What is it with these companies? Verizon Wireless...grrrrr

Their initiating a phone call to my home today was indeed my fault and I'll take the blame. I owed them for my first month's bill and I flat out forgot about it. Fine. It's the attitude these companies give off that I cannot stand.

So, my first bill is for a grand total of $232 - partial first month and the month of August. I bought the phone and signed up on 7/19. I got the statement on 8/29.

When I answer the phone I get the whole, "this is in regard to your account" vanilla BS and I'm actually quite embarrassed...oops, I forgot.

The I get, "we are requiring you pay the entire $370 or your service will be interrupted."

I'm like, "how much did you just say?"

"Your newest statement is $138 and that needs to be paid immediately."

"Um...ma'am, I realize I overlooked the original statement and that's my fault, but I don't even have the newest bill."

"I apologize for that, but the newest statement is due immediately."

I repeat: "I don't even have the newest statement and I'm not going to pay it until I can see it."

I get the whole canned "you agreed when you signed up with Verizon to..." BS and I told her I knew of no person who would ever pay a bill without at least seeing it first. My embarrassment turned to anger. I told her I would pay the past due, but not a dime more until I saw a statement. End of story. I have her my Amex # to get the past due settled and she started right back in about "this might not stop the phone from being turned off".

I finally told her, "if you should even think of shutting that phone off, the next call will be to sever my agreement with Verizon and you can invoice me for the termination fee ($175)."

"That's your choice, sir," and she repeated the Verizon terms of service crap again. What the hell is it with these people? Like they care if I'm mad anyway. These people cover their asses, I know that, but I went through this with Sprint a few years back and I have zero patience for another arrogant cel phone provider and will take it on the chin rather than dealing with kooked out billing procedures.

The way I see it is I paid $249 for the phone (a Treo 650) and I see slightly used ones going all day long for $400 and up on eBay. So if they shut it off, I'll terminate, pay the fee and sell the phone on eBay. I might lose $40 total on th deal.

Maybe a dozen people have this new phone number and I've maintained my old cel number with Alltel. I guess I can charge the old phone up and switch right back. Besides, I get a lousy signal in my house from VZN. The VZN phone still has service btw.

Am I overreacting here? I just cannot stand it when these compaines behave like this. Is Verizon so arrogant that it feels it can shake down its customers like that? I don't depend on my cel phone like I used to, so I'm more apt to flip them the bird than cave in to this kinda garbage. Their attitude was so bad a few years back with their residential service that I couldn't switch to VOip fast enough when it finally became available.

RMX

 

My experience with them is that their billing department is just downright sneaky. Back in June I got a credit alert that they had placed an account of mine into collections. Problem was I hadn't had a VZN line since late '01 and it was paid in full when I left.

Took literally two months, 10 faxes, numerous phone calls, a letter from the collection agency and a letter to the three credit bureaus to get it removed. It fell off my CR in August finally. In the end I was right, I didn't owe them a dime.

RMX

 

Well, I've always felt there should be a rating system for companies based on some general fundamentals, kind of like a corporate FICO score. If they're so shoddy in regard to how they report to the bureaus, maybe their reporting should be weighted against companies who keep accurate records. So when they report something negatively, it would carry less weight against a person's FICO because their reporting has a track record of being inaccurate.

Verizon seems to be a major offender.

http://www.legalnewswatch.com/news_359.html
http://creditforum.org/showthread.php?t=311&highlight=verizon
http://creditsuit.org/credit.php/blog/C24/

Here's something interesting about how Verizon likes to mess with people:

http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news04/2005/credit_scoring_new.html

"Many major utility and service companies take it upon themselves to provide customer payment records to the credit bureaus as a "service." Verizon recently notified its customers that it sends their payment histories out in order to promote "good billing habits." Financiers and credit companies will, in turn, mine this data for any sign of late or missed payments, and increase the interest rate or minimum payments on particular cardholders as a result ... even if they've paid their credit card bills on time, every time.

This practice, "universal default," is a favored tactic of major credit card issuers, such as MBNA, as previously reported by ConsumerAffairs.Com (MBNA Turns Up the Heat)."

http://www.lieffcabraser.com/verizon-billing.htm

Sheesh.

RMX

 

I do know that Alltel DOESN'T.

RMX