$600+ Directory Assistance charges - Verizon scam?

Background: I got the Verizon service as an internet provider, but was forced to sign on for the landline service, because they came as a package. I haven't used a landline phone in 10 years and don't expect to, I don't own landline telephones.
Issue: In January, I've noticed that instead of getting charged $60 for my internet service, I was being charged $250 in November '13 and another $250 in December '13. I didn't notice before because my payments were set on autopay.
In January I called to terminate my account, as I was quite angry that Verizon was scamming me by all of a sudden raising my monthly payments from $60 to $250. During my conversation with a customer support agent, I was told that these were "Directory Assistance" calls. I told the agent to send me a full refund, she gave me some other phone number to call. I couldn't make the call for a few weeks, because they're 10 AM to 6 PM - surprisingly the hours when I work.
I had a day off today and called the "finance" department, or something like that, to request the refund, plus I got another bill for January which was for $160. Is Verizon just charging me random sums of money?
After I called, I got transferred 3 times, and my final agent told me that no refund is going to be issues, they're legit charges and I'll be getting a $30 refund and that a supervisor is going to call me back.
Facts:
- I DO NOT HAVE A LANDLINE PHONE IN MY APARTMENT, NEVER HAD ONE. MY MOBILE PHONE SERVICE IS NOT VERIZON.
Not to mention that a person would need to make thousands of Directory Assistance calls for them to cost $600.
Dear Verizon, I will fight this, I will contact consumer affairs, I will use social media to inform the public of your "Directory Assitance" scams.

If you have Verizon FIOS for your internet and they told you you had to have landline service in order to get internet they lied to you. I just dumped my landline service and kept my FIOS Internet with no problem. I got sick and tired of getting nickle and dimed to death with all the taxes and fees - seriously Verizon - $4.50/month to keep my number unlisted - yeah right.

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Charged for Directory Assistance

For the last two months we have been charged for directory assistance ($1.50 each month-one a month). We don't use directory assistance as we can easily find any phone numbers we need by using the internet. Is anyone else having this problem? These two charges were taken off as a courtesy when we complained but won't any longer be taken off. We were told we must be accidently dialing O (Operator), 411, or 555-1212. How could anyone accidently call those numbers?
Holly

I received an charge for $2.49 for directory assistance. Only my Dad and I live in this house and neither of us called any form of directory assistance. I was told that as a courtesy Verizon would take it off this time but not if it happened again. Better not happen again or we are switching back to Time Warner. The automated obstacle course I had to go through was brutal. When I finally got to speak with a person instead of a machine, I was put on a lengthy hold while the agent had to get my credit of $2.49 approved. I think Verizon sticks these charges in from time to time just to squeeze every nickel they can from the customer. I've also had problems with the salesmen(women) in the Wireless stores making promises about bills not increasing that were completely false. When you call, you get this run around saying that the first month is prorated. By the time you get the real bill, it it too late to do anything about it. I'm very unhappy with Verizon both Fios and Wireless billing policies. By the time I realized my wireless bill had gone up $45 a month when I switched to 4G, it was too late to get my unlimited data package back. Shame on Verizon. Sham, scam slam.
I'm not the only one with these complaints. I have other friends who are equally dissapointed by Verizon.

Charged $772 in Directory Assistance calls. FALSE CHARGES.

