Your email address will not be published. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. Skip to content. July 9, July 9, thanh. There is no difference between. They are both clearly. Leave a Reply Cancel reply Your email address will not be published.
He was quoted. He was so surprised he asked the representative to verify that. His bill was for. So he called to point out the difference to Verizon. Shifted from caller rep to caller rep, every one of whom demonstrated absolutely no understanding that there was any difference between the two numbers at all, he finally turned out his tape recorder and recorded his conversation with the floor manager and published it to his new blog.
Even while quoting the rate of. G: [big sigh] Okay, I think I have to do this again. Since publishing his experience , George has learned that his is not an isolated case, and he points out that while Verizon did adjust his accounts, they still refuse to acknowledge their error, and between two totally different customers:.
Make that blog your math lesson for today, homeschooling pals. Your email is never published nor shared. I also got. I endured a similar ordeal trying to explain the difference between. They may quote this number all day long but if it is in writing I believe that that is the rate that they are going to charge like they did and that is the rate that they will expect you to pay.
Yes, it is certainly a problem. However, other than something like a corporate memo of how to read numbers with decimal points in them, I don't think this thing will accomplish much.
I asked to speak to a supervisor who quickly assured me that the rate that I was quoted was wrong and that the actual rate is. From my conversation with the manager I learned that verizon may not believe that Puerto Rico is part of North America. First of all, there is no data plan for the island and normal cellular use under any plan including the North America plan, costs the same there. There are not the most mathematically astute people working at a call center, but at least they are polite while someone politely berates them as though they are a complete idiot deservedly so though.
I listened to the phone conversation again and still couldn't believe it. However, I did get a glimpse of bad math skills before from a seemingly intelligent person. My 'lawyer' friend actually believed that buying tickets for every lottery combination, and hence winning, is profitable she read or heard it from somewhere.
Not as simple as ". Ha, this is pretty crazy I wonder if they'd understand better if the problem was reversed. Seriously is decimals and fractions really that hard? George i really think you have a strong case for a class action Badabing: Libel involves a falsehood.
Truth is a defense to a libel suit. There are no lies here. This was just ridiculous. I'm a community college math tutor, and I'm fairly certain most of my students would understand this. It reminds me of a few years ago when my parents were at the end of a car lease, and had, of course, gone over their miles. Their quote, though, was. To this day, it has not been cashed. We think it's probably sitting in some idiot's office as an example of what NOT to do.
I've run into this problem once before. Next time ask to speak to someone in accouting. This bothered me to no end. Wow, frustrating to no end! Their posted rates do not matter when a Rep of the company quoted the rate of.
When they noted it on your account they were locked into upholding that quote. Talk to a lawyer about Suing them for Fraud. I worked for Ford Motor Credit Company we handled similar issues all the time. Yeah, sure, laugh. Your common sense told you it was wrong, but yet You're going to have problems communicating this, mainly because without writing it down, it is confusing.
Especially if you half-care, like most representatives. I'd suggest, if you want a credit, write them a letter. Demonstrate the miscommunication in a way that can't be ambiguous. I only say this, because I work in a call center--Cingular's, not Verizon's.
And you'd expect the most basic things to be easily communicable, but they aren't. A lot of exegesis is required to make a point. And even then, the representative might not be listening, might not be paying attention--maybe something else is wrong in their life, or they just had a shitty call.
The rep might also think that she or he knows the answer and wants to just get past your story and tell it to you. Most written letters go to an environment where the issue is addressed in a more professional manner. Write it down on paper, and ask for a rerate. Crowder and Academicdave touched on this, but I don't think they emphasized it enough: They are charging people times more than their rates advertise.
Either they're guilty of stealing because they do this on purpose, or they're guilty of criminal negligence by having a x rift between their banking code and their rates.
And thats a couple hundred k dollars, not cents. The Burger King near my house used to have a sign that said ". I always wanted to order of them and then slap 1 dollar on the counter and make them eat it. Stupid people really ruin this place. I have ADD, let's see Same thing. Sorry to post so far down the line, but I feel I must share my Verizon story. For two months, my DSL would randomly stop loading webpages for hours at a time.
I'd call to complain, and they would say they were working on it. One day I called them because it hadn't worked at all for days. I had called billing to inform them I would not be paying for those days, they transferred me straight to Tech Support without listening. Two hours on the phone with an unfortunately very patient woman in India.
Finally she told me that my account was suspended, and that I would have to call billing. Called billing on Monday morning. They said they would call me with a resolution by noon. I received a message saying that it should only take about two weeks to set up my NEW service. I called and asked why the hell I had to go three weeks without internet, and the woman very condescendingly explained that it take time to set up a new service and that I should be patient.
