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Unexplained Data Overage!!??

Longoria49

I have had my current plan and phone since February 2012. In Feb 2012 I established a new account after branching off of my parents' account. Collectively we have been with Verizon for over 10 years.

I have personally had a data phone for a least the last 6-7 years.

When I branched off of my parents account, I was forced to give up my grandfathered unlimited data plan (not happy) and choose a Share Everything plan. At the time, for 2 iPhones I chose a 6G data plan because I wasn't sure where our data would land since we had always been on unlimited. My Data Usage for the next Several Months panned out as follows:

3/29/13-4/28/13 Bill Cycle

Data Usage Total-1.906 G

My Phone-1.330 G

4/29/13-5/28/13 Bill Cycle

Data Usage Total-1.773 G

My Phone-.860 G

5/29/13-6/28/13 Bill Cycle

Data Usage Total-4.373 G

My Phone-3.306 G

6/29/13-7/28/13 Bill Cycle

Data Usage Total-3.345 G

My Phone-2.056 G

7/29/13-8/28/13 Bill Cycle

Data Usage Total-4.405 G

My Phone-3.343 G

8/29/13-9/28/13 Bill Cycle

Data Usage Total-2.520 G

My Phone-1.889 G

9/29/13-10/28/13 Bill Cycle

Data Usage Total-1.322 G

My Phone-1.061 G

My Average Usage=1.977 G

I did not have overage or any oddities with my data plan until November 2013. In October 2013 I changed one of the iPhones to a flip phone so now required a lower data plan. I started with 2 G which wasn’t quite enough so I moved to 4G. It was in November that I felt my usage was higher than normal but I elected to just keep an eye on it. I had no changes to my lifestyle that would require more data usage. I am at work 8 hours a day Monday-Friday where I have a solid Wi-Fi Connection and then generally am home after that where I also have Wi-Fi. There were times that my data plan showed cellular usage when I know I was at home or work and connected to Wi-Fi.

After my usage spiked to 6.282 G for the December-January Bill Cycle I decided to call Verizon Tech Support to open a case for investigation.

I made my first call to Verizon tech Support on January 22,^,2014 and spoke with a very nice lady named Lynn when I opened ticket (removed). I explained the issue EXACTLY as it is documented above and was promised a call back after the investigation was complete no later than the following Tuesday (2/4/14). I never received a call back so I called Tech Support again on January 30, 2014.

When I called back I spoke with a representative named Ronnie who informed me that my ticket had been closed because there was no billing error to investigate. I am unsure how I could have been any clearer than the information I provided above. I then opened another case (removed) and explained the same exact story AGAIN. I was promised a call back by February 4, 2014. I never heard back so I called to follow up on the case.

I was told that the case had been closed and that the majority of my usage occurred between January 24^th, 2014 and January 26^th 2014 when I used my phone as a hot spot. The most infuriating part of that call was that I was not even asked if I had ever used my phone as a Hot Spot which I did not. The case was closed based on an assumption and my issue has still not been addressed.

As a side note, on January 25, 2014 I took my phone to the Apple Store after reading multiple forum posts on Apple.com and Verizon.com about frustrated customers experiencing the same issue with no answers or assistance from Verizon. The representative at the Apple store told me that the issue was common and that the customers have been backing up their iPhones, erasing the phone and then restoring from the backup. He said that this has solved the data overage as far as he knew.

The next day I did exactly what the Apple store rep said and low and behold…….NO MORE DATA OVERAGE!

I have now reached out to Verizon 4 times regarding this issue and am beyond frustrated and am not sure what other recourse I have to get my data overage charges refunded. The charges are fairly minimal in the scheme of things but it’s the principal that my circumstances were assumed when I did ABSOLUTELY nothing out of the ordinary.

Verizon, I encourage you to step up ASAP to get this issue resolved and stop blaming the customers for an issue that is not theirs.

Private info removed as required by the Terms of Service.

