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Verizon Bills Dead Customer, Requires PIN to Cancel Account
Lacy didn't know her father's personal identification number (PIN), which promoted a Verizon customer service employee to tell her they couldn't shut down the account. Lacy explained the situation, including how she'd sent a copy of the death certificate. But the employee said there was nothing he or she could do without the PIN, and then had the poor taste to laugh before hanging up. What's worse, Lacy and her family couldn't settle her father's estate until this problem was resolved.
So Lacy contacted the Consumer's Edge column at the St. Petersburg Times about the situation. Soon after, the negative publicity had Verizon singing a different tune. The company recently admitted its mistake, canceled the account and refunded Lacy for the months in which the account was wrongly charged. Here's the lesson to be learned: keep all your PINs, passwords and account numbers in a safe place accessible to your family in case of emergency. Otherwise, you (and your loved ones) could be stuck in cell phone purgatory. [From: TampaBay.com, via The Consumerist]
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Comments
87
Subscribe to commentsGuitarHackerMar 8th 2010 9:08PM
LameJake stated "Sorry if this upsets you money-grubbing republicans out there"
Yeah, I know this was probably just flamebate from a dem fanboy, but here goes... Sorry, but any thinking person can see this is not a Dems vs Repubs issue at all. Most people I know - both liberal and conservative - expect good service from the companies they deal with. All of the business owners I know (myself included) really strive to provide excellent service. There are more than enough greedy thugs on both sides of the isle.
John SMar 8th 2010 8:25PM
I'm in a fight with them as well. Most of the flunkies on the phone don't have the authority to make those decisions. I was originally with Alltel, and they were swallowed up by Verzilla. My normal bill was $70/ month, but after they took over it was always twice
that. I don't text or use the web on it at all. I always had to go 25 miles to the nearest office/store to get it straightened out. When the economy went south I let it drop, and haven't had a cell since. I was too busy hitting the food banks.
knicknacMar 10th 2010 10:08PM
Here's the lesson to be learned: keep all your PINs, passwords and account numbers in a safe place accessible to your family
uhmm no.
Lesson learned
Verizon/ big company jerkwads: Cancel the accounts of dead people when provided a death certificate. No PINs necessary. Don't laugh at the predicament of others
dukedad94Mar 15th 2010 5:17PM
Only a hateful democrat would respond on a political level.
KatieMar 16th 2010 11:48PM
No, the lesson isn't that we should keep a list of PIN numbers for family and friends. The answer is that companies should cancel accounts and stop billing dead people. The author of the article is typical of the social network (twitter/cell phones/cable addicted/FB/etc generation that has no concept of privacy or common sense.
Raejean FrenchMar 17th 2010 12:06AM
Well, in a corporate world that talks customer service but no longer truly believes in or commits to delivering it, there is no surprise when ridiculous and extreme Catch-22s arise. The "PIN Laugher" had a supervisor, or a chain of command to be contacted and reported on until reaching someone with the brains to realize how ridiculous the demand to produce the impossible was.
ladydeerheartMar 17th 2010 8:23PM
Why do we as consumers accept this behavior? Remember when people got outraged over dolphins dying in the tuna nets? Everybody stopped buying tuna until they did something about it. And that wasn't even over the company treating us like we weren't paying their salaries.
I realize there are places that have no choice but to use these public hating companies but we as consumers have to band together to make them stop. Don't accept their rude behavior. If you can't get a supervisor you certainly can get in touch with someone in a corporate office somewhere. Or stop buying their stocks at the very least.
It's pathetic that we feel we have to put up with this when we are working hard for our money. Stand together people. We are the only ones that can make it stop.