Verizon Verizon Refuses Ethics Training Suggestion, Preys on Elderly & Vulnerable omaha Nationwide

Cell phone service providers are in a unique position to exploit their elderly and vulnerable customers. Cell phone companies provide a service that is necessary for the safety of the vulnerable and elderly, they often require contracts which are confusing and more expensive than necessary. The rapid turnover in devices requires another trip to the store and exposes customers to high-pressure sales tactics. My personal experience with Verizon taught me that there is no ethics training and procedural safeguards to protect vulnerable customers. Cell phone companies are operating exactly as we saw in the Wells Fargo case: selling customers as much as possible, regardless of actual need or even understanding of the purchase.

My parents are elderly. They are the daily target of con artists and hucksters. I can insulate them a little bit from the approach of strangers, but for their own safety they need to have cell phones, which forces them into a relationship a provider, Verizon in this case.  In my parent’s world view, if you're a customer, a company will watch out for you. They are primed to trust those companies.  (If not Verizon, it would be another company. The point being, cell service is a modern necessity and this positions cell providers to have special access to vulnerable people.)

My parents moved this past month, and while helping them set up their new household I learned that when my dad had visited Verizon 20 months ago to get new cell phones he had been told that made him eligible for a free tablet. He accepted the offer, even though he had two tablets at home already. What he didn’t understand was that the “free” Verizon tablet was actually cell-enabled and came with a monthly charge for cell service. As I was connecting his devices to his new WiFi, he mentioned that he didn’t understand why the Verizon tablet had a phone number. I asked to see the bill and that led to this discovery. My dad doesn’t need a tablet with cell service, he’s 80 and his health doesn’t permit him to travel. He spends most his days in his own house. He had two tablets, a smart phone and a home PC.  Two minutes assessing his needs would have revealed this, but needs assessment isn’t part of Verizon’s culture. I visited Verizon to see if I could get this corrected, but the answer there was that “he had signed a contract, so there was nothing they (Verizon) could do.” We could pay $90 for early termination or ride it out for four more months for $50. In the Verizon world, a signed contract trumps doing the right thing. I can’t say I was surprised.

As he has aged, my father has become more vulnerable to fast-talkers. On top of that, his hearing is poor, he doesn't catch everything that is said. He’s not alone in this, and the cell industry also serves other vulnerable populations such as the mentally challenged. For vulnerable people, there is a need to have cell phones as part of their personal safety plans. Cell phones allow them to have more independence and a better quality of life. When the vulnerable and elderly go into the provider’s store for service, they should not be viewed as another mark to be hustled. Special care should be taken to ensure their needs are met and they they are not abused. The primary goal of a cell phone sales staff is to get customers on contract, and there is no procedural barriers to prevent exploitation of this customer subset. It It is unlikely that cell providers have incentive to do the right thing on their own. As in the case of Wells Fargo Bank, it will take public scrutiny to bring changes that ensure vulnerable customers are protected.

I very much doubt that the sales practices we’re discussing would pass muster in the sunlight of public scrutiny, but Verizon continues to insist that it would be impossible to conduct ethics training and to create supervisory oversight that would ensure vulnerable customers are protected.