Child Item

Site Totals

61434 Questions Answered 270 Categories

trying to understand data charges

Should sending picutre messages to an email address incur data charges? My son sent a bunch of pictures from his phone to his yahoo email address and the bill shows no data charges assigned to his phone. I sent a bunch of pictures from my phone, first to a pop3 email address and then to a yahoo address and all of them incurred data charges. We have an unlimited text messaging plan that includes picture and video messaging. It seems to be working as expected for text messages to other phones, but I don't understand how it works for sending to email addresses. Can anyone explain it for me? Thanks.

Comments

Blackout

Kaalki,

As long as the pictures are being sent via the method you mentioned, this should be considered text messaging. My thought would be the data charges might be coming from somewhere else. I would recommend going to a corporate store for them to look at your bill, or call customer service to inquire about it. If you can provide more details on what the charge is listed as exactly how you see it on your bill, i can probably assist you further. Good luck!

carolcrocke

Thank you for your response...but do you KNOW what you are talking about? Ever tried getting ANYONE to talk to you at Verizon if you are prepaid? Ever tried going into the office and talking to someone if you are prepaid? Try it then answer me!!!! I DARE YOU TO TRY!

Blackout

Carolcrocke,

I deffinetly do know what i am speaking of. If i could see the original posters bill, i would be able to explain every single aspect of what the charges were and how they would come into play. With prepaid, there is no bill. You are dirrectly affected by what you use the phone for, and 9 times out of 10, the charges are appropriate. Ive only seen one case where a customer got the applied $ value kicked off, but customer service was able to assist them with minor investigating.

Unfortunately, i know not every store location will properly handle each customers issue. I do know for fact that the company has a strict ideal as to how employees are supposed to approach each customers escalation.

My recommendations:

Reach out to a corporate location. Express the full extent of the issue to the best of your ability, so they can understand where you are coming from. If you are unable to find a solution through this method, contact customer service. For prepaid, you would need to speak with the prepaid customer service department.

Some issues don't have easy solutions unfortunately, and some are appropriate charges when they don't seem like it. If you have questions, i will do my best to assist you further. Just let me know.

kaalki

Blackout, Thanks for your reply.

I went back to My Verizon, to check on what it had said, and interestingly, the charges have since disappeared. They were not actually on the bill yet, as the billing cycle has not yet ended. I was seeing them in the usage data when I logged into My Verizon. It showed the date and time that I had been sending the messages, so I was pretty sure that's what it was for. I'll have to keep an eye on my account to make sure when I get the bill that it's accurate.

TomC

Blackout -- anyone who says they can look at a Verizon bill and tell what the Data charges are based on is either psychic or full of bull -- I'm betting you are not psychic.

Although Verizon details the voice and message charged, the only information that Verizon provides on its bill for Data charges is how many megabytes they have decided to charge you for. NO information about when, where, how, why, or anything else. Just some number of Megabytes that they say you used and you have no choice but to accept it.

Customer Service is equally unhelpful -- some are polite, some are rude, but the bottom line is simply that Verizon SAYS you used some number of megabytes so that must be what you used and no one can say how or when.

[keep it courteous]

Message Edited by WendyM on 05-11-2009 11:37 AM

Justhoppy

I recently added msn messanger to my phone. Its really cool but since I added it I started getting small data usage. The first couple I chalked up to me discovering things on my new phone and admit I did use it those times. Then I started getting the small data usage and I couldnt figure out why. I emailed and they sent me info about "accidently" connecting and not realizing it, I bought that and they explained how to change my shortcut keys and such so that I wouldnt accidently hit anything. SO I thought yay its over. But the data usage still showed up. I understand it was only 1.99 for 1MB but still the little bit would add up. So last nite I cleared my phone of the data usage timer thingy and went to bed. I woke up this morning and about 10:30 last nite, when I was in bed I received a data usage. I called and explained I understand accidently hitting something, we all do but I cant understand this and could it being doing it, itself. So the lady was nice and thought perhaps that msn was sending updates to my phone cause it was just small amounts. SO I blocked the mobile web. So now we will see how that works. Who knows...I like verizon cause of the coverage and price but it's getting more irritating now...lol I guess what I am saying is any applications you may have downloaded may be receiving updates you are not aware of. I dont know if this helps anyone or not..lol

Justhoppy

Continue from my previous post:

ok at about 7:30 this morning I blocked the web on my phone and an hour later while eating breakfast more data charges showed up. I just called and they blocked everything but picture/video/text messanging...so we'll see if that works...now they tell me that my phone may have an issue and I have to get a new one....grrrrrrrrrrr. Would be nice if they could tell me what was happening when it access the web....

Child Item