Deployment suspension

[Bambidoeeyes]

Verizon has tried to charge us almost $2,000 for international fees after they failed to complete my husband’s request to have his line suspended when he deployed. We spoke with a very nice lady on the phone for almost 2 hours, thinking the issue was resolved after being told we’d be getting a credit for $1600 only to have it be denied days later. A supervisor called to tell us that they could only assist with half of this payment, still leaving us responsible for a hefty $800 which is still way more than we can afford. I’m so upset, my husband is deployed and I have 2 children to feed among other bills to pay and Verizon has dropped this bill on us and they don’t care at all. We never ever would have deliberately ran up a bill that high. We spent a whole month talking on the phone thinking we were on WiFi all the while not knowing Verizon never suspended my husbands line. Now they only want to take PARTIAL responsibility and it seems as if they are trying to put us in debt. Now because of them we are in a financial hardship. Deployments are hard enough with having to be stressed about finances. 

[vzw_customer_support]

We will never intentionally hurt you. We appreciate your service and would like to take a closer look to your situation. Please check the Private Note we will be sending you in a minute.

[militarymom33]

I can totally relate to this experience. Verizon cares NOTHING about its troops.  My son is active duty military on my plan and I am a LONG time customer.  He deployed several months ago and because Verizon has no affordable options for international plans, he had to use another carrier.  They cancelled his line and demanded the device payment balance up front in one lump sum.  I called and explained - they do not care.  It's "policy".  They could have easily made an exception or transferred the device payments to my line but no.  TOO BAD SOLDIER pay up now.  So, I help him out and pay most of it and then set up a plan to pay the rest of it IN TWO WEEKS when he gets his next paycheck.  It was two hundred dollars and I asked for two weeks, not a huge deal right? Nope, they put my account in collection and charged me a late fee.  Tried to straighten that out this morning.  Spent almost two hours on the phone and chat supposed to get call back from a manager at 10:30 and customer support an hour later to check to make sure manager called.  Would any of you be surprised to learn I got neither call back.  I am completely disgusted with how they have treated a soldier deployed at Christmas and during a pandemic.  They care NOTHING for soldiers or their families, only about their money.  Thank your husband for his service and sacrifice and god bless. 

[vzw_customer_support]

Verizon takes protecting our customer’s personal and account information very seriously. Since we will need account-specific details from you, we’ve sent you  a Private Message on this topic:

http://spr.ly/6608HXPAY

RobertC_VZW

[ethanwms]

I have the same problem.  I feel very betrayed by Verizon. Been a loyal customer of theirs for more than 10 years, and this is my first deployment.  Lo and behold Verizon takes this opportunity to charge me almost $1,000 before I figured out that there was some kind of error and disconnected my SIM card.  Hopefully that fixed it but who knows?  I'm seriously considering switching to Google Fi instead,  and I'll probably advise others to do the same.  This might need to be published for the entire military. This kind of thing can't happen. 

[vzw_customer_support]

ethanwms,

Thank you so much for your ten years of loyalty and for your service to our country. We want to make sure when you are out of the country everything is set up the way you need it to be. That's crucial. Just removing your SIM card won't fix the underlying issue which would be that the service is still active. In the short term it could stop ongoing charges but that's not the permanent solution. If you're deployed outside the country we'd want to help get a military suspension set up so you don't have to worry about charges. I've sent you a private message so we can get more details and fully assist you. -Andrew