Message was edited by: Admin Moderator

Comments

Longoria49

Is this issue going to be addressed by Verizon?

rachelg1988

Longoria49 - I am having the same issue with my mom's phone, which was recently upgraded from an iPhone 4 to a 5c. Average data used in a month went from about 0.5 GB to 2 GB (and this is after turning off LTE and my mom being VERY conservative of what she does while not on wifi). So what's the point of a smart phone???? The vzw rep I spoke to is entirely clueless. Nice people, but NO HELP. So frustrating. It's ridiculous that there is nothing official on this from Verizon or Apple (that I can find). As you probably know, any info out there is on blogs by consumers. I'm going to try what you mentioned in your post above tonight. I hope it works for us! Thanks!

Verizon_Support

Rachelg1988,

We are here to help solve this mystery and find out where the data usage is coming from! I personally have an iPhone, and love it. One thing I've found very helpful is to open your Settings>Cellular and scroll down to view how much data your apps are using. This will provide a huge clue as to what is causing the usage, and as an added benefit you'll be able to turn off the ability for each individual app to use data! Let us know if this helps!

SarahO_VZW

Follow us on Twitter @VZWSupport

unknown

This is partly an Apple problem, okay, I love my Apple gadgets, but they didn't prepare customers very well for IOS 7. I don't think IOS 7 was ready for release. There were many changes that caused battery, storage and data problems (just for starters)

Continue to check data use, consider adding the alert to your phone, it's free. Review how your phone is working regularly to avoid unpleasant surprises. Smart phones are mini computers, and they need a bit of service.

Longoria49

SarahO_VZW,

Unfortunately this is an unacceptable answer. As I stated in my original post, nothing about my schedule or life changed. My data usage just started going through the roof. Now that I focus on the timeline, my data started increasing after I did the upgrade to iOS 7. Additionally, disabling apps from using cellular data defeats the purpose of having a smart phone. Not using cellular data for apps just makes my phone a very expensive iPod.

Please note that since resetting my phone by restoring it, I no longer have this problem. This option needs to be the "go to" for tech support since the tickets get closed for no reason anyway. I am halfway thorough the billing cycle and have used 1.093G of data. This is indicative of my normal usage prior to iOS7.

I would still like a refund for the data that I was charged for erroneously.

Thank you.

rachelg1988

VZW - please acknowledge this is a different issue than you keep telling yourself and your customers. Especially be it can be such an easy fix! Help out your loyal customers who stay with you even though they could be paying significantly less by switching carriers. Is it bc you don't want to refund the erroneous overrage charges???

imscrewed

My problem started in November 2013 and is rapidly escalating! I've got news for you, it's more than an iPhone or "app" problem. I have had my Verizon wireless jet pack for 2.5 years. I have an original iPad, updated tp iOS 5, and an HP, PC laptop. I never used more than 4 gb a month. Last July I got 2 iPhones, a 4, which is updated to iOS 7, and a 4s, not updated. I increased my plan to 6 gb, share everything. First 4 months, I didn't use my allotted "6". In November I started getting data usage warnings and called for help. All I got was "sorry ma'am I'll make a note in your file". I was billed for 14 gb m/l. December, I went to the local outlet, and the same girl that so eagerly sold me the two iPhones said she couldn't help me and sent me back to the call center. I was told to increase my data plan to keep the expense of the bogus data to a minimum. I did that, and I was so worried, I barely used my equipment all month, and still consumed about 12 gb. In January, I went to an outlet store across town and talked to a young man that gave me the spill about "app" usage. He showed me how to turn off the apps. My January bill was for 14 gb. I was starting to notice that the overage was from my Hewlett Packard laptop, which doesn't support apps. I also took it to a Staples store where a certified tech checked it out. He said I should upgrade my Norton anti virus, which I did. (that cost me 4 gb) and didn't solve the problem. At the end of the month I was approaching an artist deadline which required uploading 4 pictures of my art, and I had no choice but to use the pc. It cost me 3.5 gb. Feb 8th, I had to restore my iPad using iCloud and of course, the pc. It took 27 minutes and cost me 3.5 gb. I am now 3 weeks into my billing cycle and have used 20 gb. I'm an older woman that doesn't do much but check my email, and enter the occasional art contest. I dont stream movies or music. BTW, my 2 iPhones combined don't go over 1 gb. and I have a land line. I've decided my only recourse is to pay the bogus bills so I don't get my credit ruined, end my wireless with Verizon and get cable Internet, and last but not least, I'm filing two complaints, one with the FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION, and one with FEDERAL TRADES COMMISSION. They both have websites for these things, and my understanding is that they are consumer advocates and our best recourse for these type of nightmarish problems.

