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Financial Hardship and Reconnect Fees

So I know we are to blame for the situation that we are currently in, but it is beyond our control. We have a 12 year old son that is currently in kidney failure. We have been making regular trips every week to the children's hospital for the last 6 months for 3-4 days at a time. We have had Verizon service for many many years. Of course with the time that my husband and I have to take off work we are struggling financially at this point. We have had over $700 in reconnect fees within the last 3 months due to the fact that I can only get a paper check from my work and some weeks I could not pick it up in time for my payment arrangement and deposit it into our account because we are over 2 hours away from home. We are paying as much as we can each month because we have to have our phones for doctor's calls, etc, but we keep getting bills that are well over $1000 each month due to all the fees. I just need to know if anyone else has had any experience with an enormous amount of reconnect fees and how was it handled? At this point I may just have to get phones somewhere else and I do not want to do that.

Comments

Doggo

That math doesn't check out...

An agent with a kind heart can sometimes go above and beyond to get you caught up, but not $700. That's several months worth of service for the majority of users. A reconnect fee is $20 per line. Three lines puts you at $60 - 3 months is $120.

If we divided 700 by 60, this gets us 11.66 - there is absolutely no way you have nearly a years worth of reconnect fees and still have service.

SHOOPER0221

Actually we have 5 lines and we had 6 at one point. We got rid of one line as soon as we had the chance. Our kids have cheap phones but they’re in high school and have to have phones because we are out of town so much. We had 3 reconnects in October, 2 in November, and 2 in December. I have the bills to prove all this. I would never make something like this up. I just needed advice not criticism. Like I said, I know we got ourselves in this situation.

SHOOPER0221

I’m sorry we have 7 lines and did have 8. I forgot to include my phone and my husband’s. We have 6 kids combined. He had 3 when we got married and I had 3. We have custody of all of them.

Verizon_Support

SHOOPER0221,

We know it's important to be able to stay connected when you have a family member who isn't doing well. It's our hope for things to improve really soon for your son. We certainly understand that circumstances change and can have an impact on your ability to make payments towards your account. Reconnection fees can add up quickly, so we get that having multiple lines and being interrupted more than once within a month makes a difference. The good thing is that we provide the option to make payment arrangements with our Financial Services Team to help prevent unexpected service interruption and unwanted fees. In most cases arrangements can be made right from your My Verizon account using the steps shown on this link https://www.verizonwireless.com/support/set-up-payment-arrangements/. You may also make arrangements by phone at 866-266-1445, but keep in mind that arrangements made with the assistance of a representative are subject to a $7 agent assist fee.

ShawnteJ_VZW
Follow us on TWITTER @VZWSupport
If my response answered your question please click the _Correct Answer_ button under my response. This ensures others can benefit from our conversation. Thanks in advance for your help with this!!

Piscestg

Suggestion: If the kids aren't old enough to pay for their service you could suspend some of those lines. Verizon won't provide all that service for nothing.

BHENDERSON28nash

The assumption that they will only disconnect once per month is incorrect. We have $180 of reconnect fees since 1/12/19. To break it down, we have 3 lines and were disconnected 3 times. To date we have paid more than $1070 to Verizon since 1/1/19 to try to get current (thank goodness for tax refunds!!). We are $133 away from being current (for the bill due 3/1 which technically shouldn’t be a foundation for disconnect in my opinion since it’s currently only 11 days late) but they disconnected us 3 times from 1/11/19 and 2/18/19. We are trying to get current but the suspense/reconnect fees are completely at the whim of the company. If you can find where they are limited to one reconnect fee per month, I’d like to see it!!

BHENDERSON28nash

Additional side note: the last $133 is scheduled to be paid this Friday. I realize beyond any doubt that we have been behind, due to an unexpected job change beyond our control. But this feels more like bill padding. Cut offs every week or every other week just to add $20/line per bill for each cut off? That could amount to $240 per month (for us) but I’m guessing they cap the reconnect fees at the amount of your bill...

Momma23dogs

@BHENDERSON28nash
wrote:
The assumption that they will only disconnect once per month is incorrect. We have $180 of reconnect fees since 1/12/19. To break it down, we have 3 lines and were disconnected 3 times. To date we have paid more than $1070 to Verizon since 1/1/19 to try to get current (thank goodness for tax refunds!!). We are $133 away from being current (for the bill due 3/1 which technically shouldn’t be a foundation for disconnect in my opinion since it’s currently only 11 days late) but they disconnected us 3 times from 1/11/19 and 2/18/19. We are trying to get current but the suspense/reconnect fees are completely at the whim of the company. If you can find where they are limited to one reconnect fee per month, I’d like to see it!!

