mifi data theft, fraud by verizon class action lawsuit 2012

[pzedoffatverizon]

i think its high time, mifi and verizon data customers start compiling the necessary information (which i have already gathered for my own case) and start organizing a lawsuit against verizon for deceptive marketing , fraud(wire fraud), theft(interception) of data(e.g. the mysterious 3gb per month data overages experienced by numerous customers. anyone who has anything to add please feel free, lets use this opportunity to narrow down this issue and get some results.....time for verizon to open its wallet i personally am tired of being stolen from and im tired of paying $270.00 a month for a crap connection and crap reception with 7kbps transfer rate. 1 phone and one mifi device.

[BenDover]

Here is my situation.

I switched service from AT&T to Verizon on 10/22, traded up to iPhone 4S, & bought Verizon Jetpack broadband for internet. I signed up for 4 GB data. I received an e-mail on 10/29 (7 days later) that I had used over half my data, 2.389GB.

My AT&T plan gave 200MB data and in two years I only went over 2 times, minor amount.

I'm 72 y/o Retiree, don't stream music or videos, only use e-mails & facebook to keep up with our family, & read google news on my homepage.  After signing up, I installed Thunderbird for e-mail and that was the only download and should only be 2-300MB. So what's the deal with Verizon ?? I'm reading all the posts re. over data usage and that's scary because I'm just starting a 2 yr. contract.

I could turn off my desktop and laptop as well as the broadband modem each night (Very inconvenient) if that will help. My Jetpack is password protected.

I called customer support (not really helpful) and he looked at my usage printout. One big usage was between 10:30PM and 4:30AM. We are retirees so we are not awake during that time. I have turned off automatic updates & now unplug the Jetpack, turn off both computers and iPhone. Last check, I've used 3.5 GB of 4GB plan in 2 weeks.Question: If I am doing the very same things I did for 2 yrs with AT&T (updates, etc. etc.) & got by with 200 MB per month, why am I suddenly burning through 4 GB plus per month with Verizon ?? Am I to blame or Verizon ?

[evdotech]

I came to my own conclusion last time, Again just a theory, However something similar happen to me when I switched over to a LTE in the first 2 weeks I had consumed 5GB, keep in mind I have comcast at home so I only use my aircard as a backup for traveling or failover, however I was thinking because Verizon doesn't assign you a Static IP address unless you fork over $500 bucks, I wonder if the next Dynamic IP address that cycles through your modem you are getting someone else's data usage with that IP address? 

Verizon Wireless Billing system has a 72 hour delay in some instances for reporting data usage,  longer if your roaming it can take up to 30 days.

[John_Getzke]

We all would hope that VZW does not bill according to IP address but instead by SIM card hardware ID.  Thats supposed to be the point of a SIM card network from my understanding.  SIM cards are the only truely unique identifier on the LTE network.  Even the IMEI numbers on these devices are prone to change on the VZW website over time as I have recently discovered. 

We can only speculate at this point.  Fraud and theft suggest intent and knowledge of the crime at hand.  An accounting error or mistake is something else entirely and should be correctable once identified.  Hopefully boboko will post back his results.

[tonyad11]

I am on board! This started for me at the end of December 2011.
I have had the device for over a year prior and never reached 50% data usage
per month. Now, by the 4th day of the cycle I received notices that I am at 75%
usage and 2 days later I have exceeded my usage. In January I receive a $1,200
bill (which is normally $280 for all devices), and when I called to inquire
about something being wrong, I was told by Verizon that there was nothing they
could do. I even went out of town for 2 weeks and turned it completely off and somehow
it used 75% data during that time period. This is a scam…and Verizon needs to
own up to this and correct this issue immediately!

[Walnutwood]

I have to call them every month to have data charges removed from my cell bill; I have  Data blocked; thieves, there should be a  thorough investigation into Verizon's tactics.

[pzedoffatverizon]

i absolutely agree, i was told by verizon customer support that i was the ONLY person who reported these issues, also was told there was a parent ticket where more than 50 thousand complaints were issued  on the subject.....

[pzedoffatverizon]

i was told by verizon techs unless the battery was removed there could still be data transfer also there is an 80 page report by the department of justice detailing data breaches via verizons data network, also since im not an electronics expert i dont quite know how to explain it but one of the 3 devices i had to return actually functioned for several hours with the battery removed! the screen and the led remained on!

[John_Getzke]

pzedoffatverizon wrote:

i was told by verizon techs unless the battery was removed there could still be data transfer also there is an 80 page report by the department of justice detailing data breaches via verizons data network, also since im not an electronics expert i dont quite know how to explain it but one of the 3 devices i had to return actually functioned for several hours with the battery removed! the screen and the led remained on!

Assuming we are still talking about the MiFi 4510L:

The MiFi 4510L uses an E-Ink display.  The great benfit of E-Ink is that it does not require power to provide an image.  This is why E-Ink was originally designed to work with E-Readers like the non-color/non-tablet Nook and Kindle.  You can go for days on a single charge where a similar color tablet can only go for hours due to normal power consumption habits of that technology.  E-Ink is also easier on the eyes because it does not require a backlight to view where as a LCD/LED screen does.

You can easily reporduce this feature by pulling the battery on a MiFi while it is booted up.  The screen will freeze and remain frozen for a long time until either the battery is reinserted or the device rebooted.

For more info on E-Ink:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E_Ink

[pzedoffatverizon]

agreed , upon further study of the mifi4510l i concur the elink display is inherently flawed.