Sith123

FYI

I posted above but the data killer under services is iTunes accounts, and no I don't use tunes on my phone and have it disabled. I don't use iCloud either (read on a post that it was the culprit). Other culprits are Push Notifications,Software Updates even though I have turned them off

Longoria49

Well......after the reset I did, all appears to be back to normal. My bill cycle closed out with 2.1G usage of data. I will certainly be monitoring my account VERY closely for irregular behavior.

I did end up getting usage credits even though the data overage was attributed to an "Apple issue". The high usage started shortly after my upgrade to iOS 7. I filed a complaint with the BBB and was contacted a few days later by Verizon corporate. I heard back yesterday and was provided a bill credit for my data overage.

I did not make ANY changes to my phone settings such as disabling cellular usage for certain apps or disabling Facebook because then I would not be using my phone the way I want which is what I pay for.

Good luck to the rest of you that have experienced this issue. The Verizon rep I spoke with stated that the Verizon support rep should have recommended that I call Apple as well.

Either way.......I am once again a satisfied customer.

Longoria49

Well.....the issue is back. I just added a 2nd phone to my account. iPhone 5c. The phone was added on April 9 (so less than 2 weeks ago) and I am nearing 6G of data on that line.

The phone is not used very much. It streams music a few times a day, watches the occasional YouTube video and checks a couple emails. Not even enough to warrant the 6G in less than 2 weeks.

I received the ominous "nearing data limit" a few days after adding the new phone so promptly did a reset as I had on my iPhone 5 since that resolved the issue. In this case that did not work.

I am not even wanting to waste my time on opening a ticket with Verizon since the last time the action was pointless.

Have there been any new developments/fixes for this issue?

This is getting REALLY exhausting!

Verizon_Support

I regret to learn that you are experiencing the same issues again. I would like to dig a bit deeper. Please send me a follow request so that we can look into this further.

Thank you,

LenaA_VZW

Follow us on Twitter @VZWSupport

Longoria49

What is a "follow request"? Also what information do you need to investigate this issue?

Verizon_Support

Thanks Longoria49. Lena A sent you a follow request, which you will need to accept to be able to send a direct message(DM).

JonathanK_VZW

VZWSupport

Follow Us on Twitter@VZWSupport

Mcrissinger

I am having the same problem. I just got off if the phone with a rep who called me a liar. They want to charge me $75 extra. I use wifi and I have turned my data off. I am so frustrated with this situation. Has anything helped you stop getting overages?

Longoria49

Well sadly this issue continues. Several Verizon reps have told me that I can look under the Cellular menu to see which apps are using the most data. So, I went into the menu and added up the usage. The bottom of the menu shows that my statistics were reset on 4/23 @ 8:38 PM. The menu also shows 3.6G usage for uninstalled apps but I do not know if the apps were uninstalled before or after my last reset.

I then went to the unbilled and billed usage on the Verizon website and added up those numbers from 4/23/2014-today. I was flabbergasted by the difference. Here is what I found out:

Combined Verizon.com Unbilled and Billed Data Usage 4/24/2014-5/7/2014	13.698575949 GB

Cellular Usage Menu - Reset 4/23/2014 @ 8:38 P	0.97426290387 GB
IF Uninstalled Apps were in that same window of time	3.6GB
Total used according to Cellular Menu on Phone (with uninstalled app(s))	4.57426290387 GB

Billed/Unbilled Data Unaccounted for	9.12431304513 GB!!!!!!!

I have now spoken to 12 different Verizon reps about this issue and am totally OVER IT! I filed a complaint with the BBB, State Attorney and FCC. I am hoping that they are able to assist in getting this travesty sorted out.

I have been a Verizon customer for 14 YEARS! The customer service that used to be the best is now horrible. I am tempted to jump ship to another carrier but in the long term that will not resolve my issue of sub-par service as that seems to be the norm these days.

