people act as if this kind of behaviour from Verizon is shockingly unexpected is because we cling to the march of human history as mediated by communal opprobrium. The rule of law is still in there and dictates shared attitudes more than you think.

      Not in a thousand years will you catch me playing the learned helplessness card on the rule of law. Yes, you might look more hip by stating what's superficially obvious. You're also throwing out the baby with the bath water.

      Recently I listened to Dan Carlin interview Gwynne Dyer. He echos what Stephen Pinker has also put forward: human violence is on a significant downward trend over the past 3000 years. It spiked wildly upward when we first started to confine ourselves to permanent settlements. Since then, we've been coming to terms, with millennial stubbornness.

      Concerning nuclear weapons in the 20'th century Dyer remarked "we passed the midterm", i.e. we haven't yet blown civilization sky high. Dyer is a specialist in the history of warfare. I didn't much care for his lectures on global warming, nor his comment in the Carlin interview that replacing fossil fuels with alternative sources is just a "diddle" costing 1% of GDP, or some insanely small figure. Shockingly, one idiocy doesn't make him wrong about everything else. He views a looming evacuation of Bangladesh as portent to the end of civilization. Clearly he sees the progressive detente of the past 3000 years as strictly territorial, as if the moment you displace a human from his emotional patch of soil, we're right back to baboons. He could be right. Israel has only taught us so far how things could get an awful lot worse. I got sucked into a long conversation with a Turkish political refugee (now Canadian) about the Israeli question the other day. My god, the learned helplessness card had never looked fatter or more attractive. But still I resist.

      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.

      It was a huge insight for me when I read that disgust was a primary emotion, and that purity was a universal cultural response (emphasized to different degrees in different societies).

      We'll just suspend rule of law while we fix the purity problem by draining the creme of the social and

    6. Re:Nothing will change. by cduffy · · Score: 2

      I had to chuckle recently, just a little, at the irony of that biker in the U.S. taking part in a ride protesting over helmet laws. He was thrown over the handlebars and smashed his head on the road. If he'd been wearing a helmet, he would probably have lived.

      On the individual, "$PERSON hits their head, how bad are they injured?" level, the statistics back you up on this.

      On the larger scale -- "$COUNTRY implements a mandatory helmet law, do head injuries among cyclists go up or down?" -- bicycle helmets either have no measurable effect or do more harm than good.

      Why? Damned good question. There's been speculation that wearing a helmet makes cyclists more careless, and a study finding that cars actually pass closer to a cyclist wearing a helmet than one without. The other likely explanation is that mandatory helmet laws (or even widespread helmet use) make cycling appear more dangerous than it actually is, leading fewer people to bike, reducing the safety-in-numbers effect (when other vehicles aren't accustomed to sharing the road they aren't looking for bicycles). (By the way -- compare the injury rate to that of the Netherlands, where nobody wears a helmet unless they're taking part in a race, and try that on for size).

      On a related note -- did you know that mandatory seatbelt laws increase death rates among pedestrians? Drivers drive more recklessly because they feel safer -- and they are, but not the poor sods they happen to be sharing the road with.

      So -- nanny state laws have unintended consequences. Even ones that seem like "common sense".

    7. Re:Nothing will change. by Culture20 · · Score: 3, Funny

      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.

    8. Re:Nothing will change. by profplump · · Score: 2

      So shouldn't the driver/front-seat-passenger be able to make the call about whether or not they're willing to ride with an unrestrained passenger in the back? I still don't see what interest the state has in this situation.

      I'm just going to pretend you aren't asking us to believe that there's any reasonable risk of an unrestrained driver/passenger being in an accident and their body, after penetrating the windshield, causing significant harm to someone outside the vehicle -- it's so unlikely you'd be better off banning coconut trees in terms of lives saved/year.

    9. Re:Nothing will change. by roman_mir · · Score: 2

      Our political system is so locked down by corporations

      - you have to understand that the corporations that are locking your political system down are in the position to do so because the government got into their business in the first place.

      At some point government of USA even declared AT&T to be a national monopoly specifically, so that nobody could challenge them, they were a 'national resource'. Government by regulations, taxes and subsidies creates the corporate monsters, who then take over the government.

      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.

      - yes, a revolution against the government, which created all of these problems, but that would mean a revolution against thyself, as government uses voters to do what it wants and without total voter complicity this wouldn't have been possible.

      --
      You can't handle the truth.
    10. Re:Nothing will change. by cduffy · · Score: 2

      On the larger scale -- "$COUNTRY implements a mandatory helmet law, do head injuries among cyclists go up or down?" -- bicycle helmets either have no measurable effect or do more harm than good.

      I've heard this one once or twice, but I haven't yet seen a citation. Do you have one?

      See:

    11. Re:Nothing will change. by The_Wilschon · · Score: 2

      This.

      This is why I don't want socialized medicine in the US. Because then one can make the (admittedly valid in that context) legal argument that if I do anything that even might hurt myself, I am creating a cost to society and should be prevented. Then laws spring up that try to nerf the world and stop anyone from doing anything remotely dangerous.

