Posted on 05/17/2010 3:40:02 PM PDT by jerry557
Bob St. Germain said he was not sure at first whether to believe the Verizon official who called to tell him that the balance of his $18,000 cellphone bill had been forgiven, ending the Dover resident's long-running dispute with the company over the staggering amount, which his son mistakenly accumulated over a six-week period in 2006.
"Nice to see Verizon dismiss all the charges," St. Germain said. "But it's still on my credit report. Someone has to take the next step."
According to Verizon, the settlement is indeed official: In a statement, the company confirmed it is no longer insisting St. Germain pay the bill.
Last month, the Globe reported that four years ago St. Germain's son, Bryan, now 26, tethered his cellphone to a laptop computer to connect to the Internet, racking up $18,000 in charges over six weeks. Bryan said he did not know the two-year promotional period that had made the access free expired when his father renewed the family's cellphone plan. As a result, Bob St. Germain received a bill more than 100 times higher than his normal statement.
Verizon said that after St. Germain complained, it eventually agreed to cut the $18,000 bill by half, to about $9,000. St. Germain disputes that, saying he never agreed to even a partial payment. Verizon then sent the $9,000 bill to a collection agency. On Friday night, the company issued a statement saying it has concluded the remaining balance is "uncollectible" and that it considers the matter "closed."
(Excerpt) Read more at boston.com ...
Everyone likes to jump on the big bad cell phone guys, but Verizon Wireless, for a while now, has had its VZAccess software pop up an alert with your usage and billing data, current to within a few hours, whenever you sign on with your Verizon Wireless data card or tethered phone. Plus, their cell phone plans alert you when you are projected to go over your current rate plan.
But whether this was in place four years ago, when this event happened, I don’t know.
The ‘kid’ was 22 at the time? Why didn’t they go after him for the bill?
Something tells me Verizon is just going to stick the loss to their customers.
Didn’t that youngest son of “Little People, Big World” run up a far bigger bill than that and the parents ended up still letting him keep his cell phone? Those Roloff kids are disasters,spoiled rotten and have no respect for their parents. What could a child possibly have to say, that could keep them on a cell phone for hours?
Debt is forgiven yet he wants it off his credit report....hmmm....
If you are referring to this incident, the kid used his cell phone as a modem like device to access the Internet on his laptop. Without a rate plan it bills at per KB. that is how it got so high, if i am understanding this article.
I think I read elsewhere this was a “family plan” and the father was the account-holder.
Bundling is the big fad right now in the telecommunications industry. Instead of selling new accounts, they try to sell additional services under existing accounts.
You can add a phone to your account for $9.99 a month in some cases and share minutes instead of activating a whole new account for $50+ a month.
Saves money...especially in a tight economy.
Yes, essentially Verizon was trying to charge $18,000 for the same amount of data that you would get with an unlimited data plan that would cost you probably $59 a month. They sure are nice, and it only took them 4 years.
Ah. I guess he should have let the family in on the plan expiring etc. Nice of Verizon to forgive the debt. And the guy’s STILL complaining?
There's no actual loss to stick to anybody. Well, technically their infrastructure and power costs are non-zero, but they're trivial in comparison to the bill.
“Something tells me Verizon is just going to stick the loss to their customers.”
What loss? I susspect this is a ‘paper’ loss.
I’ve been dealing with Verizon with a very similar problem, I had a flat-rate plan that was supposed to never be more than x dollars a month, and it went crazy and ran into thousands. Someone had part of my personal information and started opening and closing new lines like crazy with Verizon simply doing it. We’re not sure if it was someone inside of Verizon or what, maybe someone in the local store. We were in contact with Verizon’s fraud investigators who kept promising to take it off our record but never did.
Its been a real pain.
So, based on this, maybe we’ll contact them again and try to get them to make it right.
Verizon has sent a large number of their jobs over to India. In India a developer gets paid about $7-$10 an hour. He pays $1 a month for his cell phone.
17 yrs ago my 15 yr old daughter ran up a 3000. bill with ATT. I paid all of it at 250. a month for a year.
Yep, I quit watching that show a long time ago.
Pray tell, how'd she do that?
She talked for countless hours with her boyfriend long distance. Rates were then about .50 a minute. At one point they both fell asleep on the phone. That call lasted 6 hours.
Contact your state consumer protection or the FCC if its wireless. I had a problem where my new home phone had 6 cell phones attached by the previous owner.
Second month in the new home I had a $500 phone bill. After 9 months it was over $9,500. One letter to the Public Utilities Commission and the issue was resolved with a $1200 credit.
What I meant was, how’d she do that 17 years ago if she’s 15? Nevermind. Lame attempt at humor.
Debt is forgiven yet he wants it off his credit report....hmmm....
The story said:
On Friday night, the company issued a statement saying it has concluded the remaining balance is "uncollectible" and that it considers the matter "closed."
The story does not agree with the headline. Stating that they consider a debt uncollectible doesn't mean they are forgiving it. All it means is they are giving up on collection attempts. They can still put a bad mark on his credit rating, and a bad debt will damage credit far more than a late payment. To have it cleared from his credit report he would need to have disputed the bill in writing and gone to the public utilities commission or some other agency that has the authority to make a ruling on these matters. While the amount charged is outrageous, it was probably within the signed contract, which means it was a legitimate debt. He's got a choice. Pay them off, get them to actually forgive the debt, get a ruling, or live with a bad debt on his credit report.
She was 15, now 32. Sorry, missed the humor.
This bill is not “forgiven” by Verizon, as stated in the very last part of the article. The bill has been written off by Verizon as “uncollectible” which is a totally different thing than being “forgiven”. When it’s written off as uncollectible, that is transmitted to the credit reporting agencies, and listed as a bad credit mark, then usually “sent to collection”.
Then soon, or sometime down the road, the “uncollectible” account will be sold for pennies on the dollar to a collection agency, which will start hounding the father. If one CA can’t collect, it’ll be sold or transferred to another, and on and on.
There’s nothing “forgiven” about this by Verizon. They have just “written it off” their books for accounting purposes. That’s why he wants it off his credit report.
I find Verizon to be so greedy that they deserve a special place in hell. I signed up with alltel (remember them) almost 3 years ago but the service did not work in my area and I promptly returned the phone with delivery confirmation and signature upon delivery. Anyhow when alltel sold out to verizon, they insisted I owed them over 200 bucks (now over 500) I refused to pay so they sent it to umteen collection agencies over the 2 years they’ve had it. I still haven’t paid and this morning I received another offer to settle for $135.00. Incidentally, I have never received my security deposit back from alltel. Now it that isn’t crooked and greedy, what is? I hope that verizon’s corporate hierarchy dies a slow painful death. I say that due to the numerous late night/early morning weekend phone calls I’ve received over this matter. And no matter who I speak to, no one listens or cares. This is straight-up a case of EXTORTION. I don’t owe and won’t pay no matter what. I’ve asked them to take me to court so I can show my paperwork. I’ve had to place a dispute letter with all three credit bureaus. I don’t care about my credit rating so much as I’m almost 62 and don’t need credit for anything, but my insurance premium is affected by this and I find that to be criminal. Verizon is nothing more than a scan organization. If they could get some of the bailout money they would take that off you and me as well. Rot in hell, Verizon.
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