THE SURPRISE PLAN!!!
Written: Dec 01 '00
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Pros: FAIRLY GOOD CUSTOMER SERVICE
Cons: UNPREDICTABLE BILLS
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| STEPHANIE_K's Full Review: General Reviews of Verizon Customer Service |
I have had my mobile phone service through the same company for just over 10 years now. When mobile phones were just becoming popular I signed up for service which was originally US WEST then went to AIR TOUCH CELLULAR, and now VERIZON WIRELESS.
At the time I was young with not much self discipline so I choose the calling party pays plan. In which it was agreed that if I called someone I would pay and if someone called me they would pay. Therefore making me responsible for only the time I used plus a monthly fee of $19.95. I primarily got a cell phone for safety measures. And at the time cellular providers were not that common. Besides at that price I couldn't beat it.
I had excellent service for the most part everything went well i could count on paying basicly the same amount every month. However when the service changed to VERIZON WIRELESS things began to change. I no longer could count on my monthly bill it was always a surprise.
Not that I did anything different with the exception of upgrading my plan to where I had 100 free air time minutes. However I still had calling party pays but this time instead of paying $.30 per minute for every call I could use up to 100 free minutes. So I thought this would work out just fine, until I received a bill from them.
Charging me well over $300.00 for a routine monthly bill in which as you know I stated I merely used the phone for emergency's and every now and then I'd call and check on family. In which I always stayed well below my monthly limit of 100 minutes.
So when looking at the bill I noticed that they were not only charging me for calling party pays but they were also charging me for about 75% of all incoming calls. When I questioned the customer service they told me that if they are unable to recognize where a call is coming from then they charge me.
That's not what my plan stated in fact I had a customer representative mail me a brochure on the "calling party pays plan" and it states that those who have "calling party pays" are only billed for calls they make. They do not notify you in anyway telling you if you accept a particular call that you will be responsible for it, nor do they tell those on the other end that they can not place the call from where ever they may be due to not having a place to bill the call. So instead they surprise you with outrageous phone bills.
The customer service over all is fair. You usually don't have to put up a fight to get things taken care of and calls credited to your account. They also allow you to call them by pressing *611 on your cell phone and you are not billed air time for those calls. In which you can use an automated system if you want to be credited for a dropped call, a wrong number or a noisy call. But if you need credit for more than 4 minutes you have to speak with a customer service representative.
They are usually friendly and some are extremely helpful and very generous as far as trying to compensate you for poor service. One thing I don't like is the fact that now that I want to eliminate calling party pays due to all the confusion and always having to have my bill adjusted for inaccurate billing. They want to change my phone number. In which I specificly picked out with 5 out of the 7 digits the same. So it would be easy for family and friends to remember. So unless I'm willing to change my number it looks like I'm up for a battle every now and then. Is it really worth all the hassle? I'm beginning to wonder!
I don't personally recommend anyone to ever get the plan with "calling party pays" because let me tell you....YOU really PAY!!! They do offer some good plans but unfortunately that is not one of them. And they don't always want to stand behind what they say.
With cellular phones being very popular now a days there are many different providers you can choose. I really can not comment on any of them for the fact I've stayed with VERIZON due to the simplicity of my phone number. I do however suggest that you look into several different providers and find one that meets your personal needs best.
Recommended:
No
Amount Paid (US$): 29.00
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Epinions.com ID:
STEPHANIE_K
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Member: STEPHANIE K.
Reviews written: 17
Trusted by: 13 members
About Me:
Favorite saying "MEAT is for REAL men.....leave the BONES for the dogs!
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