Verizon Customer Service and Faulty Billing

[Orrin1]

To Whom It May Concern,

The purpose of this statement is to express my complete mistrust of Verizon as an entity to handle issues as they arise.  My professional life is based in the medical field with high levels of responsibility with even the slightest error causing adverse events for patients.  Due to this fact, I try to make my personal life as uncomplicated as possible such as having all my bills being directly paid via automatic payments.  For the past 2 ½ years since 2013, I have been a model customer with Verizon having each payment taken directly from my account, never having a late payment, and signing up for paper free billing. 

In April 2015 I moved to a new location and had my service changed there.  The customer service provider that I spoke with stated that my new bundle deal with wireless internet and home phone service would cost $49.99 excluding taxes/other fees.  This bundle deal is also in an e-mail statement sent directly from Verizon.  All was well, I continued to have automatic payments for the service.  Early October of 2015, I received a bill in the mail stating that I am past due for quite a hefty amount.  I was quite perplexed as I signed up for paperless billing, the account on the bill was not my account number, and my online balance shows that each payment was made with a balance of $0.00. 

On Monday, October 26, I called and the customer service representative told me that she recognized issue.  Her supervisor gave her the authority to credit the erroneous balance.  The main issue was, I never created a second account for this to exist.  Nevertheless, somehow Verizon created a second account for the same exact services for the same exact address under the same name.  She stated that she would call me back later to follow-up.  Unfortunately I could not answer as I was working.

Two days later on Wednesday, October 28, I called and the customer service agent simply could not grasp what the issue was.  This was after repeatedly telling her that this second account should not exist and the previous agent who recognized the error was going to clear the faulty charges.  Instead she stated that the services were split on two different bills and no longer bundled.  This was not a change that I ever made nor received notification of.  Even more concerning is that my bundle deal was for 12 months starting April 2015.  She was quite persuaded that this erroneous account’s balance should be paid in full and tried to put me in contact with a billing representative to have automatic payments set up on this second account.  Instead I called back with another service agent who stated that they were working on the issue. 

On November 3, I checked my online statement to find that all of the charges from the erroneous 2nd account were added.  Immediately, I canceled my auto payment and called Verizon.  This customer service representative stated that the note from my call on October 28, 2015 showed that I wanted to bundle the services together (this new bundle was actually higher than the actual bundle that I purchased, $30 extra).  This is far from what my statement was as I was simply trying to convey the point that the bundle was previously set up and no second account should exist.  Returning to the November 3rd, 2015 call, I told the representative that I have all the documentation to show her what I was saying.  This documentation would unequivocally show what I should be paying under one account from April 2015 to April 2016.  Instead she continued to tell me that I could not send any e-mails to Verizon to clear this up.  Instead she stated that an investigation would begin and nothing could be done with the documents that I possess.  As of November 5, 2015, viewed my bill again to find that the full amount of this erroneous account is still present.

With the time and energy that I have spent on this issue that was no fault of my own, my perception of Verizon’s ability to successfully handle this investigation is not a positive one.  Never in my life have I ever been late on any bill.  Instead of valuing a customer who signed up for automatic payments and has never been late on their bills, Verizon has provided me with the worst service that I have ever experienced.  This experience has highlighted a complete lack of oversight.

As I am quite disillusioned with Verizon’s ability to solve their error adequately and timely, I am posting this statement.  As I cannot simply e-mail a Verizon representative, the documentation proving what I the issue is: this statement will serve as a paper trail versus various Verizon customer service agents telling me different things. 

Thank you,

Orrin

[LawrenceC]

Hi Orrin,

Your issue has been escalated to a Verizon agent. Before the agent can begin assisting you, they will need to collect further information from you. Please go to your profile page for the forum and look at the top of the middle column where you will find an area titled "My Support Cases". You can reach your profile page by clicking on your name beside your post, or at the top left of this page underneath the title of the board.

Under "My Support Cases" you will find a link to the private board where you and the agent may exchange information. The title of your post is the link. This should be checked on a frequent basis, as the agent may be waiting for information from you before they can proceed with any actions. To ensure you know when they have responded to you, at the top of your support case there is a drop down menu for support case options. Open that and choose "subscribe". Please keep all correspondence regarding your issue in the private support portal.