Week in Review - Sunday: Nikki Lorenzini

Can You Hear the Fee?

I deal with Verizon at work. We get about 20 different some odd bills in from them a month, including our wireless bill. I was also blessed by being given the responsibility of handling the company's cell phones, and we have about 120 lines. I knew months ago that Verizon charged the $1.99 for the mobile internet, and I knew that it was a big rip off. But I didn’t realize about the increased early termination fee until a month ago when one of my co-workers sent me an article about this. Boy, was I upset.

First, all I have to say about the early termination fee: Verizon, if you are so worried about losing money on your discounted phones, don’t discount them. Is that fair of me to say? Cell phone companies discount phones all the time, and I don’t see my carrier trying to recoup their money. I personally think Verizon’s cell service is over priced and their customer service is horrible.

But with that $1.99 stuff, that is really sneaky of them. I know with my carrier, if we hit the mobile web button, it lets us check our phone account, and that’s it. And it's for free. I was looking at some Verizon cell phones after I first heard of this, and they do make it nice and convenient for people to hit with out meaning to. I think with our bill, we might have about $20 dollars being billed from this particular charge, and it makes me curious as to how many of those people actually meant to hit that button. I tried contacting our Verizon rep to see if he can block accidental internet access. I still haven’t heard back from him.

Last month I found an old map from Verizon from about 3 yrs ago that shows their coverage. It was about ½ of the US. I just got a recent one. It covers approximately 99% of the nation. Can we say monopoly anyone?

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