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Cramming

Have approached Verizon Support about mystery charges showing up on bill. They were understanding and refunded back all accumulated monthly billing, however this is turning into a monthly ritual. I don't want this to turn into a career. Filing a complaint with FCC does not resolve individual account only adds info into a database.

To file a complaint with the FCC for free, visit www.fcc.gov/complaints or call 1-888-CALL-FCC
(1-888-225-5322) voice or 1-888-TELL-FCC (1-888-835-5322) TTY. Or write to the Federal

Communications Commission Consumer & Governmental Affairs Bureau, Consumer Inquiries

and Complaints Division, 445 12th Street, SW, Washington, D.C., 20554

Is there anyway to get Verizons fix to stick?

Comments

spaceduckie

what is the "mystery" charge you are seeing on your bill? if it is a premium message charge, just look at your bill on myverizon under the"view printable bill" option, and on the last page of that phone line, it will show the vendor that is charging. text "stop" to the 5 digit # shown next to the vendor. you can also request customer service to add a premium message block the lines on your account. this prevents future billings, but can take 1-2 bill cycles to opt out the services(text stop is faster, and can be used in conjunction for both a long term and short term fix)..

if it is not a premium message charge, let me know what it is and i can help you out. also feel free to pm me on here if you would rather not post it on the board

apainttown

"Get It Now" charged $3.99.

Taken from, https://www.consumeraffairs.com/news04/2011/02/verizon-wireless-get-it-now-plan-challenged-in-class-action.html.

"Verizon imposes the charges, which appear on monthly bills under headings including “Get It Now,” “Get It Now Downloads” and “Data Usage Charges” without explanation and without reference to any particular subscription and no identification of the purported download."

This is taken from a class action lawsuit. Seems "Get It Now" and Verizon have some history.

apainttown

"As part of that settlement, Verizon Wireless agreed to establish a “Data Charge Task Force” that would resolve data charge complaints and ensure that customer service employees were aware of any widespread data billing issues."

wondering if this is in place

spaceduckie

the two items you listed here(get it now, and the data settlement) are two completely unrelated items. the data settlement had only to do with megabyte billing charges that were appearing on customers bills. most of them were legit, but the back end system was just too touchy as to what would trigger the charges. thresholds were not set high enough to prevent accidental usage; and a couple apps were identified as triggering a data charge when they shouldn't have. those issues have been fixed, and the affected customers have received refunds.

get it now downloads are identified on your bill, with the name of the item, the date and time of the download/purchase, and phone line that incurred them. you may have to look on your detailed bill in your my verizon account to see them if you do not receive detailed bills(free online, 1.99/line/month to have them mailed out). the detailed bill shows all call records, so can be considerably lengthy, reaching dozens of pages in some cases(which is why they are not sent be default). if you look on the last page of the line on your account that has the get in now charge, you will see the break down. same place to also look for premium message subscriptions, and international phone calls.

when you have a get it now download on your bill, SOMEBODY had to download the item or subscribe to the content. it is triggered on the user's end via the handset(or your myverizon account, again on the user end). the charged content displays a checkout page on your phone showing the cost and if it is a recurring charge. when you submit the order, it begins billing and provides said content(ringtone, app, game, wallpaper, etc...)

that news article you quoted was refering to two different incidences.

apainttown

For the last ~6 months I have had to call custome suppot and have these charges removed. I suppose they have the capability of veifying this apps usage. When they check they, without hesitation, remove the charges. It's just that it has to be done every month.

"Date Time Usage Type Description Min. Price Total

4/01 3:23A Get It Now Download APPLICATN Slacker Radio Plus -- 3.99"

Dave-in-Decatur

We had an experience, shortly after switching to Verizon, in which such charges were unexpectedly billed to my wife's phone number. She doesn't have a smartphone, doesn't text message except to me, doesn't download ringtones or anything else, and it's highly unlikely that she did anything to incur the charges. I don't know how, but in some way some of these scammers (which is what they are, IMO) manage to sign people up for their subscription services without the customer's knowledge, generating a monthly charge. As with apainttown, Verizon unhesitatingly removed the charges from our bill, which seems to me a tacit acknowledgement that they were not legitimate. They also told us how to text STOP to the 5-digit number to end the "subscription."

There is a way to keep this from happening again permanently. Go to My Verizon and sign in. Under Plan, click on Block Calls and Messages. Click the Service Blocks tab, and then (if necessary) select the appropriate phone line from the drop-down list. Click Block Premium Messaging. This will prevent all such message services from being added to your account, whether by you or by anyone else. If you ever want to subscribe to some such thing, you'll have to go in again and uncheck the Block. But many people have no use for them now or ever. Since I did this, we have not received any more billings for this junk. While you're there, there are other things you can block too, though some of them are more drastic than you probably want. There is no charge to do this blocking.

Ann154

After having a similar experience to Dave with my first account with Verizon, one of the first things I did after creating the MyVerizon account for my second account with Verizon was go through the features and find the Block Premium messages and various other blocks. I knew that I never would use them nor did I ever wanted to see an unauthorized charge on my line.

apainttown

ok....again the charge has appeared on my bill, even after i have turned off all billable options. months and months of charges appearing on all monthly bill, time taken off work, both my son and myself talking to "customer service". I am going to find a copy of

https://www.consumeraffairs.com/news04/2011/02/verizon-wireless-get-it-now-plan-challenged-in-class-action.html. and present my situation either to my municipal District Attorney, Kari Brandenberg or theState Attorney General, Gary King.

This is absurd!

spaceduckie

That get it now thing you keep bringing up(the court case) is jot related

to your issue and is irrelevant.

The blocks font stop existing billing, the just prevent you from getting

new items. You need to cancel the subscribed items. And if you removed them

from your phone, look at the dates for the charged compared to when you

removed the item.

If that doesn't work, call customer service and ask them to cancel the

subscription(and how, crediting it is not the same as canceling it). Your

my Verizon account will show your active subscriptions too, so you can

check if they were canceled.

Verizon_Support

Hello apainttown,

I certainly understand an unknown reoccurring charge can be frustrating and I would like to help. I will need to investigate your account. Please send me a DM with your name and mobile number, so I may further assist. Thank you.

TominqueBo

VZW Support

Follow us on Twitter at @VZWSupport

JockeyBurns

I too have been wondering if Verizon has ever instituted the Data Charge Task Force as required in the FCC Consent Decree of Oct 28, 2010.

I had data charges problems and with six months of complaining to VZW customer service the Data Charge Task Force was never mentioned.

They were also required to train their CS reps on these points but apparently that hasn't been done either.

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