Scott B In Louisiana
Mandeville,#2UPDATE Employee
Sun, June 08, 2008
Spam TXT was approved by the US Government. Sometime ago the US GOV told ALL cell providers that they have to open their directories to tele-market companies. THAT WAS BY NOT CARRIERS. Also the only other way to get your number are by you as a customer giving your number out to other companies that they sale to these tele-market companies. That has cause more problems for us than what you may think. THANKS DEMOCRATS!
Jim
Marietta,#3Author of original report
Sat, December 15, 2007
I received a call from Verizon today. It seems that my call to their customer service and my conversation with the supervisor Anthony triggered a survey to be sent to my cell phone number by Verizon. They called and asked how satisfied I was with my account. When I told them about my dissatisfaction and my report on "ripoffreport.com" they had Michael White(probably not his real name)call me with a follow-up. Michael is another Verizon supervisor and he wanted to let me know that Verizon had changed their attitude about these unsolicited text and pix messages. Michael says as of a couple of days ago, December 12th, Verizon has decided to credit all unsolicited text and pix messages. Michael gave me the credits on the messages sent to my two cell numbers and re-instated my text and pix services assuring me that spam will be credited from now on. That is the sign of a company that is aware of what is going on to their customers and ready to help make customers comfortable with their service. Verizon has been the best connections that I have experienced. When a friend and I are in New York for instance I can get service on Verizon when he could not. He was on Cingular at the time which is now AT&T. Verizon has the best coverage in my opinion and I am very happy that they are showing the customer appreciation I expected from them. They have solidified my confidence in their services once again. Thanks Verizon. Also thanks to the comments sent here on this site. All of the positive comments and the suggestions were appreciated. My guess is that they received some feedback about my report and the other reports that are on this site. This all goes to prove that "we the people" still have some power to pursuade companies to do the right thing if we stick together and demand common sense and customer service.
Jim
Marietta,#4Author of original report
Sat, December 15, 2007
I received a call from Verizon today. It seems that my call to their customer service and my conversation with the supervisor Anthony triggered a survey to be sent to my cell phone number by Verizon. They called and asked how satisfied I was with my account. When I told them about my dissatisfaction and my report on "ripoffreport.com" they had Michael White(probably not his real name)call me with a follow-up. Michael is another Verizon supervisor and he wanted to let me know that Verizon had changed their attitude about these unsolicited text and pix messages. Michael says as of a couple of days ago, December 12th, Verizon has decided to credit all unsolicited text and pix messages. Michael gave me the credits on the messages sent to my two cell numbers and re-instated my text and pix services assuring me that spam will be credited from now on. That is the sign of a company that is aware of what is going on to their customers and ready to help make customers comfortable with their service. Verizon has been the best connections that I have experienced. When a friend and I are in New York for instance I can get service on Verizon when he could not. He was on Cingular at the time which is now AT&T. Verizon has the best coverage in my opinion and I am very happy that they are showing the customer appreciation I expected from them. They have solidified my confidence in their services once again. Thanks Verizon. Also thanks to the comments sent here on this site. All of the positive comments and the suggestions were appreciated. My guess is that they received some feedback about my report and the other reports that are on this site. This all goes to prove that "we the people" still have some power to pursuade companies to do the right thing if we stick together and demand common sense and customer service.
