Hopefully some of you may have gotten your issues resolved. I figured I would post my story here as it may be help to aid in the final result/possible suit against Verizon Wireless. So lets begin...
I am currently using the MiFi Jetpack 4G LTE. I am a natural/gas oilfield worker that has to email, send reports, and sometimes entertain myself for hours. I am also an avid video game player, simply because some nights at work that is all there is to do.
Here is where the trouble begins. From day one I have been monitoring my usage on this thing like a hawk. My first bill, was normal, started out with 8gigs, ended up bumping to 20gb figuring this limit would be more than enough. To my surprise, about every 10-15 minutes I started to receive overage messages via text message/message on my data card. Not one, not two, but sometimes up to 8-9 within a span of 5 minutes. Fishy right?
Well lets start by saying, I pay for top tier FiOS at my house as well. Being a tech nerd, I watch my data usage there as well. I pay the max amount you can pay, for the highest amount of speed you can receive in FiOS. I have had this connection for over a year now, and in my years worth of use I have NEVER...EVER been able to download 7-8gbs worth of data in Five minutes.
Pictured above is Verizons detailed data useage for my account. From 8:02 PM to 8:07 PM my MiFi card had somehow downloaded 7.6gbs. This is when I began to question verizon. So I began to call.
Here is where thing's got interesting. Upon calling and questioning this, I asked their tech support if it was possible for me to download a movie around (8gbs) on their top tier FiOS in under 10 minutes? The tech support rep, simply laughed and said no. So I continued to ask him how my 4g LTE MiFi was capable of such a thing. He responded it isn't. But it is displayed on my bill?
So I asked to be transfered to a supervisor. This is when things got extra hairy. My bill currently sits well over $1000 due to overages. I had asked this supervisor to take a look at my detailed billing from last month. With the information sitting in front of me I asked him how much data I had used last month. He responded, "7gbs". However, there was an unbilled charge for 18 extra GB's that would be added to this month (11/07/12) bill that had occured during that billing process. I asked him how this is possible and this was one of his answers.
"Your 4G LTE MiFi card will search for the nearest tower to give you the best reception. This tower maybe a Sprint, AT&T, RIM, T-Mobile etc...There data maybe received faster, or slower, and may use more data when connecting to these outside towers. So the 18GB of unbilled charges, were because your MiFi card connected to a tower that was not Verizon and they had billed us late, so we would just add that to your next bill."
Ok Verizon so now, you are telling us you are hiding charges and randomly applying them to bills you deem fit? ALSO, if I am paying for Verizon service, despite the lack of Verizon towers I EXPECT to be paying Verizon. Still not convinced I had used 18GB's worth of data in a few days I continued to dig deeper.
I logged into my Verizon account and begin to check my jetpack bill. (pictured below)
According to Verizon Currently I am over 8.301 GBs on my data package. No big deal. 8gb at $15 per gb, That is $120 + tax. The ball hasn't stopped rolling. I did the math, with my Jetpack costing me 120-150 a month. Thats almost a $300 bill. No biggy, but currently my bill is displaying I owe over $1000. So I began to check out a detail break down of my billing with all my lines. Maybe someone else on my family plan did something and caused a major amount of overages.
Well, well, well..What do we have here? So According to my individual breakdown on my MiFi card as pictured above I had only went over 8gbs. But on my bill I have to pay the unbilled 18gb from another random tower that doubled my usage, and now all of a sudden im paying for an extra 7gbs.
With all of this going on, I kept my cool, I wanted to get to the bottom of the data numbers. So I started last night to play World of Warcraft on my data card. Keep in mind, this is what I do every single day I am in the field. So I monitored my usage from 6:16 PM to 3:49 AM the next day. (pictured below)
These are my numbers in GB features. From 6:16pm to 3:49am I played World of Warcraft straight, and managed to only use a little bit under a half of a gig. Knowing this is a normal occurence for me I began to question how in the heck I am having 30-40gb of overages a month.
So I began calling. BOY did this cause me to take a Xanax. I attested my issues, and spoke with 5 technical support advisors. I spoke with 5 customer service representatives, and 4 supervisors, and 2 billing department specialists. Not one of them could explain how in the world I only use roughly .50gb to .60gb a day, but I am managing to receive 30gbs worth of overages in 10 days.
I spent roughly 5 hours on the phone trying to have this explained to me and where this extra 30gbs were coming from and why I am paying for them. The only tech that was able to help was the one I had quoted above.
In which some of his final words were, "We just receive numbers, and we charge you for them."
I will put this in bold...
VERIZON ADDRESS THIS ISSUE. YOU ARE SCAMMING LOYAL CUSTOMERS FOR HUNDREDS OF DOLLARS AND NONE OF YOUR EMPLOYEES, SUPERVISORS, OR SUPPORT GUYS CAN EXPLAIN WHY US MIFI USERS ARE BEING CHARGED ASTRONOMICAL FEES FOR DATA OVERAGE WHEN THEY ARE QUESTIONED ABOUT WHERE THE OTHER RANDOM GBS OF DATA ARE COMING FROM. YOU SAY THIS IS A PRIVACY ISSUE, AND WE CANNOT INVADE YOUR PRIVACY AND MONITOR WHICH WEBSITES THE DATA IS COMING FROM AND SUCH. UNDERSTANDABLE.
However, you are charging some of us for data that wasn't even used or was used against our will. How could, who sits in the woods on a drilling rig, with 1 bar of service from my MiFi card manage to download 18gbs worth of data in a day, let alone a few hours.
This cannot be let to rest, this needs to hit the courts. Verizon, you need to be sued. It is plain and simple. You are simply frauds.
commonsense101 wrote:
"data confuses me. and my bill be high. fix it verizon"
"I only watch Netflix 6 hours a day. No way that uses more than 5 GB a month. Obviously Verizon is committing fraud! 
"