We were charged for $772 in Directory Assistance calls. Here is the catch, we never purchased a phone to connect to the phone jack. Not sure how we can make phone calls when you don't own a physical phone to make a phone call. My wife and I use our cell phones for all our calling needs and only accepted the bundle deal since it wouldn't cost us any extra and we could use it for our alarm system. We have never had an issue with Verizon until now. The first call we placed to Verizon was to disucss the situation and were informed a claim would be made and someone would get back to us. In the meantime a lady in the accounting/refund department was kind enough to refund us the payment we made of over $1,000 (yes that is correct over $1,000). Then no one ever proceeded to call us back and we figured the issue was resolved until the next billing cycle. We found out the issue still remained so we proceeded to call about the issue a second time. The rep was able to remove the charges and determined our issue was deemed solved and would no longer have to worry about this charge. Also, she credited our account for the $50 in taxes we had to pay for the $772 in directory assistance called we never made in the first place. She also proceeded to inform us that our 2 year renewal was fastly apprroaching. We stated we didn't want to talk about renewing until the issue was solved and she said the bill had been adjusted and if we logged in to our account we would see the changes. We refreshed and the bill was adjusted. We thought that was the end of this dreaded $772 amount. NOPE. Now that we are in our new cycle the charges continue to appear. So we proceeded to call Verizon again to confront ourselves with a rude and degrading customer service support, not only by the first representative we spoke to but also her manager Ms. Olan (who upon request stated that Verizon Customer Support employees do not have an employer ID number - something other Customer Support employees have provided to us beforehand). She talked to us like we were **bleep** and that we didn't understand what the difference was between a bill adjustment and a claim. She said it did not matter what we thought and that it appeared we owed the money regardless. After a lot of yelling by me due to the frustrations of once again being told I owed the money regardless, I was put on hold for the third time. No idea why I was put on hold for 5 mins, but this tends to be a theme everytime I call to resolve my issues. Last time we checked my wife and I don't work at Verizon and that it's not our job to make sure things are done properly. We are CUSTOMERS and expect to be taken care of just like we take care of the company by ensuring our bill is paid and continuing to use their services. My wife and I are now contacting other departments to conduct our own research on how to remove these charges that were never made by us. We also checked our account online to see if any outgoing calls and you will see ZERO outgoing calls. After spending over 4-5 hours on the phone we have no other option but to post on this forum to get any feedback from other verizon customers. Has anyone ever been able to get the issue resovled? Verizon customer service doesn't seem to be of any help. How did you end up getting the issue resolved? We have until 03 DEC 2014 to cancel before our new plan kicks in and we are forced to call Cox. I am hoping to get this resolved before then!

I am currently having this exact issue, although not to the extent of yours. I do not and have never had a landline phone connected to the jack in the house. The landline came bundled with our internet. We use our cell phones for our calling needs. The landline is totally unused. My bill itemizaton reflects this. I went to pay my bill a little bit ago and discovered charges for six directory assistance calls that I never made. I refuse to pay this. My only concern, after reading all the horror stories of Verizon's customer service on these forums, is if my issue will actually be resolved. Which seems like the lesser of two evils: calling them or trying to get this figured out online? Ugh. If they didn't cram these charges to begin with, there wouldn't even be an issue to resolve. You know, "Don't start none, won't be none..." something like that.

Directory assistance calls

I switched from Comcast to Verizon two years ago. Since switching to Verzon, I am continually billed for directory assistance calls that are not being made from this phone. It is normally two or three a month. I must argue every month with customer service personnel to adjust the bill. Now they tell me it will not be credited again. Guess I need to switch back to Comcast. Smameis other than this problem I liked the service.

I have been a Verizon customer for over a year now. Over the last several months I have been charged over $300 on "directory assistance calls" that i have disputed and never made! I do not even need the phone in my home. It is unplugged and we are still being charged for these calls. When they sent someone out to investigate the phone, nothing was reported and i was again charged $75 for the service call. I was reimbursed for $24 but not the entire amount for the directory assistance calls. How that is possible i have no idea! I have spent countless hours on the phone trying to get these charges removed. I recently made a breakthrough and was told i would be given vouchers to account for these ridiculous charges. I was told it would take a couple days to show up in my account. Turns out I was lied to...again. Now i have to wait another hour trying to speak with a human on the phone who i have to explain this situation all over again. I am looking for any advice or help. This is not a new problem with Verizon. I am aware a woman in pennsylvania went before a judge because of these charges. Is there something in place within verizon since this is a reoccuring problem. If so, i would really appreciate someone who could help.

Just a heads up on verizon scam

I just wanted to give everyone a heads up that there is yet another verizon scam going around. Just got a call from (800) 888 9617 saying I have won the verizon price or whatever said I won $123 off my bill, then to log into vzw123.com. This is not real, someone just trying to rip people off.