The question is, why on earth you are reconnecting, only to again be disconnected, if you cannot pay the amounts due? (All amounts due). That’s your answer to not getting multiple reconnect fees.

AT&T and prepaid are looking better right now. Prepaid is simple, you pay, it works for a month. And you’re only paying for service, not expensive phones as you have to buy them up front. AT&T requires a $0 balance once suspended in order to reconnect, so you don’t have multiple reconnect fees (just one).

Somewhere in here is a lesson in financial responsibility.

Momma23dogs

BTW, I have 5 lines and with a 22% discount, 20 gigs, $15 line fees, my bill is $168. We do not use installments, but purchase new phones once a year at full price and sell the older ones.

Tootz1982

Im going through the same exact thing with Verizon right now. I just received our new bill for the month, and it's almost 7 hundred dollars. Im so disgusted with Verizon at this point, pre-paid service is looking pretty good right about now. They charged me 3 reconnect fees in one month on every one of my lines and I have 5 phones and 2 watches. I made a payment arrangement and I paid the second payment early and since I paid the second payment early and not on the day I set it up for, they disconnected all of my devices. When I called in to see why I was cut off again, they said I have to pay on the days I set it up for or the system will disconnect me, they have no control over it. You have got to be kidding me with that garbage they even charged me a 40 dollar unlimited charge on both my watches and it should only be 10 bucks. It's ridiculous!!!!!

boringusername

@Tootz1982
wrote:
Im going through the same exact thing with Verizon right now. I just received our new bill for the month, and it's almost 7 hundred dollars. Im so disgusted with Verizon at this point, pre-paid service is looking pretty good right about now. They charged me 3 reconnect fees in one month on every one of my lines and I have 5 phones and 2 watches. I made a payment arrangement and I paid the second payment early and since I paid the second payment early and not on the day I set it up for, they disconnected all of my devices. When I called in to see why I was cut off again, they said I have to pay on the days I set it up for or the system will disconnect me, they have no control over it. You have got to be kidding me with that garbage they even charged me a 40 dollar unlimited charge on both my watches and it should only be 10 bucks. It's ridiculous!!!!!

if you lines were disconnect then yes you will have reconnect fees. You're lines got disconnected because you did not pay. Yet VERIZON is the bad guy? If you think any other carrier will not charge reconnect fees then you're very naive. Also you got 5 lines and 2 watches. And I assume you are making payments of the top of the lines phones adnd you wonder why you have a $700 bill? Snartwatches are usless. Not worth the money,

