Fraudulent Calls
JESTEP
Newbie

We lost a phone about a week ago, and had almost $4000 in fraudulent calls made on our account. Verizon initially told us they would be refunded in the online chat as well as over the phone. I recorded the nearly 2 hours of calls with them and was repeatedly told by customer service, the fraud department and finance that these charges would be refunded. Still our phones can't text or place calls and finance told us this morning that fraud now marked the calls as legitimate.

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Does anyone know if there is some way to escalate this? I've spent hours on the phone with Verizon and they blatantly lied to us the whole time. Chat is no longer available in my verizon wireless account. Finance wants us to pay $4300 to get our phones working or change our plan. We've been with Verizon for about 10 years and are probably going to Tmobile after this. Unacceptable treatment.

chat transcription removed as required by the Verizon Wireless Terms of Service

Message edited by Verizon Moderator.

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Re: Fraudulent Calls
Ann154
Community Leader
Community Leader

Was there a reason why you didn't report the phone as lost or stolen immediately?

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: Fraudulent Calls
JESTEP
Newbie

Initially we thought the phone was misplaced and lost power in the house during a large family event the night before. We had checked through the google account the phone was using that it hadn't been turned on as well. Additionally, roughly $1000 of the charges occurred days after the phone was reported stolen.

Now, Verizon is holding the account hostage, we can't use the phones, except for incoming calls, they want us to purchase an international plan even though they literally refused to tell us if this will actually save anything. I can't even make this us, they said the international call cost would go down frin $1.99 to $.70 per call. I asked how many international calls were placed on the lost phone, they literally said we can't tell you that and they refused to say what the cost difference would be when asked specifically about it.

They said we can dispute the charges after they are finalized which is in roughly a month, so must pay or can't use Verizon until November. Basically requiring us to pay $4300 in international phone calls we didn't make and then dispute the charges which they have repeatedly said, until the call this morning, we aren't liable for.

And again, I've got chat and voice recordings of Verizon stating all of the fees will be refunded by something like 6 or 7 different people including 2 in fraud, at least 2 in customer service, and 1 in finance, and at least one in their online chat.

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Re: Fraudulent Calls
deloused
Master - Level 3

Ouch that situation is a rough one, I feel for you you in that situation with such high charges, and having to experience the run around you’ve been going through. While unbilled usage details can’t be provided over the phone if logged into MyVerizon as the account owner/manager you may be able to view the call details in question for the current bill cycle.

To mitigate the long distance charges on the account before the current bill cycle ends I’d definitely suggest having the ‘Unlimited Together World‘ feature added and backdated to your account. At the cost of $15 for the month it would greatly lower the pending long distance charges from the standard $1.99 minute rate. As you mentioned the current charges total $4,300, which means about 2,161 minutes were used for international long distance. If the international long distance plan is added, and the discounted minute rate changes to $0.70/minute (like the rates for Cuba for example) that would lower the charges down to about $1,513. Still quite high, but much better than without the plan.

It‘s not acceptable that you’ve been provided differen answers when contacting Verizon, and hopefully that inconvenience could help in your favor to have some sort of billing credit applied to the account when they answer your dispute complaint. The representatives really should be more straightforward about the billing & processes. Of course while you didn’t intend in any way to have such high charges billed to the account, the usage charges prior to having the service suspended on that line by reporting the loss/theft would be valid per your service agreement. (Details & link below). Usage charges made prior to reporting/suspending the service can be reviewed on a case by case basis, and are sometimes credited per the terms below if there was ‘good reason‘ for the delay (usually for proven severe situations beyond one’s control such as incapacitation for example.)

Checking the google account is one good way to look for usage in the device itself, but it does nothing to check or prevent a thief from moving the active SIM card for the phone number into a different device to use the service on. That’s why it is really essential to report & suspend service immediately for any lost/stolen device, and why all the carriers include that in their service contracts. For being a customer for about 10 years though honestly you have been aware of that, but at least now you are for the future to avoid such a situation again with Verizon, or T-Mobile or any network you may decide to use.

I definitely wouldn’t blame you for considering switching carriers given the hours, service interruptions and hassle you’ve already spent on this issue. You‘d be more likely to receive a courtesy credit towards some of the charges as they may make you some sort of bill reduction offer to continue service with your Verizon account if you were to call in and request the lines to be disconnected. Otherwise, trading in or selling your Verizon devices and putting that money towards the bill if switching to T-Mobile as you mentioned could also help reduce the overall cost.

Hopefully the correct agreement details can help alleviate some of the frustrations of the situation with the run around you’ve been getting with all the different answers-

How and when can I dispute charges?

If you're a Postpay customer, you can dispute your bill within 180 days of receiving it, but unless otherwise provided by law or unless you're disputing charges because your wireless device was lost or stolen, you still have to pay all charges until the dispute is resolved.

What if my wireless device gets lost or stolen?

We're here to help. It's important that you notify us right away, so we can suspend your Service to keep someone else from using it. If you're a Postpay customer and your wireless device is used after the loss or theft but before you report it, and you want a credit for any charges for that usage, we're happy to review your account activity and any other information you'd like us to consider. Keep in mind that you may be held responsible for the charges if you delayed reporting the loss or theft without good reason.

This agreement and the documents it incorporates form the entire agreement between us. You can't rely on any other documents, or on what's said by any Sales or Customer Service Representatives, and you have no other rights regarding Service or this agreement.

Customer Agreement | Verizon Wireless

Re: Fraudulent Calls
vzw_customer_support
Customer Service Rep

It is disappointing to read about your experience JESTEP. We definitely want to do everything we can to help. I have sent you a direct message so we can further assist.

RashadM_VZW

Follow us on Twitter @VZWSupport

If my response answered your question please click the 'Correct Answer' button under my response. This ensures others can benefit from our conversation. Thanks in advance for your help with this!

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