I just received the same type of phishing scam call. It was showing in the caller ID as 800-888-9620 and upon answer an automated recording indicated that Verizon was calling about a pending $123 refund check. They indicated that I needed to visit vzw123.com and enter my account information to claim the check. The recording played twice and the call disconnected. Seems like there are a few variations of this scam floating around using a variety of spoofed caller id numbers (CSID) and a variety of websites addresses.

Number for Directory Assistance?

How do I reach directory assistance with my iPhone 3Gs? Is it 411? 1411? I keep getting messages that say no such number.
I live in Pueblo, Colorado - area code 719

It should be 411.

Verizon Scams the Mentally Handicapped

I've had cell phone service with Verizon for years. I got a cell phone for my son who is mentally handicapped so that if he went outside to play I could call him, or if he got lost, use the GPS to find him.
Back in October '11 I found out that he had been downloading games so I went into the local Verizon store where I set up my account to get them to block this feature. They didn't do it. I thought I was paying off his charges and paid the balance off last month, only to get another bill this month well over the normal service charges. Verizon customer service, in the person of Melissa 1275, basicly told me that they didn't care about the fact that they had not followed through on my request and were billing me anyway. The local store is going to try to take care of this month's charges but have told me that neither they nor Verizon are going to reimurse me back to October when I wanted this to stop.
Verizon evidently bills its clients for downloads from other services and gets a fee.
They took advantage of a mentally handicapped child and billd me for it.
So when my contract is over I'm giving up Verizon. If this is how they treat handicapped people and long-term customers I want no part of it.
There are enough other services out there, which are cheaper each month, to use.

I understand your frustration but one thing I have to point out, from your report the whole issue is how they handle the situation with you but I really do not see how they are scamming anyone because of their mental state of mind.... Your name is the one on the account and you would be the only user that they would come in contact with so they would not know anything about your son being mentally disable.
I mean no disrespect but I can guarantee that Verizon wasn't intentionally trying to take advantage or a mentally handicap user.
Also you do know that you could have blocked your son from being able to download any apps or music by logging in and going to https://nbillpay.verizonwireless.com/vzw/accountholder/uc/UCServiceBlocks.action , there is a option to block a downloads for that account for free...

Requesting actual assistance from Verizon - How can I cancel my service with no fee?

