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Text Fraud by Verizon

We added unlimited texting to my sons phone. In spite of this, we were just billed an extra $310 for his text messages. When we called Verizon we were informed that the plan really did not cover unlimited texting, but only a limited subset of text messages - those to other Verizon phones. In other words, it is pretty close to useless. By using the term "unlimited" for a highly limited program, Verizon is committing fraud.

Comments

budone

It could be the charge is for texts made PRIOR to the change. If you do have the unlimited plan (Not a plan that allows unlimited to only Verizon subscribers) they may still be able to Backdate the change to cover the text msgs prior to the change.

acraftylady2

rehuie wrote:
We added unlimited texting to my sons phone. In spite of this, we were just billed an extra $310 for his text messages. When we called Verizon we were informed that the plan really did not cover unlimited texting, but only a limited subset of text messages - those to other Verizon phones. In other words, it is pretty close to useless. By using the term "unlimited" for a highly limited program, Verizon is committing fraud.

We have unlimited on our family share plan and never get charged extra and my son sends a lot of texts so maybe you have unlimited from verizon to verizon only? Call and ask what plan they added. Mary

rehuie

They stated that the plan was unlimited for moble to moble. Later they informed me that they don't use English but, rather, Verizon-speak, in which moble means Verizon. {word filter avoidance}

acraftylady2

rehuie wrote:
They stated that the plan was unlimited for moble to moble. Later they informed me that they don't use English but, rather, Verizon-speak, in which moble means Verizon. {word filter avoidance}

Yes mobile to mobile means verizon to verizon. Tell them that's not the plan you want. I don't know I checked online with verizon first to see the texting plans and knew what I wanted when I went in to add it so that helped. Mary

unknown

Only trust what you HEAR from a Verizon rep if they are willing to hand it to you in writing. Make them show you the page on the website, or the clause in your contract that specifies what they are saying. Verizon reps are woefully undertrained and interested in making a sale over educating a customer. They will tell you what they think you want to hear to make a sale happen, and nothing else.

There are 4 texting plans available:

Pay per text

$5/month for 250 messages

$10/month for 500 messages plus unlimited messages to/from Verizon mobiles

$20/month for unlimited messages

If you are on a family plan, you can also pay $30/month for unlimited messages for all lines on your plan.

In the future, ALWAYS confirm any plan changes through MyVerizon and cross-reference what you are told with the official material/plan descriptions in your contract and on the Verizon website, or you're likely to get screwed.

For right now, call CS at *611 and see if they can backdate the unlimited mobile plan to the start of the billing cycle in which you racked up all those charges.

Nozirev

I agree completely that their descriptions of text services are intentionally misleading.

When I signed up my family, I got the 250 message feature, and I read the descriptions of what I was buying VERY carefully -- I don't remember exactly what I read that lead me to believe this, but I was 100% convinced that if you had any texting plan then inbound texts would not come out of your monthly allowance. Surprise, surprise -- every inbound message comes out of the 250 allowance and I am getting royally screwed every month for the overages.

I don't want to get a higher plan for my daughter, because I want her to limit her texts to a sensible amount each month, but we have absolutely no control over how much her friends send her texts -- how can we possibly be expected to pay for someone else's texts that we cannot control, that they are probably paying Verizon for anyway? They are getting us coming and going, and it is very, very dishonest.

Yes, they are crooks. They will rob you blind until someone in Congress or the FCC catches up with them and tells them not to.

acraftylady2

Nozirev wrote:
I agree completely that their descriptions of text services are intentionally misleading.

When I signed up my family, I got the 250 message feature, and I read the descriptions of what I was buying VERY carefully -- I don't remember exactly what I read that lead me to believe this, but I was 100% convinced that if you had any texting plan then inbound texts would not come out of your monthly allowance. Surprise, surprise -- every inbound message comes out of the 250 allowance and I am getting royally screwed every month for the overages.

I don't want to get a higher plan for my daughter, because I want her to limit her texts to a sensible amount each month, but we have absolutely no control over how much her friends send her texts -- how can we possibly be expected to pay for someone else's texts that we cannot control, that they are probably paying Verizon for anyway? They are getting us coming and going, and it is very, very dishonest.

Yes, they are crooks. They will rob you blind until someone in Congress or the FCC catches up with them and tells them not to.

Get unlimited then you won't have to worry. We only added texting on just before last summer as we knew when son started college last fall away from home it would be easier to communicate with him that way and now he texts all his friends back here while away and all his college buddies while he his home and we don't have to worry about anybody going over. I don't text as much as son and hubby even less than me but we figured unlimited was the way to go on our plan and not have to worry about going over. Maybe your daughter nees to talk to her friends and tell them the situation and that they can't text her so much if it's going to be a problem. My son could care less about texting in high school as he was too much into his studies so we didn't have to worry about it so it was kind of nice that way. Mary

unknown

Have you looked into Usage Controls Nozirev? I think that you can limit the amount of texts sent/recieved and also times when texting can happen.

