mifi data theft, fraud by verizon class action lawsuit 2012
pzedoffatverizon
Enthusiast - Level 3

i think its high time, mifi and verizon data customers start compiling the necessary information (which i have already gathered for my own case) and start organizing a lawsuit against verizon for deceptive marketing , fraud(wire fraud), theft(interception) of data(e.g. the mysterious 3gb per month data overages experienced by numerous customers. anyone who has anything to add please feel free, lets use this opportunity to narrow down this issue and get some results.....time for verizon to open its wallet i personally am tired of being stolen from and im tired of paying $270.00 a month for a crap connection and crap reception with 7kbps transfer rate. 1 phone and one mifi device.

Re: mifi data theft, fraud by verizon class action lawsuit 2012
John_Getzke
Champion - Level 1

Before you start paying the lawyers take a good look at the contract that you signed.  You will see that litigation through a class action lawsuit is not possible.  Your only option is small claims court where you can approach VZW as an individual and only for your bill.  There are numerous threads out there that will tell you the same thing.

Hope is not lost.  Someone recently sued ATT and won under similar conditions that ATT imposes on its customers.  Visit his website for the details on how he did it:

http://taporc.com/

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Re: mifi data theft, fraud by verizon class action lawsuit 2012
pzedoffatverizon
Enthusiast - Level 3

john thanks for the information, the small claims option is a plausible alternative...i am wondering how when verizon has already nullified any contract that any provision to which i would be held would even be effective? (just trying to stimulate some discussion)  as for paying lawyers i have only three words "Pro Se Litigant". Smiley Happy

Re: mifi data theft, fraud by verizon class action lawsuit 2012
John_Getzke
Champion - Level 1

Take a good look at the contract.

Sounds like the website that I linked you is right up your ally.

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Re: mifi data theft, fraud by verizon class action lawsuit 2012
boboko
Enthusiast - Level 2

On 3.30. at 12.52 I had 90% warning (5GB data plan). I IMMEDIATELY LOOKED up the email from Verizon (I have a Google email messenger that made me aware right away. No good. Just SEVEN minutes later, while checking my usage at Verizon.com at 12.59 I was already over 100%.

THE FOOLS WANT TO TELL ME  THAT I USED 500MB OF DATA IN SEVEN MINUTES !!!!????

Even in ideal conditions you cannot have such a volume of traffic!

(They claim I used close to one GB (0.87GB) in just thirty minutes after 12.30..IMPOSSIBLE)

On plain vanilla TEXT surfing? (I was NOT downloading/uploading ANYTHING) THE ONLY thing I did between 90% warning and 100% in next seven minutes was that I logged in into my Verizon account to check up what was going on. To find out it was already LATE!. (I switched the hotspot off immediately...still got 5.017GB. So checking my data usage ALONE cost me 500MB in DATA!!??????

THEY ARE STEALING FROM ME.

I am in a mood of smash the hotspot against the wall.

If they do not make good on this atrocious demand I may well do so. This is theft, abuse, scam.

There is NO explanation for this pattern. I run a thorough scan of my system if perchance I may have a virus or something bad with my computer that would run up the traffic. The deep scan took ten hours - nothing found.

It is simply no way such a heavy volume could run up so fast 

....I am NOT paying $50 a month to be able to check up my account information at Verizon  ten times and be done and over 5GB JUST FOR THAT.

....I am not paying $50 for ...several hours of PLAIN surfing. (NO streaming/downloading...NADA)

Re: mifi data theft, fraud by verizon class action lawsuit 2012
askjeeves
Contributor - Level 1

You need to take into effect that, hello, that information is not exactly real time. It could've taken a few minutes to get to you. Chill.

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Re: mifi data theft, fraud by verizon class action lawsuit 2012
John_Getzke
Champion - Level 1

The emails are not sent in a timely manner as we have seen in various threads before.  VZW does make an effort to inform you but the response time is not immediate.

For example, if you call the 1-800 number and check your data consumption you will see that VZW will only report on the previously completed session.  Sessions can take between 20 and 60 minutes to complete in my experience.  If you ask VZW for a data report the report will display the same behavior.  The data that they report on is not real time so your email notifications will not be in synch with your usage at the time you recieve them.  Depending on what you were doing at the time it is very possible to be well over 100% of your data plan by the time the email notification kicks off for hitting 90%.

Data is consumed everytime your MiFi requests anything from the VZW network.  Data could be traffic from a website that you initiated on your own.  Data could also be updates from Microsoft, Adobe, video games, etc that run in the background automatically and without your knowledge.  This is nothing specific to a MiFi, it is how computers interact with the networks they are connected to. 

Re: mifi data theft, fraud by verizon class action lawsuit 2012
boboko
Enthusiast - Level 2

My point stays. I DID NOT USE THE DATA.

There is no way I could splurge 0.87 GB  (the usage I saw reported after the delay period) in just under 30 minutes.

I DID NOTHING. Literally. I just opened my browser and went to SEVERAL web pages. Not hundreds - you cannot make that much in a couple of minutes.

I DID NOT UPDATE nothing. There was NO update running at that time (I have update log in Microsoft and NO update was downloading at that time; there was NOTHING for Adobe and Zone Alarm also did NOT update at that time.

Half a gig of a download would be a hell of an update!

I was extremely cautious NOT do go over limit as there were similar unexplainable charges to me in the past of the same billing period. I was supposedly downloading something as huge as 1.2 Gig in about three hours.  Again, that was plain surfing. NO DOWNLOAD (Checked the log, did not initiated anything) NO STREAMING, NO VID.  Plain text browsing.

I already elaborated on me checking throughly for any virus/bot or anything  what could be the source of this mysterious traffic. I found nothing.

I DID NO INITIATE it  and do not intend to pay for it - not now and not any time in future.

IF THIS IS THE RATE THEY FEEL ENTITLED TO over CHARGE ME - i.e. if I get in exchange for my $50 severals hours spent on autonomous downloads before I "go over" I AM OUT.

I did not buy this over expensive device for that.

In the past billing periods I did exactly the same what I did this time (as a matter of fact MORE -more day/hours of usage) and got only under 3Gigs.  I was even considering that a cheaper plan would be enough.

By an independent research (discussion at Gizmag and elsewhere) the data plans of ANY big Wireless are overcharged by TWO ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE. That is the real cost of providing the service is just about 1% of what they make on charges and fees. This just adds to my overall aggravation with this whole matter.

To make a point I may well still smash the sucker against the wall. Irrational, sure. But a point it makes.

Then post on You Tube.

Re: mifi data theft, fraud by verizon class action lawsuit 2012
boboko
Enthusiast - Level 2

Not smashing the hot spot yet:). I am getting the abnormal data volume investigated.  It looks like I still can work with the support on this issue. I am really curious what transpires. (A bot? A hacker?)

I DID NOT initiate this mysterious volume.

Re: mifi data theft, fraud by verizon class action lawsuit 2012
John_Getzke
Champion - Level 1

I'd be interested to know what VZW support asks you to do when they arrive at thier conclusion.  The process that you go through may be helpful to future users if it happens to them. 

Keep us posted on your progress.