Verizon..................This is an issue with SEVERAL customers!! Read the forums!! Stop blaming the iPhone and fix it. Even if it is an iPhone issue, take ownership! You sell the device!

I work in Tech support for a living. Our product supports many different other products and when one of my customers has an issue with another platform fix it! I don't send them packing to that other company.

If you are going to sell iPhones then take responsibility when it doesn't jive with the network or whatever.

Longoria49

Below is my synopsis of all the events that have occurred since my last post at the beginning of this thread:

On April 7th I called Verizon to activate a 2nd line on my account. At the time, I activated a flip phone just to get the number up and running. On April 9th I went to the Verizon store to change that phone into an iPhone 5c. By the end of that week I received a text that I was at 50% of my data usage and the new phone had only been active for 3 days. This second phone is being used by the same person that used it on 3**-5**-4*** and the historical usage may be verified on my account from Feb 2013-Oct 2013 and prior to that under our parents at 3**-5**-4***. You will see that neither phone has EVER had excessive usage. The phones TOGETHER have historically remained under 4G of usage.

I immediately recognized the issue and called Verizon (now the 6th time I have spoken to someone about this issue) changed to the 6G plan and asked for a credit based on my previous experience. That weekend, I backed up, erased and restored the phone hoping it would resolve the issue. I watched the data usage and it kept going up. I didn't even have the time or energy to contact Verizon again given my last experience with “tech support”. The experience is especially infuriating because I work in tech support for a living and know what good support consists of. I emailed Liz Navarrate but after a few days when I didn’t receive a response I called her. By that time I had done another backup and restore but it still did not resolve the issue. She said I should take the phone to the Verizon store and have it replaced since I was still within by 14 days guarantee.

I brought the phone to the 1633 6th Ave Seattle, WA 98101 Verizon store on April 23rd. After waiting about 30 minutes I spoke with a rep who I told about my entire previous experience. Quite frankly he didn't seem to care and suggested I turn off my cellular when on wi-fi and that an email might be stuck in the outbox. I had already explained that I didn’t want to turn off my cellular when on wi-fi so he obviously wasn't listening. He then said “one second” and went in the back. He came back out and handed me the phone saying his manager said that he couldn't exchange it. I had already explained that I was in there because I was instructed to come in by the Verizon corporate rep, Liz Navarrate. He shrugged and asked if I wanted to talk to his manager to which I said yes.

Caleb the store assistant manager then came out and started to tell me the cellular menu on my phone showed high usage. I then told him the above story which will make the 8th time I’ve told the story. I explained that I wasn't there because I wanted to be but because I was told to come in by the corporate rep. He then offered to check my account and said there weren't notes from her so that he could not exchange the phone because it wasn't defective. He went on to show me the high usage documented in the cellular menu and I AGAIN told him the entire story from above. Ultimately he ended up being nice but I really got nowhere. He suggested that I make the switch to Andrioid because Apple products were going downhill and proceeded to tell me all about the Verizon Edge plan which still doesn’t solve my issue.

A few days later I was able to get a hold of Liz and explained that the store manager refused to exchange my phone. She sighed heavily and explained that she didn’t understand why. I told her that he said there were no notes in the account. I guess the 2 divisions use different systems? Frankly I don’t care. Liz said she would “escalate” the issue and suggested that I take my phone to the Apple store. Again I am unsure this is a specific phone issue and ultimately I don’t have the time or the inclination to make a fruitless trip to the Apple store. To talk to a rep at the Apple store, I need to make an apt and again I might or might not be able to exchange my phone.

I tried for a few days to get a hold of Liz and her voice mail is full. I tried to email and got no response. It has been over a week since I spoke to someone about this rapidly escalating issue. My bill has now been released and the data overages are $100. Still unable to reach Liz, I called Verizon and asked for a manger. I spoke at length with Victoria Walker explaining the issue AGAIN (10th time) and she committed to calling my partner around 10am PST to further troubleshoot with her phone. My partner never heard from Victoria or anyone. I emailed Victoria and called customer service and never got anywhere.

I sent Verizon a message on their Facebook because I thought that might be a good forum.