[John_Getzke]

Pz,

I don't think flawed is the best word for describing E-Ink.  The technology is doing exactly what it was created to do.  However, when E-Ink is applied to these devices the result is decieving or misleading according to what our expectations are as users.

The new MiFi 4620 uses an OLED screen instead of E-Ink.  I havent had a chance to read up on OLED yet but I assume it does not behave the same way as E-Ink.  Perhaps Novatel came to the same conclusion that E-Ink was not the best solution for these devices afterall.

[wyldblu]

I had this same problem - thing wouldn't turn off until I completely removed the battery and card, etc.

[Ed_M]

I also am curious about this.   The last few days I have been jumping leaps and bounds and what’s funny is my download speed is pathetic.   How could somebody use my data if they don’t use my Mifi?  I’m a bit perplexed…I will be over my 10gb this month and my norm is 6-7. 

[commonsense101]

--------->malware/virus<--------

computer program updates

windows updates

netflix

weak password getting cracked

the mifi isn't ment as a home internet like a cable or dsl, its ment for travel and on the go mostly..

[pzedoffatverizon]

mifis dynamic ip is actually harder to breach.......

[pzedoffatverizon]

your experiencing the 3 gb data theft event lol welcome to the club!

[kellieh]

Can someone explain to me how I can view my data usage for a past date today and when I look at the same date a few days from now there will be additional data. Customer support were adamant that the data usage details come directly from my device so I commented that my device must be saving usage and sending it to Verizon arbitrarily to which I was met with silence on the line.

Here's an example - on 4/1 I checked my data usage details for the date of 3/21 and it looked like this:

03/21/12	08:43:00 PM	0.02518
03/21/12	09:17:00 AM	0.01475
03/21/12	07:20:00 AM	0.01730

then on 4/7 when I checked my data usage details for the date 3/21 it looked like this:

03/21/12	11:45:00 PM	1.15382
03/21/12	11:38:00 PM	0.24853
03/21/12	08:43:00 PM	0.02518
03/21/12	07:50:00 PM	1.03191
03/21/12	06:55:00 PM	1.18499
03/21/12	06:10:00 PM	1.03968
03/21/12	09:17:00 AM	0.01475
03/21/12	07:20:00 AM	0.01730

The red rows have been added between 4/1 & 4/7, but where did they come from? This is just one example, it's happening all over my bill and Verizon cannot justify the anomaly and certainly won't consider removing the $40 in overage charges I have this month. Which brings up another question, why doesn't Verizon offer more than 10GB for the mifi? If I want to use more data and am willing to pay for it, I have to go to another provider?

[commonsense101]

kellieh wrote:

If I want to use more data and am willing to pay for it, I have to go to another provider?

yes

[pzedoffatverizon]

awesome presentation of evidence! i would remind everyone to also look around in the account usage details via the website account. ive found some shady stuff going on ! the info goes  by calender date and mine goes from january 2012 to feb and then back to january!

[traytrips]

CANT SEE MY ACCOUNT USAGE ON MY PAGE

[MrElvey]

1. There's some confusion about how class actions work.  Class members don't pay the lawyers.  All that's needed to get things started is for one class member to convince one attorney to file a case on behalf of the class, using the member as a class rep.  The attorney (the attorney's law firm) takes on the risk of not getting paid.  Of course, the attorney won't do that unless there's a strong case with lots of class members, and a defendant with deep pockets.  The last two of these three are probably no problem in this case.
2. I think I read all the posts, and none of them demonstrated an awareness of automatic software updates.  Many operating systems and apps these days will automatically download and install updates.  I see no clear indication of who's keeping what logs - with one exception - kellieh - but as I said, all that's needed is for one class member to convince one attorney to file a case. Lots of class members all providing a consistent story is helpful for convincing attorneys that the problem is real, but it's not strictly necessary.
   *IANAL*
3. I have tons of archived evidence (PDFs, saved HTML, web archives, and screen shots showing that the Verizon Wireless Account Analysis has not been working, and account logs and posts here showing that I complained about it, and written requests for them to provide the Verizon Wireless Account Analysis feature as advertised.)  If I ever do go over, they're not going to get paid by me voluntarily, and I'd say they're likely to shoot themselves in the foot if they try to force me to pay using the legal system, as I have gobs of evidence that they haven't provided the service they've been billing me for for the past year that I'm happy to dump on the FCC and or into court records or on the web to make or defend an arbitration claim. Anyone want to buy some good legal exhibits?

[Skyemama]

My husband and I are using the MiFi Mobile 4510L hotspot for home internet use, because we are in a rural area with no other options other than dial-up.  It has been working flawlessly for about a year; we have the 5G plan and have consistently used only about 2+G per month during this time.  We don't download anything like movies or other big files.  All we do is surf the Web, maybe download an occasional product manual or something of that nature.  However, on Monday of this week we noticed that our usage was at 90% with 4 days to go in the month.  We didn't think that much about it at the time, but we made sure to turn off everything that night.  By the next morning we were already over our limit - how did that happen?  I just looked at the usage again (today is the last day of the billing month) and discovered that we downloaded over 1.5G on May 1!   Our computer locks up when you even try to download a SMALL file.  I too have noticed that even when the device is unplugged and turned off it will turn itself on again in a few minutes.  You shouldn't have to take a battery out of something to get it to turn off.  We as yet have not contacted Verizon regarding this, but are waiting until tomorrow to see what they actually try to charge us.  I had no idea that there were so many people with this issue until I looked at this forum.  If you just go to Google and try to find anyone with this problem, you basically find nothing about it other than all Verizon sites touting their wares...