"I have been wrongly charged for data fees and after approximately 15 hours dealing with the situation it still has not been resolved. Back in January when I first realized I was receiving these additional charges I went online to chat with a representative (while at work) and after discussing the situation she told me that it was resolved and that once my bill cycled the fees would be credited to my account. She upgraded my data to 6GB saying that would be enough to cover it and that’s all I would pay for. I waited for the bill to cycle before I paid knowing it would be late (I didn’t care, I wanted to see that it was fixed first which it wasn’t).
I spoke to Matthew at the beginning of March for a lengthy two hours (also while at work) regarding the situation. He told me that the online chat service was a different department but he’d try to fix my problem. He was extremely nice and did seem like he genuinely wanted to help. And at first I thought that after 2 hours he finally resolved my ongoing issue. At first he kept telling me that the fees were correct. After insisting that I didn’t use 7 GB of data in 5 days I grabbed my calculator and added up all the data charges (yes, each one is 6 decimal places) and the total came to be just above 1 GB (I think it was 1.12GB or so). He told me that the woman I spoke to over the chat service made a mistake. She said that increasing my data to 6GB would solve the problem but that day that I spoke to her my data was already at approximately 10GB. So by her increasing my data, she accomplished absolutely nothing. After speaking with his manager Matthew said he could refund 45$ and 105$ totaling 150$ total. I would eat the increase in data to 12GB which I said was fair enough. He said I would see the 45$ credited back the same day and that he would text me to let me know it was there (which he never did) and that his manager had to approve the $105 and I would see it on my account within 2 business days. That credit was never applied to my account.
So Friday March 21 I get a phone call that morning saying my phone will be shut off once again. I called back (while at work, AGAIN) and spoke with Angelica. She told me that there was no credit of 105$ on my account nor were there any notes saying there should be. I was then passed to Dale Hull, her supervisor. I went through the whole situation, yet again, and Dale sent an email to Matthew, his supervisor and his boss asking them to looking into the situation and contact me. At the time all three were at work according to Dale. That was at 6pm Eastern time Friday. Then Saturday morning I called Dale at 10:30AM Eastern time to follow up. We had a short conversation where he told me that they would be arriving to work at 12noon Eastern time and he forwarded them my email again with an additional note to say it was an urgent situation. Dale told me he would be at work until 6pm eastern time and that I could follow up with him if I still hadn’t heard back. I called at 5:30PM Eastern time and his direct number routed me to an automated system and I wasn’t even given the option to leave him a voicemail. I then drafted an email to him and tried sending it but apparently I am unable to send him an email. I was a little confused why he would give me my email if he’s unable to receive one from someone outside the Verizon network. But overall Dale seemed to be helpful.
It is now Sunday March 23 and the situation is still unresolved. I would like the fees credited back to my account and my service ended – without being assessed a cancellation fee. My time is valuable and all the time spent talking to Verizon while I was supposed to be doing my job prevented me from making money as a commissionable employee. Not only that but it reflects poorly on me to my superiors."
This is the summary I had typed up regarding my experience in March 23. After than I spoke with a supervisor named Penny in Little Rock who switched my plan to 60$ unlimited talk and text with 2 GB of data and 1 GB promo data. She said it should be less than $80 after fees and insurance and that my employer discount wouldn't apply. She said she would back date it for my current billing cycle which started on the 18th. Said she would be calling me Monday April 21 from a 501 number to follow up.
Now, the bill wasn't back dated, it didn't go into affect until my following bill that is due May 13. And she never called to follow up with me. On top of that I just realized that when she "fixed" my plan she removed my insurance. So when I dropped my phone and shattered the screen this morning after all the hours and frustration and stress I have spent dealing with Verizon, I now don't have insurance to cover the broken phone.
I have never ever experienced such horrible customer service in my entire life.
All I want is to be released from my contract without being charged a $250 fee. I feel that after all the time, tears and money spent on this situation it's the least that Verizon can do for me.
I look forward to a prompt response.

Hello rjutze,
Unexpected charges are certainly shocking, so I definitely understand where you're coming from. I'm sorry to learn you had this type of experience with your data allowance. We want to ensure our customers are billed correctly for usage and certainly clarify all concerns regarding the charges. We offer courtesy alerts to advise you of the potential overages and allow time to prevent them. Did you receive them? I'm unable to speak to the credits promised; as you mentioned earlier, we stated they are correct.
Nonetheless, I understand you need further clarification to get to the bottom of this. Please send me a DM so I can provide you with the details of the steps taken to address this when you contacted us, We truly don't want to lose you as a customer, especially since the termination fee will not be waived. However, I am confident I will get to the bottom of this and turn this around.
AndreaS_VZW
Follow us on Twitter @VZWSupport

Backup Assistant and Verizon Cloud not working correctly

I have a Samsung Galaxy SIII. Been using BU Assistant Plus a long time. Recently found out about "Cloud"...downloaded it, installed it, can't load it. Have repeatedly downloaded, installed, tried to load, uninstalled, reinstall.... I've about had it. Neither Back Up Assistance Plus, or Cloud are working properly. Cloud - not at all. I click the icon, the red screen appears with a gray radio button that says, "Get Started". I press it, then after 5 seconds the screen goes black, a dialog box appears saying that the app has been stopped, do I want to send an error report, which I do send... Anyone have a clue? Same happens on my son's Stratosphere 2 and husband's Lucid... Please advise! Thx
Message was edited by: Admin Moderator