Jim
Marietta,#5Author of original report
Sat, December 15, 2007
I received a call from Verizon today. It seems that my call to their customer service and my conversation with the supervisor Anthony triggered a survey to be sent to my cell phone number by Verizon. They called and asked how satisfied I was with my account. When I told them about my dissatisfaction and my report on "ripoffreport.com" they had Michael White(probably not his real name)call me with a follow-up. Michael is another Verizon supervisor and he wanted to let me know that Verizon had changed their attitude about these unsolicited text and pix messages. Michael says as of a couple of days ago, December 12th, Verizon has decided to credit all unsolicited text and pix messages. Michael gave me the credits on the messages sent to my two cell numbers and re-instated my text and pix services assuring me that spam will be credited from now on. That is the sign of a company that is aware of what is going on to their customers and ready to help make customers comfortable with their service. Verizon has been the best connections that I have experienced. When a friend and I are in New York for instance I can get service on Verizon when he could not. He was on Cingular at the time which is now AT&T. Verizon has the best coverage in my opinion and I am very happy that they are showing the customer appreciation I expected from them. They have solidified my confidence in their services once again. Thanks Verizon. Also thanks to the comments sent here on this site. All of the positive comments and the suggestions were appreciated. My guess is that they received some feedback about my report and the other reports that are on this site. This all goes to prove that "we the people" still have some power to pursuade companies to do the right thing if we stick together and demand common sense and customer service.
Jim
Marietta,#6Author of original report
Sat, December 15, 2007
I received a call from Verizon today. It seems that my call to their customer service and my conversation with the supervisor Anthony triggered a survey to be sent to my cell phone number by Verizon. They called and asked how satisfied I was with my account. When I told them about my dissatisfaction and my report on "ripoffreport.com" they had Michael White(probably not his real name)call me with a follow-up. Michael is another Verizon supervisor and he wanted to let me know that Verizon had changed their attitude about these unsolicited text and pix messages. Michael says as of a couple of days ago, December 12th, Verizon has decided to credit all unsolicited text and pix messages. Michael gave me the credits on the messages sent to my two cell numbers and re-instated my text and pix services assuring me that spam will be credited from now on. That is the sign of a company that is aware of what is going on to their customers and ready to help make customers comfortable with their service. Verizon has been the best connections that I have experienced. When a friend and I are in New York for instance I can get service on Verizon when he could not. He was on Cingular at the time which is now AT&T. Verizon has the best coverage in my opinion and I am very happy that they are showing the customer appreciation I expected from them. They have solidified my confidence in their services once again. Thanks Verizon. Also thanks to the comments sent here on this site. All of the positive comments and the suggestions were appreciated. My guess is that they received some feedback about my report and the other reports that are on this site. This all goes to prove that "we the people" still have some power to pursuade companies to do the right thing if we stick together and demand common sense and customer service.
Dave
Bellevue,#7UPDATE Employee
Fri, December 14, 2007
...albeit slightly. Call back. Here's the thing you have to remember. As far as "policy" goes. If you're getting spam messages and they can be verified, which they can, then "policy" says that the credits are supposed to be applied to the account after presenting options and having them accepted. Perhaps those options weren't presented correctly. Your options. Ah here's where it gets tricky because in order to understand your options you have to know how this works and what exactly the options do. Generally companies that send spam messages to your cell phone literally send an email to your telephone number at vtext dot com. They'll generally set a script to send these emails to 8184330000 thru 8184339999 at vtext dot com as a for instance. Most are blocked. Some get through. It is what it is right? Well, no. Because if you go to www.vtext.com and register you can set it up to block messages yourself. There is a block in place that you can use to only send it to your nickname at vtext dot com. i.e. the random script would have to send it to joesmith1111 at vtext dot com for it to show up on your phone. This sounds pretty cool. But wait it's too hard! I don't want to do all that! Ok well, we CAN block ALL text messaging OR put on a text message package, which by the way you should probably have anyway if you're using it to send messages of any ilk to your grandson. Don't like that either? Ok well, if you're phone is capable, there is such a thing as call restrictions. What this does is restrict anyone from calling you or texting you who is not on your contact list. Alright, so you don't like that either. Well, what would you like me to do? Credit your account every month for spam messages that you have the ability and the right to stop yet for whatever reason don't? The question I would ask is did you get these "spam" messages to such an extent that you were already charged? And are you referring to Premium Text Messaging as Spam? Premium SMS is different. For subscription services (recurring charges on your bill monthly) there is a double opt in process. A text message physically has to be sent from your phone to a "short code" with something in the body of the message indicating what you're signing up for. So you see an ad on TV that says send this message to 59595 and you'll get something awesome. This generates a message back to you that says something like "Thank you for signing up for this awesome thing. you will be charged $9.99 per month for this subscription. To continue reply with 'Y'" At this point you HAVE to reply to start getting charged. If a Customer Service Rep can verify that this happened. Which they can. They probably won't credit it. You can however get it to stop. Reply to one of these messages with just the word "Stop". No punctuation, no signatures, no symbols, no anything else other than the letters that form the word "Stop" you will get a confirmation message and it will stop charging you. Getting that rep's extention was good. I would advise that no matter what. I agree that in this case you probably should have been credited depending on circumstances that I'm not privvy to. Always remember that you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar. If the first words out of your mouth are "credit my account for these ridiculous charges" followed by something that seems like a personal attack it probably won't be a pleasant experience. Keep in mind also that Verizon Reps have the same power that supervisors have in terms of putting credits on accounts. So asking for a supervisor won't necessarily get you what you want. Hope this is helpful.
