In Fall 1999, my domestic partner entered into a contract with Airtouch Cellular. We moved in together later and jointly became in charge of the bills.in the Spring of 2000 airtouch became verizon. Shortly after we became inundated with offers to switch our plan.
We ignored most of them until one came in the mail for 1000 free minutes. The terms were good, and there was almost no fine print on the flyer, which we inspected carefully. My partner called and switched our plan.
This was sometime in April, May, June, or July (we believe May from what a rep told us) 2000. On our July statement I noticed something odd that we were listed as Midwest Regional plan with a number that was around 256. I didn't understand it but since our bill wasn't any different than the previous months I didn't think anything of it.
The next month my partner was called out of town on a family medical emergency, which ended in his mother's death. He had to leave me alone 8 and half months pregnant and already having had one false labor. Believing we had 1000 free minutes for that month we called each other often in that 10 day period.
Our next billing statement was a shock. We were being billed for over over $600, of which we only receive a little over 200 free minutes. We called verizon repeatedly and were told several different things.
We were told they never had such a plan (I held that flyer in my own hands, I know it existed), that there were no records of us having switched our plan, and finally that there was a record of an automated call made in late May.
The plan was switched then but it was switched to the much lower Midwest regional plan. Unfortunately by this time we did not have the flyer anymore. We wrote them several times, still be told there was never such a plan. We wrote them a letter and never received a response.
We lost our phone and had it replaced under the insurance he had purchased with the plan. We were bounce back and forth from dealer to company with each one saying the other was responsible for giving us the new phone. After two weeks it was finally figured out and we received the replacement phone. The phone was of inferior quality, overheated and sometimes just did not work.
We called to complain. We were again shuffled back and forth between dealer and company. We requested the appropriate address to write a complaint letter and wrote one. (One letter we were told to include with the bill, and another one we were told to address to the complaint department). Again there was no response.
The phone wasn't working properly, we were being harassed to pay a bill we felt we did not owe and were being told there was nothing we could do about it. We finally cancelled the account and were stuck with a cancellation fee.
We were harrassed by Verizon to pay the bill and threatened with credit collection if we did not respond. We called the numbers on the letters, but each new letter said that we had "not responded to their numerous attempts to reach [us]".
We were sent to three different collection agencies.
Each time we wrote them a letter, return receipt requested explaining the situation, saying we did not feel we owed this amount because they had said we would be signed up for one plan but signed us up for another. We refused to pay it.
The first two did not contact us again, instead we were shuffled to the next one. The third one sent us a letter saying we had not responded to their attempts to contact us. They had offered us a negotiation settlement which we rejected.
In that letter, we also sent it to verizon, we responded that instead they owed us money, for credit damage, harrassment, and postage for all the letters we had to send for return receipt.
We said they had so many days to cease and desist harrassment, repair any credit that had been damaged by their actions and gave a dollar amount something like $18,000, they could mail to us in compensation and we would drop the matter. Of course they did not respond.
We received a second letter from the agency saying we had not responded to their attempts to contact us. This was after we had sent them and verizon a letter return receipt requested. When I went to send them a reply I found four different addresses in the correspondence.
I called the company to get the right address. They said that it wouldn't do me any good to write them since all they could do was enforce the debt and nothing else. They advised us to contact verizon. They gave me a valid address any way.
Before I could mail off the letter we received another from the collection agency saying that they were going to be force to move on to other methods of collection if we did not pay the bill. We have outstanding debts which we are paying and will pay because they are valid debts incurred by us.
But this amount from Verizon is NOT a valid debt. It is extortion after switch and bait, and we won't pay it. We intend to fight this with legal action. We are looking for someone who has a copy of this flyer from early to mid 2000 (this will prove that the offer DID exist) and any other evidence of witnesses of switch and bait.
We don't have much money so we will also be looking for a lawyer who operates on contingency. They have caused us a tremendous amount of strees, anxiety, financial problems, and general angst. Thank you anyone for any help with this.
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