Complaint - Customer service lied to me

Question

Now that Verizon finally has a reasonably priced single plan, I decided to have my son and his wife and my daughter get their own plans. I called Verizon customer service and told them that I wanted to separate our accounts on the first day of my new billing cycle (January 10). I knew that if they separated the accounts during the old billing cycle, the total cost would be a lot more.
The customer service representative told me that she would set the order up so that the separation would occur on January 10. My billing cycle ends on January 9th. I called in about January 5th. The customer service representative told me to be sure and have my son and daughter call in ahead of time, so that things would be ready for the change to happen on the 10th.
After talking to the customer service representative, I sent emails to my son and daughter telling them to be sure and call in before the 10th, so that the accounts could be separated. They emailed me back saying that they had done that.
This week I got my bill and to my surprise they had separated the accounts three days before the end of the billing cycle. This meant that we now had three bills that totaled about $400, when our normal bill was about $260.
I thought no big deal, I'll just call Verizon and get the bill straightened out. I've tried to do that twice and both times I get a customer service rep who pleads ignorance and says that they can't do anything to correct the bill.
This is ridiculous. I did what the customer representative told me to do and was assured that the change would happen correctly. Verizon did something different than what I was told they would do. Now Verizon won't take accountability for lying to me.
I've been a Verizon customer for fifteen years. I've paid them thousands of dollars. I've recommended their service. Now it looks like I'm going to have to take my business else where. They'll get a extra $150 out of me for last month, but they'll lose my future business and my future recommendations.

Answer 1

There are multiple reasons here why your combined bills may/will be higher than your old bill which may not necessarily have anything to do with splitting the accounts 3 days early.
As it is, I don't see how splitting the lines early would have ANY effect on the new bills.
1 - when the new accounts are created for the lines being split off, they will not necessarily have the same bill closing date as the original account. Each NEW account could very well have a partial month AND a full month of service on their first bill regardless of when the split took place.
2 - you are not cancelling a line, but instead someone else is taking it over. You should receive a partial month credit on YOUR bill for the days between the split and the end of your billing cycle. Verizon does not pro-rate the final bill for "cancelled" lines, but I believe they do so for "transferred" lines.
3 - separate accounts each with their own data allowances will usually be higher than 1 account with the same number of lines on it. This is due to each account having to manage their own data allowances instead of 1 pool to pull from.
For example:
3 lines on one account with 15 GB of shared data = 3 x $40 = $120 + the current rate of $100 for 15 GB of data = $220 + taxes/fees
3 lines on separate accounts, each with 4 GB of data = 3 x $40 = $120 + 3 x the current rate of $70 for 4 GB($210 total) of data = $330 (If you bump up the data allowance to the 10 GB level for $80, then you are even $30 higher)
YES, it is MUCH cheaper to have multiple lines on one account than multiple accounts with 1 line each.
4 - If any employee discounts were being credited to the original account, the new accounts would not get them. The new account owners would have to first apply for any employee discounts which they may be eligible and it may take 1-2 billing cycles for those discounts to take effect.
5 - I am not aware of how much you are paying for your 15 GB of data, but the current rates for data MAY be different than the rates available when you selected you monthly data allowance.
I am sure there are other reasons why the combined bills may be higher than your old bill, but those are the ones which quickly jump into my head, NONE of which have anything to do with the date the "split" took place.
Regardless, I can't imagine any reason why the date of the split NOT being on your bill closing date would have any effect on increasing the bill, but I suppose it would have been nice for it to have taken place on the date you were told. Not necessary, but nice.