Verizon Lying

October 2, 2009 1:38 PM

Are Verizon lying to my face? What is the best strategy to adopt in order to defend myself?

I recently changed service providers for my cell phone account from Verizon to AT&T due to the purchase of an iPhone. I had been with Verizon since 1998.
Iniatially, to open the account, they required a $200 deposit which I paid. The balance on my account is around $200 and I instructed them to apply my deposit towards that.
The first person I spoke to 2 months ago told me they had no record of my deposit. I spoke to another CSR yesterday & they've now informed me that they credited my account back in 2002, but are unwilling or unable to provide me with documentation to prove this. I know I never received any documentation regarding the return of this deposit.
I really want to fight this but am I wasting my time?? They're threatening me with sending my account to a collection agency if I don't pay. I have yet to speak to a supervisor & was wondering what is the best strategy to adopt in order to defend myself?

All input truly welcome!

posted by leftfooter to work & money (15 comments total)

The two times I have paid a deposit (once with Verizon, once with Sprint), my deposit was returned as a credit on my bill after a year.

It is extremely difficult to get old data from Verizon, especially if your account was back from the very early days after the merger that created the company. My husband had a Bell Atlantic account that got screwed up and dinged his credit report, but Verizon is unable to take any money from us for it and we've just given up.

It would be odd for your deposit to have been kept this long. They will send you to collections if you don't pay. Is it worth it to fight for $200 you may have already been given?
posted by Lyn Never at 1:46 PM on October 2

Long-ago cell phone company CSR here. $200 is nothing - literally nothing - to them. The rep you're talking to will not have the authority to waive that amount. A supervisor will, but will be reluctant to do so, because they will have a quota they have to avoid. But that will probably be a weekly quota of $1,000 or so.

Do you have ANY kind of proof that you paid the $200? How far back do your online banking records go? Can your bank dig up the amount, given a general date range and the name "Verizon"? If you have something in hand that you can threaten to fax over, this will greatly strengthen your position. (If not, no huge worry, you'll just need to be more firm in your resolve.)

Call in. Ask to speak to a supervisor. Be as reasonable in tone as if you were speaking to a friend or coworker. Explain that you've already bought the iPhone - you're gone - you just need to wrap up this account. Emphasize that you do NOT want your original $200 paid to you in cash - you just want it applied to your existing $200 balance.

You were never advised about this "$200 credited in 2002." Feel free to sound skeptical about this claim, but don't push it. Both you and the supervisor know the CSR just made that shit up to get you off the phone. But if you force the supervisor to admit it, they will get defensive.

If, after going through all this, the supervisor claims they can't credit the $200 to your account, ask to speak to THEIR supervisor. You should not have to go up more than 2 levels before you hit someone who will be happy to credit you the $200 just to get you off the phone.

Be sure to write down the name of the person who does this. In fact, take notes about everything.

I advise you start your call between 8 and 10AM Pacific/11-1PM Eastern, which should be reasonably middle-of-the-day for wherever the call center is located. The whole process will take between 1 and 3 hours. Is that worth $200 to you? If not - and it wouldn't be to a lot of people - just pay the bill, roll your eyes, and go on your way.
posted by ErikaB at 2:01 PM on October 2 [4 favorites]

Also, in case you haven't found this yet, Consumerist can be a good last resort.
posted by kdar at 2:15 PM on October 2

How much time and energy are you prepared to put into fighting this?

You mightn't be protected by the usual mechanisms which somewhat protect you from collection activity because you aren't disputing the validity of your actual usage charges.

I would not expect a business to be able to pull their detailed records from 11 years ago on the spot. You probably can't pull your records from that long ago easily, so it sounds like neither party is really in a position to back up their claims with hard evidence at this point.

Given that you no longer maintain a service with them, Verizon doesn't have a whole lot of incentive to satisfy you. While it's true that CSRs and their supervisors have considerable discretion to waive charges, there are usually fairly detailed policies in place about the circumstances under which they can be waived, and those policies often don't apply to delinquent accounts (which yours now is, from their viewpoint).

Is it possible that they're correct? When random credits are applied to my utility bills, I don't receive any separate notice of the credit being made on my account - it's just a line item on the bill which I could easily overlook unless it skews the amount of the bill way out of average range.

And does Verizon actually return security deposits through account credits? Most providers here return them by cheque automatically after a couple of years because they're only entitled to apply them against outstanding amounts, so they're going to be returned to good payers long before a final account is ever issued. It might be worth checking on this if they are claiming that your deposit was returned in a way which is not in line with their usual business practice.

