Please be perfect because if you are not, Verizon will screw you

Question

So....heading to Canada like i have done for business many times...and I decide to quickly go online and add the US and Canada plan to my account coverage.  I carried this for years while working in Canada.  I apparently hit the Global Data  button instead of adding the US/Canada plan.
When I returned to the US and got my bill, Verizon charged me $1100 for using my cell in Canada!!!  Thinking this must be a mistake, I called and was informed that since I selected to wrong service on their site.  Even though I explained to numerous unconcerned people that the change in my account indicated I mistakenly selected the wrong option, the best they could do was give me a 20% credit...So I still owed over $800 for my mistake?!?!!!  No matter who I talked to, they thought this was a fair response.
Second mistake:  I thought I had turned off my automatic payment from the bank.  So I went online and paid my bill at the Verizon site.  Unfortunately, a few days later, my bank paid the same bill.  So I call Verizon on what seems to be a simple problem:  Please give me back my money.  They were happy to take my request....and tell me it would be up to 10 business days before it was resolved.  I asked for it to be expedited.  "Sorry, there's no way for us to do that."
WHAT?!?  I am not severely overdrawn, used all of my available overdraft to cover it, and they can't even put a rush on the request.
After working my way through the **, I finally found a supervisor (whose direct report told me she could do nothing to help me) who told me to send a copy of my bank statement showing the check was paid from my account, and then they could release the standard 10-day "let's wait and make sure WE get our money BEFORE we service our customer" hold.
This amounts to a few things for me:
1.  Be perfect.  if you make the mistakes I did, you're screwed and Verizon's policies absolve them of any reasonable actions to help you.
2.  Do not modify your account by yourself with their handy-dandy website tools.  If you make a mistake, you're screwed.  Call them and make them make the changes you want.  And get the name of the person you speak with.  And, I would also recommend, record the conversation...just as they do "for training purposes."
3.  Do not expect that having an account with them for 10+ years and having five lines on the account means anything at all.  They do not care if you are a loyal customer...especially when you make a mistake.
I am actively seeking another carrier...the choices are so numerous and so much cheaper why wouldn't I.  The sad part is I would not even be thinking about it were it not for a total lack of concern when the chips are down.
Anyone had a similar experience?

Answer 1

I'm not entirely sure that you are right or wrong on the phone recording issue.  As soon as I hear the Verizon message state that "This call may be monitored or recorded for quality and training purposes" I flip my recorder on.  I always tell Verizon that our call is either being recorded likewise or that it might be monitored by other ears.  I do this at the get go so that names are recorded and I hear their response.  A lot of the times the reps, some who work in a call center and some who work from home, some surrounded by screamin younguns and barking dogs and cats fighting....they will flat out refuse and say that THEY don't record the calls, that someone at Verizon does, and if you want to get a copy of the recording that there is a number to call, "I'll get that number for you, one moment........::click.::"  Some say, "Don't tell em you're recording since they told you the call is already."  The recordings says "MAY" which isn't a guarantee that it is.  Best to be upfront since, if the rep[ knows their stuff, they might not mind as much and there's nothing like trying to use in-admissible evidence.