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I’ve just been majorly screwed over by Verizon Wireless. It’s been playing out over the last 2 months but here is the scenario. Around May 2nd I signed up for cellular service.  I am a hold-out, one of those who went as long as possible before I gave in to getting a cell phone.  I gave up my landline and decided to go cellular for business purposes and to save money:  har!

I was very specific when signing up because I needed unlimited talk and text to Canada. My Mother was up there, and family, and she was very sick. I knew I would need to be traveling soon.

I was told that the plan I signed up for was the international plan, unlimited talk and text. What I wasn’t told was that for a period of 90 days I wouldn’t be able to call or text internationally. I guess this is common practice with communications companies for new signee’s, or so I am told. When I finished the conversation with the person who was signing me up, I was reassured that I could travel to Canada and be covered.

Verizon sent me a contract via mail within the first 2 weeks. unlimited talk and text it said. I did not read the fine print or pages of text. I assumed the person who signed me up was truthful. Stupid me. It turns out (which I found out yesterday, 2 months later) that the contract only covered the US, and that I would not be eligible for international coverage for 3 months. So when I went up to Canada I racked up bills for over $800. I tried to straighten it out from there, but I needed to send information to PROVE that I was who I was, but I couldn’t do that till I returned. Then, when the information was incomplete, they did not get back to me about it (it is NOT their responsibility to communicate back with you). It is a one-way street.  So my bill continued to rack up. You see, I still did not know that I was not covered for international calls and texts to Canada, So yesterday I was informed that my bill was now over $1100, and of course, that they wanted immediate payment.

I was on the phone for 3 hours yesterday, talking with one person, then another, then another. They kept giving me roadblocks, and I kept asking to speak with someone further up the chain. Eventually, I got someone who graciously (sic) gave me $750 off my bill. That still leaves me with a $400 bill, when the problem goes back to the very beginning; that I was purposely deceived by the person who signed me up by giving me incorrect information. Do you think I would have signed up with Verizon, and gone to Canada and racked up over $800 worth of bills if I had known I was not covered? Do you think I would have continued to call and text Canada afterwards if I had known I was not covered. No. I would have either chosen a different plan, or I would have looked around for another carrier.

So now I have supposedly gone as far as I can go with the system AS IT IS. The next step is correspondence through the mail. I have no idea how this is going to go, but I can tell you that I had PTSD after the stress of the run-around I got yesterday by the Verizon System. I also took a look on-line at other complaints around Verizon and got very depressed with what I read. These complaints are VERY COMMON, and Verizon’s history of deceiving it’s customers is a very long and sordid one. AND I hear that the other Communications companies are not dissimilar in their policies.

I would like to take Maxwell’s Silver Hammer and SMASH these communications companies to bits.