Verizon Finally Stops Going After Customer for Bogus $2.1 Million Dollar Cell Phone Bill

[dgstorm]

That headline sounds like an April Fool's joke, but it is most definitely September, so it's no laughing matter.

The basic gist of the story is that Ken Slusher and his girlfriend originally signed up for Verizon service last November, but then returned the phone to Verizon after being overcharged on their bill. Slusher indicated that their first bill was supposed to be around $120; however, Verizon's billing system claimed they owed $698, plus it showed a previous balance of $451 (which was obviously impossible).

Afterwards, the couple canceled the service in December, and returned the phones to their local Verizon store in January. Apparently something got "stuck" in Verizon's system, and the couple continued to be charged for service they no longer had. Slusher said, "The number of errors and the comedy of which they happened is astounding to me."

Verizon actually sent the bills to a collection agency, and the young couple have been fighting Big Red for the last 10 months. The ordeal even put a damper on Slusher's plans to buy a new home. Eventually the bills and interest somehow ended up reaching the ungodly amount of $2,156,593.64 (yes... $2.1 Million USD).

According to the news video at the source link below, Verizon eventually admitted their error and backtracked on the whole thing. The situation wasn't able to be resolved until the couple sought help from the media. Slusher quipped, "Yeah, it’s been very stressful to say the least."

Here's a quote with how the whole thing was finally resolved,

Slusher is scheduled to close on his new house next Monday, but with collection agencies coming after him, he says his mortgage company won’t sign off on a loan.

“If I don’t get this straightened out in the next 24 hours, I can almost guarantee I’ll lose this house," he said.

Late Tuesday evening, a Verizon spokeswoman responded to FOX 12 saying she will look into it.

On Wednesday, Verizon issued a statement to FOX 12 regarding this situation. It said, "We have apologized to an Oregon customer for a programming error in an automated voice response system. The error caused him to receive an incorrect voice message that he owed $2 million on his bill. We are correcting the error now and have resolved the issue to his satisfaction.”

On the one hand, you can give a little credit to Verizon for eventually admitting and fixing this error with Slusher and his girlfriend, but on the other hand, how on earth did they let it get that far to begin with. It seems ridiculous that a customer service person or supervisor could not have fixed this much earlier.

(This sounds more like a horror story from Comcast or Time Warner than Verizon...)

Source: Yahoo

 

[ffarl]

Based on my experiences with Verizon, I don't doubt this at all!

 

[wicked]

I remember my first cell phone bill ever back in the late 90's was $650 lol

 

[cereal killer]

Based on my experiences with Verizon, I don't doubt this at all!

What happened?

 

[94lt1]

I've had this experience with Verizon as well...I've bought phones in October (droids on release) and then I get charged for 3-400$ more the following month..when I paid cash out right for the dang thing..

When the bionic came out I added a line to get it cheaper and then got a 400$ (on top of my 280$ at the time) bill in November after paying for the phone upfront...???

Then..if Verizon ever makes a mistake...they always want you to pay full price for that month and THEN they will take it out if your next bill. I've got my local vzw people trained..I'll be nice and we can talk this through..but do something stupid and I'll go off ..

The year if the bionic fiasco ..they were to remove the charges and give me a credit for x amount of dollars for the screw up and for it taking 2 weeks to get resolved..

Instead I wound up with a 2000$ bill and they wound up with a personal visit...and talking to the idiots in Washington... It does no good...when you show up with a lawyer or with papers in your hand..then they get serious...

 

[Narsil]

I do know a lady who, legitimately, ran up a $5k Verizon Wireless bill in two weeks back in '07 or '08.

We were on a trip to Israel and her husband gave her his USB wireless dongle before we left but told her not to use except as a last resort and only to send and receive email. The wifi at the hotels weren't very good and she didn't like to have to wait until we got to the hotel to email photos and surf the web so she just used the stick for most of the two weeks.

Her husband opened up the next Verizon Wireless bill to find she'd used quite a bit of data over international roaming.

 

[mountainbikermark]

Based on my experiences with Verizon, I don't doubt this at all!

Same here except Verizon went overboard trying to fix it, assigning 1 customer rep to my account to handle it and call me monthly to let me know what was what. It took them over a year to fix it but it didn't affect my credit and, like I said, I got a call every month detailing what my bill was going to be and how much of it to actually pay.
A couple of years before that I got a bill for , if memory serves, either $1200 or $1500 due to a glitch in the system that was triple charging me for mobile to mobile instead of them being free. That one was resolved in about half an hour.
A couple of years before I left them they had a system glitch in my area and when my daughter couldn't contact me that she was broken down on the side of the interstate and within seeing distance of the closest cell they paid my entire $200 + monthly bill for 4 months due to another system glitch when it was only supposed to be 1 month free service.
If you remember the tv service they offered for a while , another system glitch made my free 30 day trial last for a year.

All of these were before the Alltel assimilation. They weren't the same company after that and I eventually ended up leaving over ongoing reception, or lack of, issues. That was the only thing they were unwilling to fix.

Support Our Troops !!!
<><
Beast Mode 4

 

[akhenax]

See....see!!?? This is why I'm keeping my unlimited data.

No overages!

 

[94lt1]

Oh reception issues...let's talk about that...BEFORE they had antennas they could move to adjust for traffic...when things were stationary..

I was one of the first areas to get 4g lte..thanx to being so close to Houston... Well..I had awesome service so I invest in 4 g devices..bionic anyone?? Ok. Things are great for 6 months...then all of a sudden my service drops way way off..I call and call and ask what they changed... Oh nothing..blah blah..whatever... But the problem is..they have better coverage than Sprint, T-Mobile or at&t here...so I have to just accept it...

 

[tech_head]

All I can say is if Verizon erroneously reported derogatory statements to a credit agency and they were not able to get credit for a house because of it; Verizon now owes them damages.

 

[chevycam94]

NOBODIES bill would be $2.1m, not even in their LIFETIME! How the hell do these kinds of numbers make it through the system without getting caught? Not only do I hate VZW for their locked devices, but their customer service is garbage. The only thing I like is the coverage, but even that is starting to come in second. Id almost rather have T-Mobile, everything is better. But my WHOLE family is on VZW, so I might have a LOT of convincing to do!

 

[shockracer]

Maybe they had there Verizon service paired with there Comcast service and went through Comcast for help? I could see Comcast customer service doing this!

 

[cr6]

Guess I'm one of the fortunate ones. Never had a problem with my bill or customer service over the past decade +.
Point is, if you look at the customer base of ANY large corporation, you'll find issues like this. More often than not, most companies will work with you to quickly resolve any discrepancies, but occasionally, ridiculous issues like this will spiral out of control. More often than not it's an incompetent employee simply not doing their job. Unfortunately there's incompetence in every business.... and then there's Comcast. They're in a league of their own.

 

[UrbanBounca]

All I can say is if Verizon erroneously reported derogatory statements to a credit agency and they were not able to get credit for a house because of it; Verizon now owes them damages.

That is true, except that they won't be able to prove actual monetary damages. They will be denied a mortgage, which they may or may not have been denied without the debt.

However, I hope they sue. I'd love to see it in court.

 

[xeene]

Sounds like Verizon owes somebody a new home.
I think Verizon charged this person for all the unlimited data I've used in the past 5 years, that should be around ballpark figure if you consider it's 10$ per Gb.