I called Verizon in early December to cancel my contract with them early. I told them I was willing to pay the early termination fees, and was prepared to pay them over the phone. The representative I spoke to said to wait until I got a bill to pay the fees. I paid my balance by phone, minus the early termination fees, which I was told I would be billed for later. (Kind of odd, I know, but I didn't really question it at the time, just thought it was their procedure).
When I received my next (and what should have been final) bill, I saw that I had been billed for the month of January. I called Verizon and told them that I should not have been billed for the month, and that the early termination fees were not on the bill, which is all I had left to pay. The representative assured me that she would clear up the problem, and send me a new bill showing the early termination fees I owed, but she would take off the fees for the month of January.
This same scenario went on until April. Every month I would receive a bill for the previous months fees, which should have been cancelled, and still no early termination fees. Every month I called Verizon, explained the situation to 3 or 4 people every time, and each time was promised the situation would be cleared up.
Now, keep in mind, it had been several months since the bill had been paid, and every month I got a bill, I was being charged a monthly fee. It was obvious that my contract had not been cancelled when I requested it to be back in November.in May, when I again received a bill with "late notice - payment due NOW!" stamped all over it, I expressed concern to the next Verizon clown I spoke to that the bill might be sent to collections since it was getting so old. This one assured me that the bill would not go to collections, and admitted to me that my account had not been cancelled as I had requested, but in fact had been reactivated one month after I had initially made my cancellation request! She assured me she would make sure everything got taken care of, my next bill would only show the early termination fees, and that she would follow up with me to make sure everything was straightened out. I never heard from her again.
As a matter of fact, when not a week later, I received a notice from a collection agency, I left messages for the woman who told me she would personally handle everything. I never heard from her again. This bill finally contained the early termination fees that I had been trying to pay from the day I cancelled service, IN ADDITION to fees for the months of January, February, March, April and May!
So, I called the collection agency (just another department in Verizon's mamouth empire, I'm sure). I asked the representative if she thought I should get a lawyer, because not only was I feeling harrassed at this point, but Verizon was now threatening to harm my credit. She said she had nothing to do with Verizon accounts, and only handled collections. I went ahead and paid only the early termination fees, which I did in fact owe, and what I had been trying to pay for since the beginning of this mess!
She transferred me to a Verizon rep. He was probably about the 12th person I had spoken to since this whole mess started. I explained to him the entire situation, as I had so many times before. Now, we're going on 5 months of dealing with this nonsense, so my patience is about gone when it comes to anything to do with Verizon. But I thought I kept my cool pretty well, under the circumstances. I did tell the rep very firmly that this absolutely had to be resolved that day, because I just could not deal with this anymore.
He put me on hold for what felt like days, and when he came back, he said his supervisor authorized him to wave the balance for the months I had been charged after requesting cancellation. I wanted to tell him he really wasn't waiving anything, since Verizon never should have charged me for those months to begin with, but I just thanked him. I really didn't have much confidence that this thing was resolved yet.
I was right. Just yesterday, I received another notice from the collection agency for the very amount that Verizon told me they waived. This isn't over yet. I will not give in to Verizon. I will not pay them money I do not owe. I'll do whatever it takes to keep Verizon from winning this war, and hopefully, keep someone else from going through this same type of harrassment.
Jennifer
Sacramento, California
U.S.A.
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