      I'd far rather allow people to take risks in the full knowledge that they are responsible for their own insurance (or lack thereof).

      --
      SIGSEGV caught, terminating

      wait... not that kind of sig.
    12. Re:Nothing will change. by The_Wilschon · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Considering your post as a short essay, I have one general comment: Keep it together. You started out quite coherent and interesting, but as the post continued, you got more grandiose, less coherent, less cohesive, and less comprehensible.

      --
      SIGSEGV caught, terminating

      wait... not that kind of sig.
    13. Re:Nothing will change. by DavidTC · · Score: 2

      As the other poster pointed out, but didn't explain well:

      Drivers not wearing seatbelts have a much higher risk of being bounced around enough to lose control of their car in minor collisions, causing much worse accidents.

      In an accident, drivers usually keep their hands on the wheel...and that's a good thing if they're still in their seat. If they fall out of their seat, either forward or leftward, then it's a really bad thing, probably worse than just letting go and letting the car drive wherever it wants. (And most people drive with one hand on the side, which means sliding forward spins the wheel one way or the other.)

      If you get sideswiped while driving down the road, or sideswipe something yourself, or have some other minor harm to the car that jolted it, you have a much much greater chance of recovering and continuing to drive forwardish (instead of spinning out across traffic) if you have on a seatbelt.

      Same with feet. What exactly do you think happens when someone has their foot on the gas and slides forward in their seat? That's right, they just literally floored the gas. And having slid forward, it's not like they easily correct that by taking their foot off the gas. Sometimes they're even wedged in down there! And if they avoid that, after being thrown around, do you think their feet can find the brakes easily?

      A driver not wearing a seltbelt is dangerous to other people, because their body is not secured in the driver's seat, which they need stay in, correctly positioned, at all times, to drive the damn car. Not wearing a seatbelt means they fall out of their seat, or at least flop around in it, so at best they're no longer able to operate the car, and at worst their hands and feet managed to mis-operated the controls on the way out of the seat and now the car is doing something entirely random!

      --
      If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
  4. Court of the Bleeding Obvious? by mevets · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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....

  5. nice fine ! by Dolphinzilla · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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 !

    1. Re:nice fine ! by frosty_tsm · · Score: 2

      A $1,000 fine for not explaining a $4 charge is a pretty heavy fine-to-damage ratio. It might not be sufficient to change all business practices, but the hope is to send a message that not disclosing billing details to customers could be costly.

    2. Re:nice fine ! by yuhong · · Score: 2

      Sorry, it is assessed. From:

      That within 30 days of the date of entry of the Commission’s Order in this case, Verizon Pennsylvania Inc. will remit a civil penalty in the amount of $1,000, payable by money order or certified check to:

    3. Re:nice fine ! by danbeck · · Score: 2

      You do realize that "writing off" doesn't mean for free, right? At most, corporations in the US pay about a 15-35% tax rate. So, they saved at most 35% of the fine, the witness fee and other administrative costs.

      I know it's en vogue to say that evil corporations can write things off like some magical free money printer, but educate yourself a little...

  6. Like Pulling Teeth from Sprint by Doc+Ruby · · Score: 2

    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

  7. Re:No one routinely gets a list of local calls by Frosty+Piss · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    Yes and no.

    No, the company does *in fact* keep tack of every number you call.

    And yes, normally you don't get a bill which itemizes local calls.

    But none of this is the point.

    This lady had a "customer service issue" where in she was disputing a charge. Verizon should be obligated to detail to any customer, on request, the nature of a charge. It's just that simple.

    Now, Verizon has an "Itemized Bill Service" for which they charge, and it probably does cost them marginally more in computing and paper, but it's all there in their computers...

    If I want ITEMIZED LOCAL CALLS on every bill, I might reasonable expect to pay a small fee.

    But if I have a BILLING ISSUE, I expect them to pony up the data as a matter of doing business with me.

    Fuck Verizon.

    --
    If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
  8. Re:Bad Training - Stupid Use of Courts by ArcherB · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I would agree that this was just bad customer service training, but since this actually made it to court, AND WAS CHALLENGED BY VERIZON, this tells me that it is a matter of corporate policy. Verizon wanted so bad to NOT give her an itemized bill, they paid lawyers to go to court to try to defend their behavior and lost.