I am having exactly the same problem~ SO, so frustrating, as I do all my updating on my phone, not the cloud or my desktop computer!! And, likewise I called about hte issue and got the same advice as Spikey and did the same thing with the same shocking results (deleting all contacts on my phone). They told me to go into Settings, "backup assistant Plus" and make sure the "sync contacts" button is turned off first, then go log into my account online, delete all the contacts there, then come back to phone and choose the "backup now" button at the bottom of the "backup assistant plus" screen under settings. I did all this, and while there LITERALLY saw the box for "sync contacts" check itself back on and start sycing with the cloud, where I had just deleted all my contacts with the intent of uploading all the current, newly update info from my phone onto the cloud~ Instead all this automatic stuff started happening and the cloud started syncing my contacts to my phone, which is to say, it deleted all my contacts because the account online had just been cleared out~ I was so bummed, can't even tell you how long it took to update everything to current manually over a couple weeks on my phone and it was all gone~ Turns out I went into the trash online and was able to undelete all my deleted contacts from the online verizon account, (mind you, these were the out-of-date ones I was trying to replace with my current phone ones), and then the cloud automatically synced all these old contacts onto my phone again. So not only did I not get to send the new ones to the cloud, but the cloud sent back all the old ones replacing the work I had done.
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Need assistance from Verizon with a faulty phone.

Hi there, I purchased the Droid Razr a couple of months back. Has been a great phone up until about a week ago. Since then there have been an increasing amount of problems, like when i try to activate the camera or video camera my phone freezes up and i can neither turn it off nor do any other actions. Last time I tried the camera, it stayed frozen up like that for almost two days before it finally just shut off. Also, the speakers wont work unless you shake the phone a little. ALso whenever i attempt to charge my phone on a mobile charger, the battery life instantly jumps to 100% then dies and wont turn back on for random periods of time. I went in to a local Verizon store and told them about the problems. THey gave me a number to call so I can get a new one, but I don't seem to have that number anymore. I'm hoping a Verizon rep on this site will read this and help me get the ball rolling on getting a replacement, THanks for your help.

AFTER she pays her bill in full, the device should be usable.

"74 verizon" scam alert

Beware! I had a call to my cell phone saying that I had won $74.00 and I needed to go to "74verizon.com" to claim it. The web address exists, and it looks just like Verizon -- it even has all the links to other parts of Verizon's website -- but the login screen is on 74verizon.com which is NOT Verizon. It's a scam site phishing for your login credentials.
The phone number that called was 800-922-5534, if it helps.

I got the same call today - from the main Tech Support number programmed into my contacts: 800-922-0204. I thought it was hard to spoof a phone number, so I went to the site (37verizon.com). I saw all legitimate links to Verizon's website, which I thought may be easy to recreate. I almost put in my credentials, but then I wondered why Verizon wouldn't just put something like this on their "verizonwireless.com" site. That's when I thought I should check again. There doesn't seem to be many search results for this scam yet. Be careful! Don't submit your creds unless you're 110% sure it's legitimate!

Backup assistant My Verizon freezes does not load

When I click on the MY VERIZON - BACKUP link, the page changes to the Backup Assistant Plus, a menu appears but quickly disappears, leaving only the 2 tabs at the top (CONTACTS & TRASH). Then the REFRESH /RELOAD icon (2 circling arrows) comes up & never disappears. I tweeked my browser to accept pop-ups from VERIZONWIRELESS.COM. Is there something else that I should do?
My phone says that I had a successful backup today and that the b/u asst. is updated.
What else should do?

Many site issues can be caused by corrupt cookies or cache. In order to try to fix these problems, the first step is to clear both cookies and the cache.
Note: ''This will temporarily log you out of all sites you're logged in to.''
To clear cache and cookies do the following:
#Go to Firefox > History > Clear recent history or (if no Firefox button is shown) go to Tools > Clear recent history.
#Under "Time range to clear", select "Everything".
#Now, click the arrow next to Details to toggle the Details list active.
#From the details list, check ''Cache'' and ''Cookies'' and uncheck everything else.
#Now click the ''Clear now'' button.
Further information can be found in the [[Clear your cache, history and other personal information in Firefox]] article.

