Chapter Two.


I've decided to start listing a few more of the deceptions encountered in my dealings with Verizon.


1)  I originally had a plan that allowed 500 minutes a month without additional charges.  The plan also provided that certain types of calls were "unlimited", that is, no matter how many minutes were used in that category, there would be no extra charge for calls in this category.  For example, mobile-to-mobile calls, where both phones were Verizon customers, were unlimited.  Another category was incoming calls.  There was no charge for incoming calls no matter how many or how long.

One month, I went slightly over 500 minutes.  The additional minutes cost about 45 cents a minute.  Because of a change in my anticipated usage (I expected to use the phone more during the summer months), I spoke to the Verizon representative on the phone and was told that I could increase the allowance from 500 minutes to 700 minutes for only a few dollars more (I don't recall, but I think it was about $10 a month).  That sounded reasonable, and I agreed to it.  What the sales rep did not tell me was that when I switched to the new plan, incoming calls would be counted the same as outgoing calls, and were no longer unlimited.  I was never alerted to this.  I did not discover it until a few months later when I went over the 700 minute limit and downloaded my statement to see why.  I then discovered that I was being charged for incoming calls.  The net effect was that I now had a fewer minutes under the 700 minute plan than I had under the 500 minute plan.  When I tried to switch back to the 500 minute plan, I was told that I could no longer do that because it was no longer being offered.  Had I not made the change, I could have stayed on the 500 minute plan indefinitely (there was a grandfather provision for that plan, but having changed to the 700 minute plan even for one day, I blew the grandfather protection).  So now I am paying more on the 700 minute plan than I was for the same number of calls on the 500 minute plan.

2).  On May 6, 2011, I called the Verizon office to ask a question about an item on my bill.  While on the phone, the sales rep suggested that I "try" a new promotional package that would cost $14.99 a month more.  The new features included a faster download speed on the Internet, the Sports package and some more premium movie channels.  I commented that I did not need any of these features (I was satisfied with the current speed, all the sports teams that I was interested in were carried on the local channels, and we had just joined NetFlix and did not need more premium movie channels).  The rep assured me that I could try the new package for 30 days without any commitment.  If I cancelled within 30 days (by June 6, 2011), I would just pay the $14.99 for the one month I used it, and there would be no further obligation.  If I did not cancel by then, I was warned that I would have a 2 year commitment, with a whopping termination fee.  For example, if I terminated on June 7, 2011, the termination penalty was around $360 (I don't remember the exact number, but it was in that vicinity.)  But I could avoid that 2 year contract commitment by cancelling by June 6th.

Sure enough, I decided that I did not need any of the new features and called to cancel, well before the June 6th deadline.  Now I was told that if I cancelled, the plan I was on prior to May 5, 2011 was no longer available (that's right, it was no longer offered and I blew my grandfather protection).  To get back the same features I had prior to May 5, 2011 would now cost an extra $10 or so (probably around $15 by the time you add in all the taxes and surcharges).  So I could not really avoid the extra $14.99 fee--it would probably cost me about as much, if not more, to cancel than to accept the change.  Moreover, even if I cancelled the new feature, I was still stuck with a 2 year commitment with whopping termination fees.  So there really is no way to get out of my "trial" promotion.


The only way I could avoid the additional fee was by cancelling my entire Verizon contract, including all of my Internet, telephone, and TV services, before June 5, 2011.  I could then try to re-subscribe as a new customer at whatever rates might be available now to new customers, except that most of the promotional rates offered new customers would not be available to me because I had been a Verizon customer within the prior 2 years!

I didn't want to ask what else would happen.  Would I have to change my e-mail address and my telephone number?   Would my service be interrupted for several days or weeks until the new plan went into effect?  Who knows. 

3)  I suggested that if the situation was not remedied, I would switch to the cable company, which was also offering digital, fiber-optic service at a rate that was about $50 less than Verizon's (the cable company was making this offer specifically to Verizon customers to induce them to switch--the same rate was not available to customers who did not have similar service with a competitor).  I then got a lot of nonsense from the Verizon sales agent about the inferiority of the cable service, all of which was obsolete, wrong and/or intentionally deceptive.  For example, she tried to convince me that cable service deteriorated when there were a lot of users on line at the same time.  That used to be a problem many years ago, but it just is no longer true (not with the digital service).  She also tried to convince me that the cable speed was slower than my Verizon speed, but she was comparing the higher download speed that I was tricked into buying for one month, not the speed that I had been getting and was returning to.  In fact, the cable company is promising me a speed that is significantly higher than Verizon's, without additional cost.  I was out of breath just trying to keep up with the distortions being fed to me about the "inferiority" of the cable service.

(Note:  I had been a cable customer about 4 or 5 years ago, and when I switched to FIOS, there were significant improvements in my Internet service, but the cable company assures me that they have now upgraded their system and that problem is now history.  From the technical description I got from them, I think they have solved that problem.  I shall see.)

Consumer Reports lists Verizon Wireless as the best company in terms of customer satisfaction (not very high, but better than everyone else).  But Verizon Wireless is a separate division of Verizon, and the Consumer Reports comments do not necessarily apply to the non-wireless service.