Report: Verizon to Pay $90M in Customer Refunds

AP Photo

Millions of Verizon Wireless cell phone customers will receive refunds totaling up to $90 million for wrongly charged data sessions on their phones.

The company will credit current customers in amounts between $2 and $6 each on their bills for October or November; former customers will receive refund checks in the same amounts, The New York Times reported on its website Sunday night.

The company told the Times the credits will go toward 15 million customers. The newspaper called the refunds one of the largest ever by a telecommunications company.

The refunds come after the company held talks with the Federal Communications Commission about complaints about the charges, the Times reported. The company has received the complaints for the last three years from customers who said they were charged for data usage or accessing the Internet when their phones weren't in use or when a button preprogrammed to access the Web was accidentally pressed, the newspaper reported.

[breashearsR]

Verizon is evil....
They took over my mom and I's Alltel account around the 1st of the year. I wasn't told our plan had changed from unlimited everything to only 500 min/texts a month. Needless to say I wracked up quite a debt (I think it was 450, when it should have been only about 75). But here's where it gets strange...

Our phones were SHUT OFF in February, but somehow they managed to say I was still using data; $500 every month, according to them. It was April before they stopped bothering us about it. (The grand total was almost $2k that we supposedly owed)

And now all I can get back from that crap is $2-6??? That is BULL.

[morsecode5]

What you should only be charged with is the minutes you use when you talk on the phone and only that, I think.

[Fatesrider]

Having been one of those who has a smart-phone with a pre-programmed button that accesses the Internet, and having complained to the FCC about it, I expect a refund, though I reaised bloody hell when it happened and wasn't charged.

The Internet access on my phone was exactly the same key combination as unlocking the phone. Since it's a Smartphone with an exposed keyboard, locking the thing is mandatory. Was that key combination a coincidence? I think not. I ultimately hacked the phone and removed that access method altogether. The program is still there, but no shortcuts exist to it anymore and that key combination now does Back.

[imthaid]

Yeah, they're crooked alright. As soon as I did the initial setup on my droid (my 1st smart phone) I was on the net and did not realize it. There is NO confirmation to tell you that you are about to go on the net. Needless to say, I found another carrier.

[rodwally]

$90 million? That's chump change for Verizon. That corporation has been bilking customers for years with scores of different data-charge tricks. This "settlement" just white-washes that malfeasance.