shanoniphone

I have a very similar situation with being over charged massive amounts for similar reasons to you, I’m so sorry about you son! I hope he gets well ASAP! And I’m sorry you are dealing with added garbage stress and worries while your family is overwhelmed and dealing with a major life trauma and financial devastation! like I am also stressed over Verizon bills constantly too). In my case our financial devastation is a result of serious injuries (multiple broken bones etc) sustained in a head on car accident, both my husband and I fractured our hips/pelvis and we were both out of work for a year, we both couldnt walk and couldn’t work, we both also had multiple other injuries, fractured ribs, several herniated discs fractured dislocated thumb, injured tail bone, etc, we were a mess and we still are a mess physically mentally and of course financially devastated beyond imagination! And I explained this to countless people at Verizon and I literally spend a few hours on the phone calling the every month for nearly 6 months now! Well at this point by the time our mid November bill is paid we will have accumulated nearly $3,000 in extra fees for reconnections, late fees, and of course there’s the new added $7 fees every time 𝚈𝚘𝚞𝚛 forced to call and pay on the phone or make payment promises and arrangements etc, those 7 buck fees add up very fast too! Long story but it all started 5-6 months ago when they applied our $464 payment to another customers bill! That’s right they literally messed up up and paid someone else’s bill! And they made me pay that same bill twice which I have since never seen that money yet while I’m continuing to disputed it with the credit card co since Verizon flat out refuses to give us back our money and they admitted this mistake happened multiple times and yet continue to refuse to acknowledge that they owe me this money as well as the huge collection of fees including reconnnection fees that they dunoedvon my account! I have called countless times! Literally lost count months ago & I can barely find the time or energy to deal with that mess because we also had to move our family of 4 while this was unfolding and it’s been very overwhelming which I bet is why your family didn’t realize you were also accumulating such a huge bulk because 𝚈𝚘𝚞𝚛 too overwhelmed and devastated financially and emotionally while trying to care for your child and his illness! They don’t care tho, don’t care about nothing but getting that extra money and continuing to add more fees, it’s very hard to explain but this unfolded for me with repeated disconnections because I kept attempting to get a supervisor in the phone before giving them hundreds more each month and with us going through so much distress and being so overwhelmed we keep forgetting to make these calls till last min then boom we’re shut off again and again and when I explain that I resisted paying because I want my $464 back as well as all the extra fees, they simply don’t care, then they decided to punish me for their mistake and they cut off my account from making online payments or phone payments, so now the last 3 or 4 months I’m required too go into a Verizon store to make cash payments and every time I’m supposed to pay I completely forget because I’m overwhelmed and so busy I don’t remember this new punishment style of paying and it’s extreneky inconvenient to drive to their stire to pay between specific store hours when we normally do bill payments online after 10-11pm so that’s when I remember to pay on the final due date and then I go online to pay and the system won’t allowbut and instructs me to pay in a store and by the time I can get to the store the next day it’s too late we get shut down again, and I get down as much as twice each month (4 phones) because I forget every single time that I’m punished fir their mistake so I can’t oay online. Then I finally pushed a lot harder when it hit over 1500 in extra fees and they had me on the phone 1-2 hours and all they offered was 200-250 off my bill and then the call conveniently dropped just before they diminished the deal with refunding the money and I called back again and they woman claimed it did go through and was showing in my account before the call ebddd but then of course just befire the second woman finished the call conveniently drops a second time, a bit fishy if you ask me! Now I call a third time and I’m upset and the man I git also said it’s there in my account that I’m getting 200-250 refunded, can’t renember how much but the end result was no refund at all, not a dime is showing as a refund on my account the bill only goes up up up it never goes down, it’s akways near $1,000! They are literally charging us over 4 times more than our total bill should even be! I don’t know what to do either I’m very upset we are financially devastated right now and Verizon contributed to settingvus back even more financially! I finally tried to calculate exactly what they robbed us for and it’s very difficult to even see it all on the bills but I calculated about $2,000 more than it should have been for normal bills over a 5 month period and we still owe almost $1,000 so by the middlebif this month we will have paid about $3,000 extra to Verizon, that’s two weeks from now and a grand total of only 6 months of bills has cost an extra 3,000 and the total is about 4,000 or slightly more than 4,000 fir the whole 6 months which should only be about $1,000! The only reason we were stupid enough to keep paying is yinimg with when they shut us off which is always at times when we just don’t have the time to go shopping for new phones at a new company and it akways seems to be moments when we need the phone badly for one reason or another! And the biggest reason we keep paying them like fools is because my husbands business number will be gone and he could lose a lot of business and a lot of customers... I wish you luck, I’m calling to fight a lot harder now & if they don’t give me back most of this money I’m going to small claims court, I can’t keep allowingbour overwhelming life cost us more especially while we are dealing with financial devastation and so many other expensive problems! Good luck I hope you get your money back I feel powerless but I’m gonna find the time and energy to take my power back and go to court if they don’t work it out with me!

Rby_cntrrs

I’m on the same boat, I have been in the hospital and my boss terminated meaning I couldn’t pay my arrange payment and the card I had schedule was being used for fraudulent transactions. So they disconnect me and they did it 3 times in a month now my next bill is 700 dls. That is 240 dls in reconnecting fees. I’m not paying them and I’m reporting Verizon to the BBA and the news and I’m going to reach out to all political parties in congress and make sure they are aware of the insensitivity at this times with COVID-19 and millions of people unemployed and having to worry about there cellular bills being ridiculous high. It’s not right last month I paid 600 dls the month prior I paid 509 the previous to that 494. I have 3 lines and a tablet for my granddaughter that lives out of state. My unemployment check is not enough to pay high bills. There is other bills that also need to be paid. If enough people complain and make this an awareness that we are being taken advantage of since we depend on our cells for everyday duties.

nkkaylor

Verizon is absolutely disgusting and greedy with reconnect fees. They should only carge 1 per family and their customers service is god awful

Verizon_Support

We value all of our customers and want to make sure your concerns are addressed. With regard to your concerns when service is disconnected there is a fee associated to the re-connection of services. We understand that everyone is going through a hardship at this time and have options with our financial services team to help with your payment options. You can reach them directly at 866-266-1445 for assistance with payment if needed. Just to further assist is there anything that we can do to help?

kingleon17

Same issue. They don’t care about anything but their money. I also had hundreds of dollars in reconnect fees, could never get through to Verizon, no call or chat.. had to file a BBB complaint. Verizon agreed to credit $240 in the fees and the day after we ported our numbers to another carrier the credit disappeared.
they are awful

[Deleted User]

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