Diane
Derry,#2UPDATE Employee
Sun, May 20, 2007
I am a Verizon employee and talk to customers every day. This subject comes up frequently. Please understand that VERIZON is NOT doing anything underhanded, nor are we trying to 'rip you off'. Let me explain. Verizon has a contract with MANY, smaller, communications-type companies to do their billing for them. This is all legitimate, done with the FCC's full knowledge, and is intended to make things easier for the consumer. (so you will get one single bill for all of your communications services) These smaller companies contact Verizon when a customer has ordered a service from them, and tells Verizon how much that customer owes for that service. Verizon then bills the customer and pays the company what they are owed. Verizon has to assume that all of these charges are legitimate (usually they ARE legitimate charges for services ordered either accidentally by not reading fine print or by someone else in the household) Occasionally customers call and question us about the charge and we have to refer them to the specific company because we only bill what they tell us to bill. We do not have any info about who ordered the service, or when or how it was ordered. When the customer calls the company, if the charge indeed is an error (or the customer cancels the service), then that company will contact us and credit the customer's bill, plus they will stop any further charges. This is the best way to get the problem solved. However, if a customer has tried to get the situation resolved by calling that company and has not been successful, then (and only then) Verizon can do a 'recourse adjustment' to send the charges back to the company. We can also put a 'miscellaneous charges block' on your account so that no charges can be placed onto your phone bill except those for Verizon landline phone service. A 'recourse adjustment' is a last resort because it will not stop future charges from being sent to us. When the company gets the charges sent back to them from Verizon, they will contact the customer to ask why, and/or they will start billing you separately (because you haven't told them you want to cancel it) Bottom line, Verizon is NOT 'ripping anyone off'. Everything Verizon does (not Verizon wireless, mind you, I'm talking Verizon landline) is watched under a microscope by the FCC because of all the laws and regulations that telecommunications companies have to abide by. Diane - Derry, New Hampshire U.S.A.