Nozirev

My problem with unlimited is that I don't think Verizon should be rewarded for their devious, underhanded pricing schemes and misleading information by giving them $30/month instead of the $10 I am already giving them, for what should already be way more messages than we need (but ends up being too few since they charge us for incoming messages that we can't even control without having a discussion with each one of my kid's 20 or so friends who text her... yeah right, that's going to happen).

acraftylady wrote:
Get unlimited then you won't have to worry.

Nozirev

Usage Controls costs $5/month per line. You need to pay them for the privilege of configuring your phone to stop them from stealing the shirt off your back on unwanted messages. That ends up costing almost as much as upgrading the texting plan -- well, well, isn't that a convenient coincidence?

Sickening how they figure out every angle and scheme to get more money out of us, but they can't even get me a decent signal at my house which is in the middle of a densely populated suburban town.

spottedcatfish wrote:
Have you looked into Usage Controls Nozirev? I think that you can limit the amount of texts sent/recieved and also times when texting can happen.

budone

250 texts for a teenager??? Heck they can burn through that in a day. Even if incoming was not counted, she would still be way over the limit. If you dont want her to text just block it. Yeah it costs, but there are no overages.

There are many things the government can do to help people, however for Congress or the FCC to chime in on a pricing policy of a company seems a waste of time and energy when there are more pressing matters they could work on.

My daughter when she lived with me was on my phone account. We had My Circle and she had 7 of the 12 numbers.... She could talk to one person for hours on end and then see them the next day. She was not a big texter.

Now me, I have no problem going through 3000+ a month, but dont use a lot of minutes.

pottel

I see by this blog that I am not alone. When I saw my first bill, I saw charges for texting and called in. Now that I have my second bill with $50 of texting, I was horrified. I called in and customer service would only reduce the bill by 10%, then the supervisor said 50%. I feel like I'm on the "Price is Right".

This is crazy. I'm a grown adult and I use text with pics and video. I have owned a cell phone forever and would NOT simply overlook including text.

My first bill was $184 then this one if $198!!!!!!!! I had Sprint and those were unlimited everything and the highest bill was $134 and that was because I went out of the country.

I had family and co-workers and clients tell me DO NOT USE Verizon. I just thought they were overly sensitive, but I am not getting a good feeling about this. I think it would be much better to just leave while I'm only several hundred $$ in the hole. Has anyone had any luck turning their accounts around with the text? I really am use to unlimited everything and don't feel like adding an extra needless stress to my life wondering if I'm going over the my restrictions or not.

budone

Simple question, What texting plan are you on????

Winger58

I feel your pain. We did the same - check the box marked "Unlimited Mobile to Mobile Text" for my daughter and just got a bill for $1,300.00 !! Verizon pulled the same line on me. Yes, I could have researched further and found out that "mobile to mobile" in Verizon-speak actually means Verizon-to-Verizon. But why couldn't they just say that in the first place? Why change the wording to a generic term unless it was done intentionally to mislead people? I am filing a complain with the NY State Attorney General's office for false/misleading advertising. Verizon did offer to credit 25% of the texting fee (a little less than $300) because of the misunderstanding (something I don't think they would do if they didn't think they had some blame in this problem. I'm normally pretty cautious when ordering anything on line, but being a Verizon customer for almost 20 years and never having a problem before lulled me in to that false sense of security. I would suggest anyone having similar problems with Verizon, contact your states Attorney General immediately.

acraftylady2

Winger58 wrote:
I feel your pain. We did the same - check the box marked "Unlimited Mobile to Mobile Text" for my daughter and just got a bill for $1,300.00 !! Verizon pulled the same line on me. Yes, I could have researched further and found out that "mobile to mobile" in Verizon-speak actually means Verizon-to-Verizon. But why couldn't they just say that in the first place? Why change the wording to a generic term unless it was done intentionally to mislead people? I am filing a complain with the NY State Attorney General's office for false/misleading advertising. Verizon did offer to credit 25% of the texting fee (a little less than $300) because of the misunderstanding (something I don't think they would do if they didn't think they had some blame in this problem. I'm normally pretty cautious when ordering anything on line, but being a Verizon customer for almost 20 years and never having a problem before lulled me in to that false sense of security. I would suggest anyone having similar problems with Verizon, contact your states Attorney General immediately.

Oh wow that is a lot of texing overage. I agree mobile to mobile is very misleading and they should say verizon to verizon. If I hadn't done ours in store and had the guy explain to me I would have been in the same boat. Please post back what the attorney general does. I hope they do something for you.

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