Verizon is the nation's largest wireless service provider, with more than 83,000 employees, 90 million customers in the US and annual revenues of $63 billion, according to its website. The company would likely to be forced to reimburse thousands and thousands of non-smart phone users."The charges are substantial," says Karon. "When you add them together, it is a meaningful amount of money, which is likely why Verizon did it."
According to the complaint, Verizon is earning as much as $300 million a month in unauthorized charges. Some non-smart phone users have complained that they were billed $1.99 for accidently hitting a button that connects them to the web. Sometimes customers make that mistake several times a month.
The suit further alleges that Verizon knew it was a problem and only recently refigured the system to block accidental usage. Consumers say Verizon also charges $1.99 to send them a message that access to the web is blocked—a charge Verizon has denied.
So many suits for unauthorized charges of this type have been filed against Verizon that Karon expects the cases to be ultimately be consolidated in a Multi-District Litigation (MDL) suit.
READ MORE CONSUMER FRAUD LEGAL NEWS
Daniel Karon is a partner with the firm Goldman, Scarlato & Karon, P.C. and an adjunct professor at Cleveland-Marshall College of Law at Cleveland State University. He is a graduate of the Ohio State University College of Law (1991) and holds a BA in Speech Communication from Indiana University-Bloomington (1988). Karon served as co-lead counsel in Sumner v. Alltel Corp, a consumer fraud case that settled for relief valued at $44 million. He specializes in class action litigation.
READER COMMENTS
Adisak Vacha
on
They are eating me alive. I have been with this giant company for over 15 years or more even with the cable company now.
I had to cut my losss a moth ago by terminated my one line.
Paid fee $300. Because I can not let them cheated or scammed on my datas on the others 3 lines ending up paid Verizon monthly charged $250-275 for many years past. Now they started to mislead customers on Fios too. We tried to get out of the contracts but can't do it till next year. Bad bad bad.
Please stop them !!
Susan Carter
on
Russell
on
scott robinson
on
Phuong Nguyen
on
We called in and all the reps said "I understand your situation, but there's no adjustment we can made, because the service was added."
And they claimed that even if we were able to remove the unauthorized charge, they cannot change the "NEW" contract date.
They know there's nothing we can do about it so they just keep saying there's nothing they can do.
We're very upset and would like to cancel it but Verizon monopolies the area we live in (other providers don't have service here).
We will spread the world to make sure they stay away from VERIZON if they CAN.
angela wilson
on
godzai
on
Mackadoo Maynard
on
Ann M Kruse
on
Mailan Pham
on
This turned out not to be true. The internet browsing was slow. Watching videos was impossible as it took too long to download.
To add insult to injury, less than 1 year after I bought my plan, Verizon offered the 4G wireless mobile hot spot service for $10 less per month than what I paid for the useless 3G service. I was not made aware of this upgrade at the time of purchase or even when it became available. In the mean time, I continued to pay the high price for a very limited use device/service.
I called around November 10th, 2011, and spoke to an operator who informed me I could suspend the device to stop incurring the monthly fee. She told me to call the next day to file a “resolution/trouble” ticket. I suspended the device.
Around November 11th, 2011, I called to inquire about terminating my service and waiving the early termination fee. I was put through first to “Louis” operator number 582519 who guided me through a long-winded test of my device which still did not resolve the problem. Louis told me he was not going to waive my termination fee. If the device was defective, I could get a new one. I was then transferred to “Lisa”, a supervisor, who again guided me through another long winded test of my speed. After another 45 minutes or so, the test was terminated because the device’s speed was extremely slow. “Lisa” informed me she would file a “resolution” ticket to determine if there’s a problem with my area. If there was, I would be able to terminate without paying the termination fee. As a requirement for this test, my device was “un-suspended”. I incurred another monthly fee as a result of this.
After this I went back in and suspended my device.
After waiting nearly a month without a response from Verizon, I called on December 7th to follow up on the status of my “resolution ticket”, I was finally transferred to “Jeremy”, another supervisor, who told me a resolution ticket was never filed even though he saw that “Lisa” has documented what she did with my device. Jeremy informed me the 3G device was never meant to be used for watching video because it was very slow. Jeremy then proceeded to again “un-suspended” my device and wanted me to go through the same routine I did with “Lisa” in order to file another “resolution ticket”. At that time, I did not have the device with me, I told Jeremy I will not go through this intolerable test again as it was time consuming. Jeremy then told me, the information gathered by “Lisa” was nearly one month ago and he needs to access the problem again in order to file another “resolution ticket”. He told me I was wrong to insist he filed a “resolution ticket” without making me go through all the tests.
I wrote to corporate office in New York. On December 23rd, 2011, Jennifer Chen, a staff from the executive office in Irvine, CA, called me and told me basically to do as customer service told me to do, namely, go through another test again before they would file a trouble ticket which will only put me under further investigation of the hotspot capability in my area. Not a promise to waive the termination fee. In addition she completely ignored my request for the $973 refund for the service charges I paid for the service that did not live up to their promise.
I'm outraged by this deceptive, predatory, and appalling treatment of me as a customer. First they misrepresented the product to get me sign on to the most expensive plan knowing full well it was not capable of this. Second, when I tried to terminate, they engaged in manipulative tactics to make it intolerable to do so.
JAMMIE
on
Paula Jean Carr
on