Jim
Marietta,#8Author of original report
Wed, December 12, 2007
Marian got it right. It is not fair for a customer to have to pay more each month in order to keep these spam messages from causing a problem. That is extortion by Verizon to get more money from everyone without actually raising their prices. In such a competitive environment one would think Verizon would not want to have this kind of negative information being sent around the net. No one wants spam on their phones or on their computers. That is why I filed the report about Verizon not offering credits for unsolicted spam text messages. It brings about the question from me "why is Verizon being complacent in this attack on their customers by these companies?" The cell companies are being allowed to charge their customer for these bogus messages for a reason. It makes no difference where the companies acquire the phone numbers because they are public knowledge anyway. The point of the report is the moral and ethical issue at hand. Verizon knows these spam messages are being sent to their customers. They have not alerted their customers of these messages because they figure enough people will pay the .15 or .30 and forget about it. Multiply .30 by ?million is what I think is the answer to their attitude. All cell phone numbers from all providers, were released just recently. I was alerted by email from another cell phone user. I signed up for the cell phone "no call list" and everyone should do that right away. I predict we will begin to see more and more of these bogus text messages and pix that will be charged against the cell phone numbers of unaware cell phone owners. Eventually it will backfire in Verizon's face and another cell phone provider will come along and guarantee protection against this type of bogus charging and they will get all of the biz falling away from Verizon. Or Verizon can do the right thing and begin to allow credits on these spam text messages. Allow the customers to take advantage of the texting and pixing service without the liability of having to pay for bogus spam messaging.
Marian
Schaumburg,#9Consumer Comment
Tue, December 11, 2007
I, too, have received two spam text messages in the last two days. While I find it troubling, I have an unlimited text messaging package so I won't have to pay more. I'm not sure of the cost of the package but it would be a solution to your dilemma...however it doesn't seem fair that you should have to pay more because of spam.
Jim
Marietta,#10Author of original report
Tue, December 11, 2007
The question is ethics in business. Verizon should offer any customer a credit for these unsolicited text messages. I am not the first nor the only person sent these messages. Because Verizon is profiting by these unsolicited messages being sent out they should show good faith with their customers and credit each one of these spam messages. If they did that I would be able to communicate with my grandson and others via text messaging and not be vunerable to the spam messages. I would be able to send my wife pix and text without having to worry about my bill being innundated with those bogus messages. My guess is that if Verizon began crediting all of these type of messages they would find a way to block them from coming in. It is a violation of my freedom to use the text messaging service offered by the company if you think about it. Because I am not willing to pay for those bogus messages I cannot use the service. If that is not screwed up, nothing is.
Striderq
Columbia,#11Consumer Comment
Mon, December 10, 2007
So you're saying that verizon gave out your phone number? Otherwise how would you be receiving this spam? maybe if you used your cell number ont he internet. it's more likely that you put your number out there to be harvested and used than Verizon.