    --
    There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
  9. Here it is by elashish14 · · Score: 4, Funny
    • Being a dick: $1000
    --
    I have left slashdot and am now on Soylent News. FUCK YOU DICE.
    1. Re:Here it is by Kalriath · · Score: 2

      To that I can only respond with an actual image of a Telecom New Zealand bill:

      http://www.tribuneindia.com/2002/20020218/login/bill.jpg

      --
      For a site about things like basic rights, Slashdot users sure do like to censor "dissent".
  10. Sounds like a.. by ickleberry · · Score: 3, Funny

    4.19 scam

  11. Goes well beyond call centers. by aussersterne · · Score: 4, Informative

    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
    1. Re:Goes well beyond call centers. by GrahamCox · · Score: 3, Informative

      They are all like it. In the UK, I had a very similar experience with British Telecom, trying to cancel my phone + internet account because I'd emigrated. Yet they still kept on charging for me long after I'd left the country! (The procedure to actually notify them that I'd cancelled both accounts was Kafka-esque in its byzantine intricacy and ineffectiveness). In my case I simply refused to pay and eventually when it got to the legal proceedings stage, I could simply prove my case that I'd moved abroad and it was immediately dropped. Bloody stupid that it had to get that far though.

    2. Re:Goes well beyond call centers. by pete6677 · · Score: 2

      Nice job paying a collections bill that you didn't even owe. Your credit got destroyed, you gave the company exactly what they wanted, and after that was over I bet they sent you yet another bill. If they haven't yet, they will now that they know you're an easy mark.

  12. My Experience by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    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.

    1. Re:My Experience by bledri · · Score: 3, Insightful

      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.

      Ah, but here is the kicker. The insurance companies don't pay those fees. No doubt they pay "too much", but every insurance company that is accepted at that clinic has negotiated a deal with the clinic and they pay a small fraction of what the uninsured pay. The insurance companies (the largest ones in the area) have a great deal of leverage over the clinics because they have the "consumers" the clinic needs to stay in business. Individuals are screwed, you're sick, you need medical attention and no body represents your interests. Add to that that the hospitals are trying to make up losses on the people who default to pay with those that will pay and it is in the hospitals best interest to take you for every penny possible.

      --
      Some privacy policy Slashdot.
    2. Re:My Experience by cellocgw · · Score: 2

      That's when I get pissed when I hear about 'negotiating power with hospitals'. I hear idiots running around on the news yammering about that, how the US government can use 'negotiating power with hospitals' to make things cheaper.

      Fuck you assholes. Seriously, fuck you. For every dollar you negotiate cheaper, I pay more, because they won't sell me insurance, so I have to cover the damn costs that you won't.

      Can you say "Single-payer system," boys and girls? Do you dimwits even remember that Obama wanted to implement a system that covered everyone, but certain political parties killed it?

      --
      https://app.box.com/WitthoftResume Code: https://github.com/cellocgw
  13. This is the final nail in the coffin by AllenNg · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

  14. It's actually law in some countries.. by cheros · · Score: 2

    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 .sig here. Send no money now. Owner may sue, contents will settle. Batteries not included.
  15. Re:No one routinely gets a list of local calls by shutdown+-p+now · · Score: 2

    What happens if you decide you might have a billing "issue" with every bill?

    The company then ceases to do business with you?

  16. Re:What they do by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    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.

    I'm getting tired of hearing this kind of Conspiracy bullshit. Nobody is sitting around rubbing their hands together and muttering "Ok, how can I slide more charges on their bills to make fast cash". That would violate a dozen different federal statues including RICO laws.

    I used to work in Billing for a phone company. You know why that charge showed up on your bill last month? No, it wasn't any kind of global billing conspiracy. It was this bitch named Melissa who is in charge of building macros on the billing platform and won't pay attention when I say things like "No, you can't do it that way, or else it'll end up running on the wrong people's accounts!" Yeah, well 2,500 jacked up accounts later and she finally admits I was right (of course she still won't admit she was wrong). Out of that 2,500 people, 150 called in before Melissa could fix her fuck-up, and most of them are now thoroughly convinced that we're actively plotting ways we can slip charges into their phone bills.

    Yup folks, you caught us. We actually have a "cramming" committe, composed of 12 team members for eachcustomer. We spend 40 hours a week cackling and rubbing our hands together, and trying to find ways to slip a penny or two onto this one specific person's phone bill. (rolls eyes)
    If you want to know where your phone company is robbing you, it's not in the line-item charges. It's the service cost itself.

  17. Re:Walmart too by Anonymus · · Score: 2

    Or you could just go to Walgreen's.

    I can't comprehend why people shop at Walmart to save a few pennies, then complain that the experience was bad. You're not paying for a good experience, you're paying the bare minimum by supporting extremely abusive and borderline illegal corporate practices.

  18. Re:Wow by wvmarle · · Score: 2

    This is talking about the US so there are two answers possible. It's not the first time I see a question like yours pop up.

    1) No, there is no alternative (and that's for many people there apparently the reality, unbelievable as it sounds), or:

    The alternatives are as bad/even worse.

    Welcome to the free market, right?

  19. Re:Walmart too by eharvill · · Score: 2

    Then how was Walmart $.50 cheaper than Walgreen's if they don't carry that item?!?

    --
    At night I drink myself to sleep and pretend I don't care that you're not here with me
  20. Re:Walmart too by Kalriath · · Score: 2

    So Walmart undercut Walgreens on a product they don't sell? That's some serious wizardry there...

    --
    For a site about things like basic rights, Slashdot users sure do like to censor "dissent".