Our company had a business account with Verizon for a number of phones - typically our bill was a few thousand dollars. Our company spun off and sold a division where many of those employees worked and the plan was scaled back to just a couple phones for that division - mine being one of them.
A couple months later, there was a charge on my bill for $360 for downloaded games/ringtones. I've never downloaded a game or a ring tone. I made enquiries and was told I had to have done it, because "there are like 3 warning screens everytime you download, so it couldn't be an accident". I pointed out that i'm not a 13 year old girl, i dont ever download ringtones or games. "maybe one of your children did it" (i have no children) "maybe someone got a hold of your phone while you were not watching" (and downloaded 60 games, then put the phone back?). I said - there are no games or ringtones on my phone now - wouldn't they still be on my phone?"yes". Ok, then obviously i didn't download them. "you probably downloaded them, and then forgot" What? I downloaded 60 games, going through "like" 3 warnings each, then deleted them all... And now i've forgotten doing that?"maybe".
I said, I dispute these charges - take them off my bill. "Oh, we'll have to research that".
Keeping it short - they did about six "researchs" and swore up and down, that these were ligitiamte charges. They refused to comply with the law and suspend the disputed charges until they could be substanciated. Ultimatly, they threatened to send me to collection if i did not pay the charges.
So i sent a letter to the US Attorney General's office outlining the events. The DOJ sent a letter of inquiry to Verizon - who immediatelyed fired off "Oh, yes, we had a little computer problem that billed some of our customers for downloads they didn't do - we're deleting those charges right away". Funny, you 'investigated' six times and didn't find it, but the DOJ asks why and suddenly the mystery is solved.
Despite the fraud from verizon, they still charged me an early termination fee when i closed my account after the DOJ got them to admit their charges were invalid.
(And i've done a little checking on line - seems verizon often charges customers for downloads that never happened, and it seems to be based on the average bill amount - typically they're just a few dollars. I suspect because my average bill was a few thousand dollars, my download fee was so much the larger. They bank on the amount being too small for you to notice or want to expend the energy to fight - and if you do fight it, they just blame your kids)
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