This evening I got home from work and saw a piece of mail talking about new fiber optic services now being offered in my area. My first thought was “finally…”, but now I’m questioning if I even want to do business with Verizon at all.
I opened the mail and discovered it was actually our Verizon bill, and that under “Operator Ass. Netwk” it had $29.95 as a fee — that’s a lot of operator assistance for lines we rarely use for anything but incoming calls. Something was wrong. Very wrong.
Confused, I turned to page four and saw that we were being billed for something called “NLO INTERNETMNTHLYFEE” at a rate of $29.95/mo.
Problem is, I don’t have Internet through Verizon. I don’t have a land line modem. I don’t have DSL. And I certainly don’t have fiber optic, something they’ve scheduled to install three weeks from now.
How long have they been charging us for internet service? Since April, when they dug up our yard and put down cable.
My wife, knowing we have Internet, didn’t question the charge. However, we get our internet service through Adelphia, who’s already made it a point to charge us $3 extra a month in rental fees for a cable modem that I purchased for $80 via BestBuy. (This is another sore spot.)
I suspect a lot of households are being scammed in a similar manner, too innocent to know that something is wrong.
After calling Verizon, they did confirm that the charges were incorrect, and to their credit they did block future charges and reimburse the fees.
It seems third party companies are authorized to charge under the Verizon name, and they are experiencing a rash of customer complaints where people are being automatically subscribed and billed for internet services when they come by and dig up the yard. They “just assume” you’ll subscribe, even if the service isn’t up and working.
Check your bills, meanwhile, I have neighbors to go talk to… and then a call to the Virginia State Corporation Commission.