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Verizon to Repay $30M Over Unwanted Phone Personalization Charges
In case you haven't heard, the country isn't exactly rolling in the money these days. Some fortunate Verizon customers in Florida might get an unexpected kickback, however, thanks to a court-ordered refund from the wireless provider after it falsely charged customers for products they didn't want. According to Broadband, Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum reached an agreement with Verizon and Alltel (now owned by Verizon) to repay customers $30 million for ringtones, music, wallpaper, and other items they didn't want (or understand) they were purchasing. McCollum says online scammers were charging users as much as $19.99 a month for content that customers believed was free. As part of the agreement, Verizon is also required to change some of its practices to ensure customers aren't fooled by these kinds of scams in the future.
Sure, personalizing your phone is fun. Whether it's the latest and greatest iPhone app or an old-school ring tone, it's always a good idea to keep a watchful eye for service charges and recurring fees. Case in point: Venturing to some unfamiliar Web site with a dancing frog in order to download the new Young Jeezy tone probably means a couple more digits on the cell phone bill next month. [From Broadband, via Textually]
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Comments
3
Subscribe to commentssitrucJun 27th 2009 8:37AM
I'm not sure I completely understand what happened. Did some websites scam Verizon and Verizon couldn't/didn't do anything about it while the charges were passed on to the consumer?
JkatienjanaJun 27th 2009 9:23AM
Verizon allow backdoor companies to charge monthly fees on the Verizon bill. Like the $9.99 monthly fee that I was charged just because I answered a questioner. I agreed to do business with Verizon not some sleezy company that scams their way into getting $9.99 from me and Verizon allows this and probably gets kick backs for it.
WayneJun 29th 2009 8:07AM
I wonder how many people either will not know that they should claim, or will not bother to claim back the hidden charges. This is a prime example why I will not sign a contract with a cell carrier. It really seems sometimes as if the descriptions of charges are intentionally indiscernible. So it’s easy to see how this could happen to literally thousands of people. And I'm sure Verizon is not the only company involved in this kind of scheme.
I prefer to use prepaid phones where I pay for what I use, with no hidden charges added. For instance: my Straight Talk plan will give me 1000 minutes, 1000 texts and 30mb data for $30. Not $35-$40 after all the added hidden charges! And with prepaid phone options now often cheaper than contracts there really is no reason to sign on the dotted line anymore.