Why the high charges, Verizon?

I used my 4 LTGE approximately 30 times, once a day, for about one minute each time. Then ALWAYS turned the wifi OFF. So, please explain these high charges on my bill.

Unfortunately you actually answered your own question. You turn cellular data off! Not Wifi.
Wifi is free and does not go against your data allotment however cellular data 4G LTE does go against your usage.
You have to pay attention to what you are doing. Not Verizons fault this time.
Good Luck

Problems with Getting Assistance from Verizon

I've had terrible and completely useless interaction with Verizon on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and then again this morning. I contacted them because my router quit working. I received a confirmation e-mail on Monday morning with a UPS tracking number and a Tuesday delivery date. Nothing arrived on Tuesday so I contacted them again. I was told that the order hadn't been filled yet but I would definitely receive the router by Wednesday.
       Of course nothing arrived on Wednesday (big surprise here) so I contacted them again. They response was that the order got stuck in the system so they would have to start over. The guarantee this time was that I'd definitely receive the router on Thursday.
     Thursday morning and no e-mail, etc. so I contacted them to verify that they hadn't screwed things up again. Of course they had and the best they could say was that when/if the router was shipped I get a notification.
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Your issue has been escalated to a Verizon agent. Before the agent can begin assisting you, they will need to collect further information from you.Please go to your profile page for the forum, and look in the middle, right at the top where you will find an area titled "My Support Cases". You can reach your profile page by clicking on your name beside your post, or at the top left of this page underneath the title of the board.
Under “My Support Cases” you will find a link to the private board where you and the agent may exchange information. This should be checked on a frequent basis as the agent may be waiting for information from you before they can proceed with any actions. To ensure you know when they have responded to you, at the top of your support case there is a drop down menu for support case options. Open that and choose "subscribe".
Please keep all correspondence regarding your issue in the private support portal.

Continued issues with droid charge, Verizon not of any help

Another week, one day I spent 87 minutes on the phone with Verizon Wireless. Many visits to the store, many other long phone calls. Poor customer service, the Samsung Charge has been replaced again, same problems. Many people have admitted these problems, from store associates to managers, yet when I speak with Verizon they will not move us out of this phone into something that works, only to lesser, older phones available, some I can't even find on the site. We are not the only people having problems with this phone and no one will accept the failures that continue to happen with this Samsung Charge. We have had LG, Motorolla, etc. My iPhone doesn't give me one bit of problem, nor have our other phones, just this one. I would think after being loyal customers that they would be more willing to help. I have only had one supervisor that actually was helpful, as much as he was allowed. Another supervisor was down right rude, his manager was to call me within 72 hours and has still not called me. I think we will be foreced to switch carriers and never purchase another Samsung phone product.

I'm not the original poster but found this post while trying to find a solution to my problem. My problem is the contacts and everything related to them but most importantly, syncing with Microsoft Outlook.
1) When I add a contact directly to my phone and mark it as a phone contact and save, it stays on the phone for a few days and then all the "phone" contacts just disappear. I reinstall them and they disappear again, after another few days. So, I tried installing them as Corporate contacts and they stayed longer. Then I started having a different problem.
2) My corporate contacts are set to sync automatically every day. Most days the phone is okay but after another few days, I'll look and my contacts have loaded again, the exact same contact is now on my phone twice. I went to the store and the guy said to just delete the second contact from the phone. Really, that was his response. I didn't think it would do much good but I followed his advise. Everything was fine for a few days...then,
3) My corporate contacts synced two, three and even four times...the same contact on my phone. Knowing the guy at the store would just tell me to delete the extra's, I did and guess what...I have the contacts on my phone but they are no longer in my Microsoft Outlook contacts list. Deleted from Outlook. I can't get them to sync back to Outlook again.
If I can get the contacts to reload on Microsoft Outlook, I'll disable the sync program but geezzzeeeee. I do not want to retype more than 2000 contacts back into Outlook.
What do I do?

$600+ Directory Assistance charges - Verizon scam?

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