Verizon Makes Offering Service Blocks a Fireable Offense 370
Presto Vivace sends in a report from David Pogue at the New York Times, who learned from a Verizon customer service representative that the company has implemented a policy of punishing employees who suggest certain service blocks to customers looking to avoid unwanted or accidental fees. According to the representative, offering (for example) a web access block or premium SMS block without the customer asking for it can now lead to a reprimand or outright termination. The CSRs have also been directed to avoid issuing credits for such charges. "Essentially, we are to upsell customers on the $9.99 25mb/month or $29.99 unlimited packages for customers. Customers are not to be credited for charges unless they ask for the credit. And in cases such as data or premium SMS, where the occurrences may have gone months without the consumer noticing, only an initial credit can be issued."
T-mobile is great in this respect (Score:5, Informative)
Re:T-mobile is great in this respect (Score:4, Informative)
Re:T-mobile is great in this respect (Score:5, Informative)
I second this. I have T-mobile and while their android phone selection is kind of sucking right now, I can still get away with wireless tethering for free and they have one of the largest caps (10 gigs). I've easily blown through 2-5 gigs already this month. They also just boosted their speeds locally and I'm now pulling like 2.5-4mbps, which is a lot better than the 1mbps I was getting previously. Don't know when I'll start to see speeds over 5mbps, but I should probably upgrade to the latest radio. The worst they do to the people that exceed their caps is drop them down to edge, which still at least leaves their phones somewhat usable. Every other provider wants to nickel and dime you to death. Boost is good for cheap phone service, but their network is terrible and nowhere even near edge quality. I'd feel pretty bad for anyone that bought their proposed android phone. Its going to be rather painful. Seems like sprint is content to milk the old nextel network for all its worth.
Re:Glad I just moved to Sprint. (Score:3, Informative)
Sure. T-mobile won't nickel and dime you and they have generous caps on data. I've never paid more on my bill than the original stated amount. If you already have a compatible phone you can go month to month, contract free, or you can pay the full amount for the phone and avoid the contract. I was kind of dumb and did the contract, but I really have no complaints at all as I'm only paying like $30 more than I was before for just voice/sms and I can wirelessly tether with my laptop. They just bumped local speeds to 2.5.3mpbs on average and it should eventually get nearer to 7mpbs for me as their HSPA+ rollout completes, but I'm already pretty happy with the speed I have now for it being wireless and all. I can even watch hulu or netflix, which is pretty decent, though data consumption is awfully high. :)
DIY (Score:5, Informative)
Account -> Plan -> Set Usage Controls -> Add/Remove Blocks
They didn't deny it. (Score:5, Informative)
The source claims that they can be fired if they suggest data blocks unless a customer specifically asks for them.
Verizon's defense was that no employee would be fired for adding a data block if a customer specifically asked for one.
What's really disturbing is that the reporter actually accepted this as a valid defense. Their answer covers when a customer specifically asks for a block, the firing in question occurs when a customer does not.
How specifically do the customers have to ask? Is asking for them to stop these ridiculous charges enough, or do you have to ask for a data block specifically? Would you still have to request download blocking, Vcast blocking, etc. by name?
They designed the phone interface to maximize the frequency of these charges, I'm pretty sure they make stopping them as difficult as possible. As far as companies go, Verizon is among the lowest of the low.
Re:T-mobile is great in this respect (Score:3, Informative)
T-mobile has the lowest price for data-only service, at $40 monthly. This has been the case for years. If you've got your VOIP setup down, you already know this is all you need. One SIM allows easy-tethering also.
http://www.t-mobile.com/shop/plans/cell-phone-plans-detail.aspx?tp=tb1&rateplan=Even-More-Plus-Smartphone-Unlimited-Web-E-mail [t-mobile.com]
My brother drives a truck around Northern Arizona and I've been trying to get him to switch to such a plan, but he says there's nothing like Verizon coverage in the area, (and what he really wants is voice service). If anyone has any comments on T-mobiles coverage in N. Arizona, I'd like to hear. When I look at T-mobiles coverage map, it looks pretty good along all the highways, to me.
Re:Customer Service Is a Misnomer (Score:5, Informative)
One of the metrics used quite extensively by the telecom company that I work for is "churn" this is the percentage of customers that leave the service. It is compared extensively with churn numbers from our competing carriers, as well as with our historic churn levels for previous quarters or years.
The company is well aware of the cost to acquire a new customer, (they have it figured out down to fractions of a cent) and the churn rate for existing customers.
Although this doesn't help you see "why" someone left, you CAN see any trends based on various policies. (ie. we instituted policy "screw the customer" in Q1 2009, and in subsequent quarters we started to show a higher churn rate, maybe we should re-think that policy?)
Additionally whenever anyone cancels their service, A rep tries to get a reason out of the customer, this is obviously 2 fold, part of it is to try to keep them by offering some form of "save" deal, but the other one is to keep statistics on why people leave, if most people leave for "price" then you consider changes to pricing structure, if most people leave for "reliability" you consider upgrades to infrastructure, if most people leave for "customer service"... well... our execs still haven't decided what to do about that one... but I'm sure they'll figure it out eventually...
Verizon handled this issue well for me (Score:3, Informative)
I know people gripe about every large company, but Verizon has provided very good service to us. Regarding this issue, we received 2 unsolicited premium SMS messages for $10 each. We called them, and Verizon refunded the charges and suggested blocking premium SMS (which we did).
It was a little while ago, as a said, but I seem to remember learning that there was a legal issue involved -- either a lawsuit or FCC investigation. Also, Verizon has a FAQ that explains premium SMS well:
http://support.vzw.com/faqs/Premium_TXT_and_MMS/faq_premium_txt_and_mms.html [vzw.com]
Re:Customer Service (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Rife (Score:3, Informative)
Re:T-mobile is great in this respect (Score:2, Informative)
It's great, no hassle, cheap, and they have the best customer service. The first year I forgot the renewal date (I was off by a day) but the rep told me I was within the (one time) 48hr grace period so they restored the ~100 bucks that should have expired. They got a life customer for that class act.
Verizon is disgusting (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Surprise? (Score:4, Informative)
Well said. Bravo. Rather than accept such attitudes, people should tell Verizon exactly why they're leaving and leave. In my case, I did and went to Sprint who happens to also have much better service and coverage in my area. While Sprint's CS hasn't been completely stellar, it's well above Verizon's, and like erroneus, I always suspected it came from the top. If I hadn't already made the change, I would be making it right now. No-one should tolerate such business practices. Additionally, since they are making a policy of refusing to credit accidental charges, I wonder if that doesn't fall directly under deceptive trade practices since they obviously know that such charges are being unintentionally incurred, and they are knowingly profiting off such as well as implementing policies specifically intended to profit off these deceptive practices.
On the other side of this, I have worked as a phone rep. In fact I have worked at a contractor who at the time had the Verizon account. I'm not sure if that contractor still does Verizon support, but they take pride in following such practices..."whatever the client wants" even if that client is plainly screwing the customer. Today's version of 'customer service' has made me so disillusioned I am strongly considering getting out of tech and into something like food services, where good customer service and providing quality goods is actually still appreciated and is even rewarded to a large degree.
Re:Customer Service (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Customer Service (Score:2, Informative)