They certainly are making a name for themselves these "daze".
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/verizon-customers-bombard-fcc-with-complaints-about-overcharging/
5 replies (most recent on top)
I moved to Virgin Mobil after the strike. I did it to help move along the inevitable demise of the A$$holes who bet the farm on doing EWA work for the corporate Elite, while I fought for my rights as an employee.
your a shill, your sheep...now your fuc7ed.
1jik - great post. I always say, other than keeping the network running, the most important part of the business if you want to keep your customers is to bill your customers correctly. Everything thing else is peripheral. Verizon does not appreciate experience and knowledge such as yours and mine. It's a pity. I'll say it again, Verizon, accept no excuses and let some management heads roll. - 1qqz
I work in a corporate store and I see customers coming in on a daily basis asking about their overages and why it's happening when nothing has changed in their usage. The customer is confused and so am I sometimes. I ask if any video, music or other streaming is happening? When they say no, there isn't. Then I am at a loss and I don't know what to say after that. Most customers walk out upset. I feel so bad for them.
"Where is the abnormal usage detection?"
Boom. Nail, meet head. I am a former Verizon Enterprise billing quality assurance employee with close to 20 years of tenure that was let go this year because of Shammo's "Finance Transformation" and replaced with a fresh college grad. I don't know what the hell they do over there at Wireless for trend analysis before the invoices are generated, but I can tell you we over at Enterprise would have noticed the spike doing our monthly trending and would have come up with a solution (like removing overage charges from the billing stream/invoice for that month) to prevent adverse impacts to the customers until the root cause was properly researched and determined. I do know, based on conversations with higher-ups, that the proactive, preventative philosophy we took to quality assurance over at Enterprise was much different than the reactive, catch-it-after-the-fact philosophy pervasive in Wireless and ILEC Wireline.
But, I guess that's the difference with those of us that brought our MCI company culture with us and continued carrying it on despite being bought by the ethically and morally bankrupt companies of WorldCom and Verizon. Not just SAYING "do the right thing, because it's the right thing to do", but actually being about it and putting it into practice.
"The complaints come with unexplained spikes in data usage and overage fees that have hit thousands of Verizon customers in the past several weeks"
"The cause could be a virus or malware on consumers’ phones, said John Breyault, vice president of public policy, telecommunications and fraud at the National Consumers League.
"The cause of the problems isn’t clear, although though the Plain Dealer suggested the troubles may to linked to an Amazon app and other apps linked to the online retailer."
A virus. Really?
Did Verizon not just develop a brand new, state of the art mediation and rating system (that, incidentally, was way beyond budget, way over deadline, and way overstaffed with contract workers)?
There is no excuse for any rating errors whatsoever. It can only occur because of bad coding, bad testing, and bad quality assurance.
This is a brand new system, folks. If Verizon has not learned to write software by now, then they clearly don't understand how to do it. Oh, sure, there will be a few "glitches", they will say. Sorry, I'm not buying it. Verizon really seems to think that experience and real subject matter expertise can be replaced with inexperienced management and cheap contract labor. They cling to the magic bullet that is "Agile Development" and end up throwing crap into production.
That new system should have been bullet-proof. And maybe it is, but I seriously doubt it. Virus or malware? Amazon app? Give me a break. Even it that is the problem, where is the fraud or abnormal usage detection? These concepts have been around a long time.
Verizon, you need to quickly get to the bottom of this and if you find it is a problem with the new rating system, don't accept any excuses. Not one. Find the managers in charge of the defective code and fire them on the spot.