Technician charge after tech

[Jlkwd]

First let me start by saying that I am not one who will complain over small charges and fees. I will usually pay to avoid any hassles if it isn't too much. In this case I feel totally wronged by Verizon.

I have a television that is next to a wall outlet that I was trying to get working. I was on the phone with the Technical Support rep on early Sunday morning 8/11/2013 who walked me thru several steps to test the line. It turns out the line was dead so the phone rep told me that they could send out a tech that same day on Sunday to connect the line. I asked if there would be a charge to send out a tech and he told me no. He even said that it was part of my package deal that I signed up for and I would not have to pay. If I was told that I would have to pay, I would have declined the technician service.

I was shocked to receive my bill and find that I have $137 in technician labor charges. I immediately called Verizon Billing and they told me that the Tech Support rep put down a note on the account that he advised me of the charge to send out a technician. This is a FLAT OUT LIE. I told him that all he needs to do is pull up a recording of the phone conversation. I made the phone call to technical support {edited for privacy} on 8/11/2013 at 12:25 am. That phone call lasted 20 minutes. He insisted that they are not able to pull up phone recordings and they he can only go by what the tech support rep noted in the account. So it's my word against the tech support rep who typed something into their system. The billing rep told me that there is nothing that he can do, he is not able to listen to the recording (if there is one), and if I spoke to his supervisor they would tell me the same thing. He was not able to help me or give me any options to remedy this situation.

I have no reason to lie about this. I would have opted not to have the service if I had been told there was going to be a charge. If I agreed to a charge to have a technician come, then I would gladly pay it. I don't know, maybe the Tech Support rep needs to meet a quota of setting appointments so Verizon can charge unwitting customers.

I am respectfully requesting that someone pull up that recording to listen and hear that the phone rep told me that there would not be a charge and in fact even told me that the technician service is FREE. Once this can be verified, I am requesting that Verizon do that right thing and reverse the charge on my account. I sincerely hope someone from Verizon is monitoring this message board and can do something about this.

[ElizabethS]

Your issue has been escalated to a Verizon agent. Before the agent can begin assisting you, they will need to collect further information from you.Please go to your profile page for the forum, and look in the middle, right at the top where you will find an area titled "My Support Cases". You can reach your profile page by clicking on your name beside your post, or at the top left of this page underneath the title of the board.
Under “My Support Cases” you will find a link to the private board where you and the agent may exchange information. This should be checked on a frequent basis as the agent may be waiting for information from you before they can proceed with any actions. Please keep all correspondence regarding your issue in the private support portal.

[Verizon_Support · Accepted solution]

Hello Jlkwd,

We're glad everything was cleared up for you. If you ever need help with anything else please feel free to let us know in a new public post.

Thank you,

-Jeramy

[Jlkwd]

The situation was resolved to my satisfaction by a Billing Specialist. The only issue I might raise it that the first Billing rep I spoke to did not give me the option to talk to a Billing Specialist. He was crude and unhelpful. I got help after posting on the forum.

[Overcharged99]

This seems to be a pattern for Verizon to tell clients one thing and charge us by bill the next month.
What happened to me was that I was having picture quality issues Nd Tech support was not able to clear up. He told me if I signed up for a monthly inside wire plan for $10/ month, AND I pay $40 to start the plan right away, I can AVOID charge of $91 for service. Yes, I gullibly believed their assurance.
I called , made appt for service to come out, expected to get a bill for $40 and $10/mth.
Instead, I received May bill for $40 plus $91 labor charge 30 min. $50 additional labor charge. WHAT? I just can't figure out VerIzon. Have been with them for many years, but when these incidents happen when I m told one thing, Nd billed another, I want to terminate Nd move to competitor.
However, guess what I have. Email on formations of what my charges will be for this service visit as well as monthly inside wire plan. And, the CSr told me should I not be satisfied with my plan, I could cancel Anytime.
So, I cancelled. Way happened? I was penalized for canceling this plan. I was charged not only the activation charge but additional labor charges for one hour. This use most ridiculous thing ever.

[ElizabethS]

Your issue has been escalated to a Verizon agent. Before the agent can begin assisting you, they will need to collect further information from you.Please go to your profile page for the forum, and look in the middle, right at the top where you will find an area titled "My Support Cases". You can reach your profile page by clicking on your name beside your post, or at the top left of this page underneath the title of the board.
Under “My Support Cases” you will find a link to the private board where you and the agent may exchange information. This should be checked on a frequent basis as the agent may be waiting for information from you before they can proceed with any actions. To ensure you know when they have responded to you, at the top of your support case there is a drop down menu for support case options. Open that and choose "subscribe".
Please keep all correspondence regarding your issue in the private support portal.

[Verizon_Support]

Hello, 

Since we have not heard back from you in regards to your private support case  we are closing it out.We hope you were able to find resolution to your issue. If you require further assistance, feel free to make a new post, and we can be sure to look into your issue. As always, we're available for support around the clock.

Thanks,

Amanda_M

[Overcharged99]

Hello, Verizon, I still have the extra technician over charge on my account. $137 extra that was charged to me without any explanation and also, I have confirmation and work order which shows I agreed to only the 39 one time charge for inside wire service. It is soooo very difficult to get in contact with Verizon CSR, And even afterwards no resolution. Please contact me via private message to get this resolved. At this rate, I cannot get up to date on my account being Over-billed by Verizon in is fashion. No Trust. No Credibility. So Disappointed with Verizon after all these years.....

[LawrenceC]

Hi Overcharged99,

We have reopened your private support case.  Please follow the instructions posted above by ElizabethS to access your case.  The support agents do not monitor the public forums and will need to hear from you before they can proceed with your issue.

[Mushu1]

I had a very similar issue with what I believe is a less than satisfactory outcome.  I had been on a low speed DSL for quite some time and finally switched to a higher speed DSL plan, and of course after switching, the activation date for my new internet service came and went, and my internet speed did not increase.

So, I contact Verizon customer support, and without indicating that this would be a billable event, they indicate that they will send out a technician.  The technician shows up only to find that there's nothing at the house that is having issues, so he runs test to the central office only to find that my internet speed is still being limited to 0.5-1 Mbps.  So, he calls the billing department on my cell phone (since he's unable to get the central office to 3-way call the billing department) and tries to put everyone on speaker phone.  Long story short, the order never went through properly and there was never anything the technician could do at my house to have fixed this.

Like the original poster, I was surpised to be charged $137 for the labor charge.  I called the billing department and was told that my account also had a note indicating that I was advised there would be a charge.  If I had known this was the case, I certainly would not have asked for a technician to come either.  Not only that, the labor that I'm being charged for never had any chance of fixing my problem since it was the central office that was limiting my internet speed since the order didn't properly go through.  The billing account rep tried to help me as best as she could, but I'm still dissatsfied with the outcome.

Verizon made a mistake which resulted in me not getting the promised service speed on my activation date.  Then, they made a mistake by sending a technician to fix something that could never have been fixed by the technician coming out to my house in the first place.  On top of that, they never told me there would be a charge for sending out the technician, which I would have declined, but wrote it into my account.  Now, I'm expected to pay for the mistakes that Verizon made. 

Although it seems that finding a resolution to these issues through the forums is hit-or-miss, I figured it would be worth a shot.  At the very least, if it happens to someone else, they can know they're not alone.