Verizon Insists on Family's $18K Phone Bill After 4 Years

This is one of the reasons I hate Verizon. He should sue them!

Federal law - the statute of limitations for Cell phone bills is 2 years. 47 U.S.C. 415. If they haven't sued him yet. They are out of luck. It's not uncommon for cell carriers to send debts over 2 years old to "bottom feeder" collection agencies. Once you tell them the debt is stale, they back off.

An easy fix for this would have been to charge him for the equivalent data plan instead of trying to squeeze money out of this guy.

This post highlights the predatory practices of the wireless carriers. The contracts seem to be set up to wait for users to slip up and use data and then get these extra charges tacked on for relatively small amounts of data.

I think that AT&T may be onto something with the way they have structured the iPad data plans. 1. to use data you have to sign up. and 2. if you choose the 250MB plan, when you run out of data you have to upgrade to the unlimited if you want to continue to use it.

As much as I like Verizon, if it continues with this and makes this man pay, I won't be renewing my contract.

Jeffrey Nelson here, Verizon Wireless PR team. While we are not at liberty to discuss the specifics of the Boston customer's account, we are confident that since the senior team has been made aware of this situation, we have treated the customer respectfully and appropriately, and with flexibility.

Sad, sad, sad, Verizon will never have my business nor that of my three children due to this type of treatment. AT&T has treated us wonderfully and our bill has always been what we expected.

I have Verizon and everytime I accidentally hit the wrong button it would fire up the internet. I would furiously hit clear. It would shut down but not before I was charged a $2.99 data fee. I called about this constantly. In their defense it was taken off the bill. I fianlly had text and internet blocked on all my phones. Then a few months later it showed up again. They again took it off and told me that when they upgrade they system some of the codes were out of date and I was no longer blocked. They went in a manually changed it on my account. I have never had any problem getting them to reverse a charge. I guess since I was only online for a second they knew it was a mistake. The only thing that bugs me is that some of the other carriers give you internet and texting for the price I am paying. I just like the coverage since I used to drive a semi. Hardly ever had a dropped call.

Verizon is shady to say the least. I had FIOS. Bundle pkg. Yeh bundle pkg. however bundle price does not EVER show up on bill. Seperate chgs. for all show up on bill. Difficult as a regular 6 page landline phone bill to understand. You can call and say look , no, I don't want to read the entire 6 page bill with you. I just want you to read it if you choose , then make it simple...my bundle pkg. contract calls for a bundle price of 99.99 plus 24.00 dollars in taxes-you take off whatever you have to from this bill until my total balance is 123.99. Then give me a confirmation number, a name, and send me a corrected bill, as well, when I go online, I want my bill to show that correction and read the correct total in no less than 24 hours please. Your company is run with computers and this should pose no imposition for you. This makes sense however - response is always that I will have to listen to them read the entire bill with me. Only then do we begin talking about over-charges etc.. Every month I have to call and get them to correct my bill, AS WELL AS adjust off 40.00 of movie channels which I NEVER added, AND have confirmation numbers outta my ears for having this which I never ordered dropped, yet every month it is there. Last year - an approx. total of 1400.00 adjustments of overcharges and additions which were not ordered. (My total bill for the year without taxes was only 1212.00). Their response to me when I am flabbergasted, flustered, and furious with them if I have paid my bill then forgotten till the next month that I was supposed to check last month (and every month's) bill for their mistakes is, "well, ma'am YOU are responsible for checking your bill and making sure WE correct it". One time when what was said did not get DONE and the following month I called them furious, I was asked " ma'am, I have checked the record...did you call us back? because you should havce to make sure we had corrected it". Yeh I know...you're thinking like I was... candid camera? Nah...VERIZON. I miss ma bell. If you do ANY type of business with verizon...I implore you to check your bill each and every month or at least check three months worth every three months because I guarantee you will find innacuracies which will cost you money. They are proud to be scheisters.

I once had alltel and paid 99.99 for unlimited talk. When Verizon bought them up the price dropped to 69.99 but, this was never brought to my attention. Most of this is probably my fault because my wife had got cancer and I was distracted with Doctors and treatment for her however, I still hold Verizon responsible for not dropping the rate as Alltel was now a defunct company. They have since fixed the problem and actually sending me phone along with a rebate but, that still doesn't cover the 849.00 over charge. maybe I'm wrong but, this seem like deceptive practices.

Seems like it's not Verizon dicking everyone around here. Everyone gets a monthly cellphone bill. So why didn't the bill payer in the family noticed the large increase in the first month of the newer plan and stop this nonsense before it got that far to an 18,000 dollars. Like I said, seems like it's not Verizon dicking everyone around here.

I don't understand why this family didn't see big monthly bills before it added up the whopping $18,000. figure. Did the college age son download this much music in a couple of weekends? I also wonder, if this kid left his phone online all day and night without logging out. Kids, even college age, can be very dumb about the cost of things.

I don't understand why this family didn't see big monthly bills before it added up the whopping $18,000. figure. Did the college age son download this much music in a couple of weekends? I also wonder, if this kid left his phone online all day and night without logging out. Kids, even college age, can be very dumb about the cost of things.

I have had Verizon for a few years. Over the years I have called NUMEROUS times to correct their billing procedure. If I could find another company, I would change in a second without a thought!

I wouldn't recomment verizon to my worst enemy. I too had fios and because their billing was too stupid to bill accordingly, I was getting $1000 plus bills after around 3 months, and yes I paid every month what I was supposed to pay. After around 7 months of receiving incorrect bills, and being on the phone every month asking them to fix this, my service gets shut off for non payment. The billing clerks request for a "credit" to cover their mistakes was denied, and I owed it all, all over again. When I would call, billing wouldn't even discuss problem with me, but smugly offered to connect me to credit dept. to make arrangements to pay the bill that I did not owe. After 2 days of being on phone, blood pressure boiling, I finally got this taken care of. Never received an apology from anyone at Verizon. Needless to say, my contract ends in 2 months, and I can't switch soon enough! You would be surprised at the number of people who have similar stories to tell about this company! well known, yes, reputable, no way!!!

It's not an accident when you repeatdly continue to hit the "wrong" button.