It might also be worth checking whether there's a telecommunications ombudsman or some similar independent authority who can investigate this further if you are unable to reach a satisfactory resolution with Verizon.

These kinds of disputes are a good reminder of why we all need to keep our financial records in order - the onus is on us to be able to back up any claims we make of having made payments, not on our creditors to prove that we did not.
posted by Lolie at 2:25 PM on October 2

Do what EricaB said. If that doesn't work, launch an Executive Email Carpet Bomb.
posted by nestor_makhno at 2:32 PM on October 2

I know someone who had a similar problem with her Verizon bill. She tried talking to Verizon reps but they were all being extremely unhelpful. So she wrote a review of Verizon on the Better Business Bureau's web-site and when Verizon got a copy of the complaint, they called her immediately and were suddenly super helpful about resolving her problem. Might be worth a try.
posted by arcolz at 2:43 PM on October 2

I dunno, my attitude would be that if they can't prove it then it didn't happen. I'd check the relevant laws/contracts about this, but I'd imagine they wouldn't be able to send it to collections if it's currently in dispute via small claims court. Just sayin'.
posted by rhizome at 2:45 PM on October 2

I am confused as to how they know they paid you in 2002 but cannot provide any docs to say so. Odd.
posted by JohnnyGunn at 2:56 PM on October 2

Verizon has some sort of terrible accounting system. I had a statement from them that said "Amount due: $0, Account Closed" and I had to fight for years to get a $400 mystery charge they said I owed (nobody could every say what it was for or whence it came) off my credit report. If you don't pay them, they will send it to collections, and you will have to fight it.
posted by jeffamaphone at 3:06 PM on October 2

I am confused as to how they know they paid you in 2002 but cannot provide any docs to say so. Odd.

Not really. Old records are often very hard to retrieve - they're often archived offsite and a pain in the ass to retrieve even when legally compelled. It might well cost them more than the amount involved to physically retrieve their original records from the off-site archives.

Often, the old information which comes up on the screen of a CSR is in an extremely limited form and could very well be limited to just an amount total and a transaction date - especially for companies which have massive amounts of customers and a high customer turnover. The sheer volume of information involved means it's inefficient to keep information which isn't relevant active in the day to day system.

It's no more odd that Verizon can't produce their records than it as that the OP can't produce proof of having paid - it's just a fact of life that individuals and businesses alike tend to keep track of records which are currently relevant more closely than those which aren't. It's also a good reason for not relying on businesses to be able to supply you with copies of old transactions if you need them years later - they'll probably charge you a fortune for providing them if their records have been archived off-site.
posted by Lolie at 3:32 PM on October 2

Thanks for all the help guys. I will try ErikaB's approach tomorrow. If that doesn't resolve it I'll try the BBB tact, as well as the executive email barrage.
I'm also confused as to why they know the deposit was returned but can't produce proof. It's only $200, but it's the principle of the thing. Over 11 years I've given these guys thousands, and as a parting gift they try to stiff me? Despicable.
I'll be sure to post the result.
Thanks everyone!
posted by leftfooter at 3:33 PM on October 2

My experience (though not with Verizon specifically) has been similar to Lyn Never's. Do you have any records of your account balances ca. 1999 (one year after putting down the deposit) and 2002 (when they say they credited you)? I'd check those statements for $200 credits you may have missed at the time or forgotten in the intervening ten years.
posted by hattifattener at 5:24 PM on October 2

My experience with Verizon (about the same time as yours) was that I did receive the deposit back after my first year of service.

YMMV
posted by crewshell at 12:06 AM on October 3

When we moved to the US last year, I had to pay Verizon a deposit for my wife's mobile phone since we had no credit history. I got a cheque in the post on the 1 year anniversary.

If you're sure you haven't had it credited back, then the advice to keep moving up the supervisory chain is good. As others have advised, be reasonable and you'll get more traction.
posted by arcticseal at 12:14 PM on October 3

"I dunno, my attitude would be that if they can't prove it then it didn't happen. I'd check the relevant laws/contracts about this, but I'd imagine they wouldn't be able to send it to collections if it's currently in dispute via small claims court. Just sayin'."

+1

If you have records, and they don't, go to small claims court. Just pay your balance first so you don't have to also dispute your credit report.

Consumerist link
posted by kenbennedy at 7:48 AM on October 5