Comments for Verizon Misquotes Rates 93% Of The Time

Verizon Misquotes Rates 93% Of The Time

2007-11-14T01:08:34Z

Inspired by VerizonMath, this guy called Verizon 56 times, and got nearly as many answers, when he asked the same two questions about their pricing plan:

1) What is the data overage rates for the basic 10MB data package for $29.99?

2) If you get the Core Choice 450 minutes package with unlimited data, what is the data roaming rate in Canada?

This video is a cutup of all the different answers he got. You'll be amazed at how many times they get it wrong.

The survey was conducted before the cellphone company publicly pledged to retrain their customer service reps on the difference between dollars and cents, but the video still shows how systemically the bad math disease had infected Verizon.

How Bad Can a Cell Phone Company Get?: Verizon Misquotes Rates 93% of the Time [EyelessWriter] (Thanks to Aaron!)

Comment from vex on 2007-11-14

2007-11-14T21:26:52Z

If you think that's bad, try asking them approximately (within say, a few dollars) what the ACTUAL bill is going to be. It is impossible for them to tell you.

Comment from Erik_the_Awful on 2007-11-14

2007-11-14T18:30:15Z

I wonder if a customer could record take a recording of the best quoted rate to small claims and say, "here's the rate the quoted me. They've been overcharging" and win?

Comment from nicholas_head on 2007-11-14

2007-11-14T12:55:34Z

On top of this, I recently went and used data without a plan (I know, stupid me), and for like 6 megabytes of data usage, they billed me $100. I asked what the rate was and got two different answers, one from a phone CSR, and another rate from a store CSR. The store CSR also claimed that if I was outside of my "home" area, data rates may actually go higher, because if I'm using cell phone towers that aren't Verizon's for data, those companies can then bill Verizon, which Verizon then bills me for "later". What.. the.. crap?

Comment from levenhopper on 2007-11-14

2007-11-14T10:59:13Z

@RumorsDaily: I would say that more than half of people using that plan don't know the difference between a kilobyte vs. a kilobit.

Comment from RumorsDaily on 2007-11-14

2007-11-14T08:07:17Z

It's one thing to get the dollars/cents thing wrong, it's an annoying mistake but it's one that I understand (same goes for kilobytes versus kilobits). It's another thing that many employees are quoting prices that are clearly not in any way connected to reality. They're not off by a decimal point, they're quoting some other number. That's really bad.

Comment from TechnoDestructo on 2007-11-13

2007-11-14T03:16:14Z

@Tzepish:

It's sad that they'd HAVE TO train their employees to not make this mistake.

Comment from Rectilinear Propagation on 2007-11-13

2007-11-14T02:56:18Z

Someone should do another survey to see if they've improved since they promised to train their employees.

Comment from Lin-Z [linguist on duty] on 2007-11-13

2007-11-14T02:53:04Z

protip: learn the difference between dollars and cents.

great video!

Comment from UESC on 2007-11-13

2007-11-14T02:48:51Z

my comments don't show up.....am sad panda :(

Comment from UESC on 2007-11-13

2007-11-14T02:45:53Z

wow, that's crazy!

Comment from consumer_999 on 2007-11-13

2007-11-14T02:19:38Z

I love this. Excellent presentation. I can say first hand, Verizon needs to clean out a lot of dregs, and train the rest properly.

Comment from TedOnion on 2007-11-13

2007-11-14T02:06:13Z

Excellent post. Well done, this guy.

Comment from elf6c on 2007-11-13

2007-11-14T02:05:51Z

What, where is the "show us your Verizon face" header?

I feel cheated. . .

Comment from crypticgeek on 2007-11-13

2007-11-14T02:04:52Z

While it's awful so few people can get the whole fractions of a dollar fractions of a cent thing correct (come one people!), you are going to be signing a contract with the correct rate in the terms which you should...ya know...actually read. Especially if you're going to have to live with it for 2 years.

Comment from mexifelio on 2007-11-13

2007-11-14T01:56:13Z

haha sounds like Telephone Love by Cassius:
[www.last.fm]

Comment from mgyqmb on 2007-11-13

2007-11-14T01:50:05Z

I've taken this time to listen to the Verizon Math audio file again.

Comment from Tzepish on 2007-11-13

2007-11-14T01:34:52Z

Whoops. It's called "train your employees". I guess maybe that's asking for too much.