I've had my family of 5 with Verizon for 6 years, and up until recently have been happy with the service and the billing. In December, I hesitantly upgraded several of our phones on their Free Phone Promotion (I paid the tax and activation fees), but I say hesitantly because I didn't want any changes made to our existing service plan or pricing. I also added a 6th line at that time as well as a jetpack, so I of course knew that my bill would go up for that additional line and Jetpack charge, and we agreed on the price of increase. I was assured over and over again that the plan/bill for the original 5 lines would stay the same, and that the new total (with the additional 6th line and jetpack) would remain the same with no changes or increases. In fact, it took me 4 phone calls going over the details with various agents before I committed to this change, because I didn't want to jeopardize my current plan, or be baited and switched.
Needless to say, three months in my bill went up by 16%. I immediately called customer service to dispute this increase, which led to a series of extremely frustrating conversations with agents who were barely understandable, and broken promises of never-returned phone calls from escalation managers, and hours upon hours of time wasted on the phone, starting over each time with a new agent. I was told that "Although I was promised in December that my bill would not go up, 'Management' had a meeting since that time, and decided that bills WOULD unfortunately go up--and they couldn't possibly have known in December what would transpire in February..."
This is the very reason that Verizon applies credits for phones on a monthly basis rather than all-at-once, because if you decide to cancel your account mid-contract, then you owe the balance of the phone cost without the applied credits. However, IMO, this is all part of a premeditated plan by Verizon to offer a "Free Phone" to customers, then increase their rates so you end up paying for the phone in the end. This blatant self-serving manipulation of client trust is a clear violation of Antitrust Laws, and it's clear that Verizon thinks that their customer-base will have no choice but to pay it or risk losing service--and many will. However, the truth is that we actually many choices of responses to these criminal business practices.
Is anyone else is experiencing this same level of dishonesty from Verizon?
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