Verizon Wireless Fraudulent Bill - Deceitful Customer Service and NOW fraudulent early termination penalty Atlanta Georgia

I was a Verizon customer for over 3 years and never had a late payment. My monthly charges averaged about $65 or $70. In August 2007 I was sent a bill for $567.67. I called Verizon and advised them that they had made an error. They had their fraud department look into it and then told me that the charges were accurate.

I talked to them on several occasions, over a few days and finally a very nice lady with Verizon, told me that they would "give" me two hundred and something dollars. In other words, they would take off half of the charges and I would be required to pay the other half. That was not acceptable to me since the charges were not mine. She also told me that I had authorized "Web moblile" (I do not even know what that is). I advised her that I did not! Anyway, I canceled service with Verizon and contacted the Better Business Bureau.

Verizon then sent the BBB a letter stating that I had told a Verizon representative that my "cousin" had downloaded games. Well I am a retired Air Traffic Controller with severe panic disorder, seizures and more: I do not have any cousins who play games. The truth was that due to the response by Verizon customer service, I had my son call with me sitting right there, because of panic attacks.

Their representative kept saying that someone else must have used the phone and my son kept telling her NO. She then told him that he did not understand what she was saying and he said "Yes I do..you're saying something like if my cousin used the phone to download games". He did not say that is what happened; he responded to the woman by making it clear that he understood, after repeatedly (more than 4 times), telling her that "No one used the phone". Now to be clear, my sons "cousin"s are a toddler and a small child. Thus, I wrote the BBB and advised them of this!

Today I get a call from my very elderly parents: Verizon Wireless is calling their house and leaving several messages each day. Why? My address has not changed. I do think that back in 2004, I may have given their phone number as a back up, so that might be it. Whatever the case, I called them to give them my phone number. Verizon pulled up the closed account and told me that I now owe $803. It was $567.67 and I mailed a check for the legitimate amount of $65, so how did it get to $803??

Well the young man told me that it was because of an early termination penalty. Hello..I have had service since 2004; over 3 years. There is no early termination period and this is just fraud. The 3 years of no problems were not worth this headache! Verizon appears to do anything, without regard for anything, to villianize customers who do not pay charges that they did not run up.

My record at Verizon is very clear; I had one bill of over $90 a couple years ago and I paid it because the charges were valid. The $567.67 charges were not made by me or anyone whom had access to our phone. No one downloaded games, authorized Verizon to initiate something called "mobile web", and an early termination penalty can not be legally charged. What is going on in this company?? At this point, I can not talk to anyone at Verizon because now they spin tales or add more fraudulent charges when I try. It is outrageous. I feel I have no choice but to hire an attorney before they try to get thousands from me by twisting the contract, law and anything else (obviously they are well schooled in such).

Gary
Sparta, Tennessee
U.S.A.