Man sues Verizon over $9,500 wireless Internet bill

Jack_In_VA · EVDO Fledgling Joined: 29 May 2008 Posts: 16

Wow! Now this would be a heart stopper.

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/localnews/content/local_news/epaper/2008/07/06/c1b_cellphonesuit_0707.html

MasterMason · EVDO Fledgling Joined: 05 Mar 2008 Posts: 19

Wow Verizon should look at his usage and if he downloaded movies or music they should forward that info to The Recording Industry Association of America. This is abuse he only had it for 11 days what was he downloading

Michael · Posted: Wed Jul 09, 2008 11:01 am Post subject:

You can download movies legally from itunes/amazon/netflix, however, not recommended over EVDO, since each movie is 1-2GB.
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andy6432668 · EVDO User Joined: 02 Jun 2005 Posts: 56

That is a prime example of a "IDIOT".

Todd4300 · Posted: Wed Jul 09, 2008 7:36 pm Post subject:

Though I think we are ultimately responsible for the use of the service I still think it would have been in Verizon's best interest to have an option where when you hit the 5gb limit it locks down.

Had that option with a one way satellite I had years ago. Had the choice between when I hit the limit it locks or I could choose to go over the limit and be charged overage. I picked to lock at the limit.

They must have used that thing hard.

freightliner · EVDO User Joined: 02 Oct 2007 Posts: 63

freightliner · EVDO User Joined: 02 Oct 2007 Posts: 63

I don't want to step in and be the Devil's advocate here, but something very similar happened to me about a year ago when I had my Motorola Q tethered to my laptop. I was doing a lot of business in Canada and decided to change my minutes plan from "America's Family Plan" to "North America's Family Plan" in order to avoid voice roaming charges when working in the land of Molson and Moosehead.

When I made this change, the CSR at Verizon who made the switch did not bother to tell me that my tether, or "broadband features" of my plan did not have a North American feature, i.e. no roaming with data. I know, I know, DUH. BUT, there was no "contract" to sign, it was all done via telephone. At any rate, I was unaware that I was incurring roaming charges for data (like about 99 cents a KB) when I did a windows update via my tether while working in Victoria. This lack of awareness presented itself in the form of about $3000 on the following month's bill. Of course, I freaked out, and to make a long story short, through careful navigation of a plethora of customer service and billing departments at Big Red, I ended up writing a letter and fedexing it to the desk of Roger Gurnani - president of West Coast VZW - who, contrary to what most would assume, is a pretty decent guy.

Roger contacted me, apologized for the mistake of the CSR not advising of the ramifications of my account change, and credited my account the equivalent of the overage PLUS a months bill. In my case, the contract language did not specify details with regard to roaming in Canada. What it boiled down to was Verizon acknowledged their mistake, and the fact that my mistake was an honest one and they were more than gracious.

It would appear that this $10,000 case could have ended up similarly and the poor gent was not as diligent as I with regard to getting through the massive labyrinth that is Verizon Customer Service. I never considered getting an attorney because I knew that would be a p*ssing match. Somehow the expression "ya get more bees with honey" could ring true for dealing with Big Red.
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no_more_sprint · EVDO Newbie Joined: 05 Jul 2008 Posts: 2

Seriously this is rediculous i left verizon when i received overage charges of 800+ luckily i did not have to pay and i was credited i returned the card back ASAP. They should have a limit on how much overage they can charge someone 150 dollars and then maybe limit there usage to 200 kbps. I hope he wins his case.

Jim_in_VA · Posted: Thu Jul 10, 2008 5:50 am Post subject:

Even satellite companies (warts and all) will just throttle you back or, in WildBlue's case, notify you via email that you are approaching the cap when you are within 80%. Seems reasonable to me.
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jrh · EVDO Newbie Joined: 17 May 2008 Posts: 5

My billing period ends at midnight on the 9th of the month. I just completed my second month with VZ yesterday (had HughesNet before). On 6/26, I downloaded a 2 GB file (map for my Nuvi GPS), so I've been sweating my usage. I've been monitoring it with BitMeter and keeping track in an Excel spreadsheet.

At 1650 on 7/08, I got a call from a VZ customer rep, telling me that I was nearing my 5 GB limit. She showed that I had used 4241.23 MB as of 0149 on 7/07, which I confirmed by looking up my usage total on my MyVerizon account web page while we were talking; so, the reps don't have any later usage data available to them than what we can see on our MyVerizon account web page. BitMeter showed that I had used 4102.23 MB through 7/06 (about 2 hours earlier), so not a big discrepancy.

The MyVerizon web page does run a couple of days behind, though. Even now, at 1015 on 7/10, the latest usage data it shows is 4,241.79 MB Used as of 07/07/08 1:49 AM. Note that this is the same date and time that the customer rep told me, but a slightly different different usage.

I have an MBR1000 router, and my wife's PC also uses it (wireless connection), but she doesn't do nearly as much usage as I do. The small discrepancy between BitMeter's total and MyVerizon suggest that either she doesn't use much at all compared with me, or that BitMeter is somehow including her usage, too. Smile

I just hope I completed the billing cycle under the 5 GB limit! BitMeter's totals show my total was 4217.48; I sure hope that's close to what VZ has for me. Smile