Again I was contacted by someone rather sympathetic who "PROMISED" to look into my issue. When I sent the above information to them I got a canned response back that said:

Yasmin, thank you for the update. In reviewing your account there are a number of issues to cover. First, is your 1192 line still experiencing problems? I don't see the behavior that you described since the beginning of your current billing cycle on April 29. I looked at the line itself and noticed that peak episodes of data usage tended to occur on weekends and evenings. The two highest connections were 467MB on 04/18/2014 7:25:53 PM and 432MB on 04/09/2014 9:22:20 PM. Those two events consumed nearly 1GB of data and we need to discuss what was happening and to confirm the phone's settings. I am presuming that Wi-Fi was to have been active then, but we will still need to confirm it. We have made attempts to reach Karola to troubleshoot the device but have not been able to make contact. Please have Karola contact us by dialing *611 when convenient if the problem persists. Regarding the bill itself, When you switched to the 6GB plan in anticipation of overage, the change was not able to be backdated to the beginning of your billing cycle. This is not unusual when a new device is activated. The impact of this limitation is that you would not have access to the full 6GB of data, only 3.87GB to be precise. This resulted in 5.5GB of overage charges totaling $90. I am willing to adjust your bill to reflect the full 6GB and issue a $30 credit. Let me know what you decide. – Ron

Please note that no one ever “reached out” the phone never rang. So this again is failure to follow through.

The issue occurred again last night 5/4 while we were home on wifi and not really even using the phone. 3.75 of data in a few hours. Per an article I found online, in order to use 2G of data a phone needs to do one of the following which is why I know it’s a phone issue:

send 86 million emails without attachments or 4 million with attachments.
82 hours of streaming music
post 5,200 photos to a social media site
17-hours of a standard video stream
7-hours of streaming HD video
download around 500 songs or apps

I need this issue resolved as soon as possible. At this point the only acceptable options will be to restore our unlimited data plan which was revoked last year, give us high data limit at the lower cost or let us out of the contract with no early termination fees.

The data overage issue is extremely prevalent on the Verizon forums and also on the Apple forums. The fact that the phone might or might not be functioning as expected should not be a headache I as the customer has to deal with. Verizon keeps passing the buck and meanwhile customers are not being helped.

I need an acceptable solution immediately. My family has been customers of Verizon for a long time and we would like to maintain our accounts, but if this is not resolved in a timely and acceptable manner, I will be forced to take my business elsewhere and encourage my family to do the same. We have 5 lines between us.

Longoria49

Not yet :smileysad: This is getting REALLY old.

Jakeman1

I got my son an iPhone 5S and in the first week he had gone through 1 GB of data just in setting up his phone. I went into settings and shut off Cellular Data except for the necessities (Text, email, gps, contacts, weather and let everything else sync or update on Wifi only. The difference this made was huge. He went from being on track to using 5-6 GB in a month to using 196 MB 14 days into the billing cycle.

toad97

Hi - were you able to finally resolve this issue? I've been having similar problems with data overages that don't make sense.

I upgraded my iphone in Jan from the 4 to the 5s and increased my data plan from 4G to 6G. When I had the 4G plan, we had 5 phones, some of which were still on the unlimited data plan that Verizon used to offer. The 4G was ample data and we never went over. Within less then a month of switching to the 5s and increasing the data allowance, I was getting alerts indicating that I was almost at the max usage of my 6G. Furthermore, when I looked at the data usage, it appeared that we were using data at the weirdest times, when we were either asleep, at home on wifi. I posted on this forum and a Verizon rep recommended that I message them directly, which I didn't. I figured I'd continue to monitor the data usage and alter everyone on my account that they needed to be aware and make sure they were using wifi as often as possible. We didn't have any data issues until recently, when we actually went over the 6G, and again the usage appears to be at odd times of the day/night.

The thing that kills me is that the way we use the phones hasn't changed since we upgraded, or even before the upgrade when we were only using 4G. In fact, when I upgraded to 6G, I didn't even tell anyone else on the plan b/c I didn't want to encourage over usage with the extra 2G. Even more strange is that in the past month when we did actually go over our 6G allowance, one of the smart phones had dropped off my account, so technically there should have been LESS usage not more.

I'm replying to your original post b/c I just wondered where you are in your saga and what has worked for you in getting your issue resolved (if anything).

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