Yesterday, after posting here about the amazing cell phone bill we got from Verizon Wireless, I called their billing department in hopes that it was some kind of mistake. The lady I talked to didn’t seem to be very interested in my problem – although she definitely was interested in selling me more services that would cost me even more.

First I asked her where it said on the web site that data usage when roaming in Israel would be $20 per KB. She insisted that it was $20 per MB and that Tom had used 28 MB – even though the bill very clearly said "kilobytes – 28." I kept pointing this out, but her mind was made up.

I have no idea how much bandwidth he actually used. He checked his mail twice a day, and he only downloads headers to the phone, not the full messages. So it’s hard for me to believe that he used 28 MB, even if there was a good bit of spam.

But she kept assuring me that they could credit "part of" the charges if we signed up for the Global Access plan. How much is that, you might ask. Only $128 per month. Well, maybe only. She implied that was the only charge but when I looked that plan up on the web site, it looks like it’s $128 per month plus 2 cents per KB.

Either way, that’s over $1500 per year and since it’s doubtful he’ll travel internationally more than once a year, that’s not cost effective. I explained this, but she kept trying to push this plan and saying "we need to get him signed up for Global Access" to the extent that I began to get nervous that she was going to do it without my permission so I told her very specifically "DON’T change anything on my plan." I guess we’ll see when I get the next bill.

I’m not happy with Verizon about this. I know ignorance is no excuse and if they had told me they really were charging $20 per KB, I’d just chalk it up to our mistake for not checking more closely beforehand. But I don’t believe 28 MB was used downloading email headers. I believe he used 28 KB as it said on the bill. I believe we were overcharged to the tune of $574 plus tax. Is it enough to make me switch cell phone companies next time around? I don’t know. That depends on what happens between now and the end of the contract.

Stay tuned …

deb@shinder.net