First month's bill is double?!
Jon256
Enthusiast - Level 2

New postpaid account, two lines on the Do More Unlimited. My next bill estimate shows that my second bill will be $86.21 per line, but my initial bill is a whopping $168.54 per line, thanks mostly to an $80 one time charge marked "Do More Unlimited".

Customer service by phone was not helpful in explaining whether this is a fee, or a deposit that I am entitled to a refund on when the account is closed. In either case it was not clearly communicated at checkout when I opened the account online.

Can anyone explain whether I'll be seeing this $160 ($80 * 2 lines) back again?

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Re: First month's bill is double?!
Ann154
Community Leader
Community Leader

The community website was acting strange for me too this morning. After clearing my history and giving it a few hours, it seems to have cleared up for me. I'm replying through the website and not from the email notification I received for a new post in the community forum. 

 

The bill date is likely July 20th, but you should see a partial monthly charge for July 19th to July 20th and a full month service charge for the billing period of July 21st to August 20th. The bill should be due on August 12th. If you haven't looked at the PDF copy of the bill yet, you should see exactly how the charges are broken down on the detailed bill. 

There must be a promotional discount on the activation fee to reduce from $40 to $20, likely if you started the account online.

 

The autopay and paperless billing discount can take 2 to 3 billing cycles after requesting the discount for it to start to be applied. 

I'm most definitely NOT a VZW employee. If a post answered your question, please mark it as the answer.

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Re: First month's bill is double?!
vzw_customer_support
Customer Service Rep

Hi Jon256,

 

We always want your bill charges to be clear and we apologize for any confusion. We can help here. The Do More Unlimited Plan is $80.00 monthly per line for 2 lines, bring your total to $160.00 plus taxes on our Unlimited Mix and Match Plans. Click here to view the pricing for the Do More Unlimited Plans https://www.verizonwireless.com/plans/unlimited/ . Does this help? 

 

Thanks,

PamelaF_VZW

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Re: First month's bill is double?!
Jon256
Enthusiast - Level 2

First of all, I want to say that I had a great deal of trouble even replying to this thread, since your site kept giving me http errors when I clicked the reply button.

 

Second, please see the question I posted above. I understand the monthly cost of Do More Unlimited. What I do not understand is why I was charged double the monthly cost. It appears to be a deposit, but I'd like confirmation.

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Re: First month's bill is double?!
Ann154
Community Leader
Community Leader

If you look at the detailed bill, you should see two $40 one time activation fees for each line on the account. There will also be a partial month charges for the billing cycle from when you started the new account and when the regular billing cycle ended. These charges are in addition to the regular billing cycle charges. If you have any device payment agreements, these would also be on the bill. 

I'm most definitely NOT a VZW employee. If a post answered your question, please mark it as the answer.

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Re: First month's bill is double?!
Jon256
Enthusiast - Level 2

Like the last message, it took me several minutes and retries to even post this message because of the same http 413 error served by this forum's server.

Looking at my bill again today, I see that the estimated bill has graduated to a real bill, and changed in amount. I'm now being charged the correct activation fee ($20 discounted from $40, per line) and more importantly not being double-charged on my plan fee ($80 per line, not $160 per line). However, I am also not seeing a credit for paperless and automatic billing.

Thanks for the reply Ann. I don't actually see any partial month's charges, but the billing period for this bill is actually listed as Jul 19 - Jul 20. Is this really a 1-day billing cycle billed as if it were a full month's of service?

PamelaF_VZW, do you have anything relevant to add?

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Re: First month's bill is double?!
Ann154
Community Leader
Community Leader

The community website was acting strange for me too this morning. After clearing my history and giving it a few hours, it seems to have cleared up for me. I'm replying through the website and not from the email notification I received for a new post in the community forum. 

 

The bill date is likely July 20th, but you should see a partial monthly charge for July 19th to July 20th and a full month service charge for the billing period of July 21st to August 20th. The bill should be due on August 12th. If you haven't looked at the PDF copy of the bill yet, you should see exactly how the charges are broken down on the detailed bill. 

There must be a promotional discount on the activation fee to reduce from $40 to $20, likely if you started the account online.

 

The autopay and paperless billing discount can take 2 to 3 billing cycles after requesting the discount for it to start to be applied. 

I'm most definitely NOT a VZW employee. If a post answered your question, please mark it as the answer.

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Re: First month's bill is double?!
Jon256
Enthusiast - Level 2

I wasn't sure directly replying by email worked, but I'm trying that now. (And... the email bounces. Fighting with the web page directly again instead.)

Yes, the activation discount is from opening the account online.

The due date is indeed 8/12. Furthermore, I notice in the pdf that although the bill period is 7/19 - 7/20, the plan charges are listed as covering 7/21 - 8/20. This is in-line with the explanation I found on this page:

https://www.verizon.com/support/view-bill-online-faqs/?adobe_mc=MCMID%3D3351842473047383142411278026...

I don't know if this always happens for new customers, but the bill cycle does align with the start of my service, so that the first bill is only charging me for one month's usage.

Thanks for the info that the discount takes a few months to apply. That seems kinda sketchy but it's not really any worse than the "Federal" fees that are Verizon charges and not taxes. I'm just glad to not be paying a full extra month's worth of surprise fees.

Lessons learned from my perspective:

1. Phone support lacks the communication skills to answer technical billing questions. Verizon's written policies are more reliable, at least when you can actually access them and not get http errors.

2. This forum has knowledgeable users, though the official Verizon accounts may be bots.

3. Always ignore the bill estimate and wait for the real bill. (FWIW, I ported this number from my mother's AT&T plan, and the resulting AT&T's bill estimates are also nonsense that the phone reps tell you to ignore.)

4. There is no "deposit" for the plan charges. Plan charges are generally prepaid (despite it being called a "postpaid" service), except that the first bill will include prorated charges for the initial partial cycle, if any.

Re: First month's bill is double?!
vzw_customer_support
Customer Service Rep

I am so sorry that you had a hard time posting on this thread, Jon256. We do bill one month in advance. Therefore, this can be why you see the additional charge. 

 

Please let me know if this helps. 

 

VanessaS_VZW

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Re: First month's bill is double?!
Jon256
Enthusiast - Level 2

VanessaS_VZW,

This issue is resolved as far as I'm concerned. The confusion was due to 1) lack of clarity around when to expect my first bill and what charges it would cover (largely addressed by the FAQ page I found), and 2) my expecting the Bill Estimate to be accurate, when in reality only the actual bill is useful.

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Re: First month's bill is double?!
vzw_customer_support
Customer Service Rep

We want every experience to be a good one. I apologize the first bill shocked you. Let us know if you have any further concerns.  -CarterV_VZW

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