One positive thing happened during the 8 hours or so of time I spent on the phone cellphone minutes, of course, because billing closes at 5, an hour before I get home. I had been transferred twice and was over-patienly explaining the situation yet again to someone who would not help, and the guy in front of me on the bus, hearing the irritaion in my voice, said "You're talking to Verizon, aren't you?
Hope this turns even more people off Verizon. I sent the following to Verizon via their customer support section on their website: To whom it may concern: I am a very frequent cell phone user unsatisfied with my present plan from another company.
Our current contract is due to be up within the next few months. Verizon was on the top of my list. They treated Mr. Vaccaro terribly. Despite his enormous patience in explaining over and over again your error, your reps refused to concede to basic mathematics. The fact that several supervisors joined the conversation and still insisted that your mathematical error was correct, despite simple math and a very patient customer, proves to me one thing: you cannot be taken at your word for price quotes over the phone.
Neither I, nor any of my subsidiaries, can afford to do business with a company who cannot keep their word. I am writing this in the likely mistaken hope that you will know that in this society of free information and consumer advocacy, how you treat one very patient, very correct customer, may not stay bottled up in one area of the country, but may lose you a customer somewhere far away.
You lost this customer. Cordially, Jason Hackwith. I am really glad that you posted This on the website, the problem is extremely clear but the reps don't seem to want to take any responsibility for their own mistakes. It almost seems as if their unwilling to listen to reason.
I loved the examples that were given, especially the car example, I am stunned that all of these reps still insisted on the same pattern. Hopefully, it's not something that they teach in their call centers. It was especially interesting when just before transferring to the lady manager, there was a silence from the reps side, it's as if he knew it was a mistake and knew it would be better not to comment. Can't read a person's mind from a recorded conversation Side note: What I did learn from this conversation was a way of expressing math.
This must be the worst case of bad customer service I have ever seen! The reps must have dropped out of school or something for all of them to fail to see the problem! If it had been. Does anyone else realize that mobile billing software is almost entirely automated-- that they are billing you the same way as everyone else?
Did anyone think that the verbal answer given on the phone by customer service is probably not contractually binding on Verizon, and that their roaming data prices are probably on a website somewhere, not to mention subject to change without notice? I understand people like to hate phone companies, and certainly Verizon's given me plenty of reasons over the years to hate them-- I also used to be a client, and dropped them for various reasons, and underwent a billing dispute.
It seems to me, though, that someone made an obvious mistake, and you're trying to either hold them to that mistaken rate, or make them admit that they can't do math. Whether or not they're verbally up to the task of distinguishing between two one thousandths of a dollar and two one thousandths of a cent is probably not the point; the point is, you were almost certainly billed the correct amount, and are trying to have your bill reduced by times based on what a CSR told you over the phone.
The answer here is that the person who first told you "cents" misspoke. It should have been "dollars" Nobody quotes prices in cents, and nobody bills that little for roaming mobile data. But Verizon decides what the correct rate is, and they keep telling him 0.
So the guy is going to base his usage on the rate they tell him. Should he waste his time asking for quotes until he gets one that is times higher than the original? Your quote shouldn't a random lottery based on who you are talking to on the phone. If they give you a number they should stick to it. They screw this up so often in stores that my seventh grade math teacher said it's fun to try to get the price that's actually posted. Like when it says: "SODA. He thought it was pretty important to use the correct units.
So freaking what? Verizon's salespersons are responsible for what they say. Few years ago I got a Verizon cell phone plan with "unlimited cell-to-cell calls". I specifically asked the sales rep "Does that mean unlimited calls only to other Verizon phones, or to ANY cell phone? Sure, I was being charged what they charge everyone, and sure, I could have checked their web page for rates, but why should it be my responsibility??
Their saleswoman screwed up. I held the company to her word. Thankfully, they were not being asses about it. Truly the funniest thing I've heard in a long time. Bravo for doing this, and bravo for your patience during your call! I have had so many bad customer service experiences in the past few years, but none compares to this. I think that any time I get on the phone to any customer service organization, I am going to tape the conversation and Blog it just like this. While you may be smarter than the average customer service rep in terms of math, your real genius is blogging this.
After listening to all the audio, it doesn't surprise me that the CSRs didn't understand that. I really don't hold them accountable. That is the way they are trained, it is the information available to them in their manual and probably on their knowledge databases. However, I am quite shocked that the supervisor AND the floor manager couldn't comprehend the concept or understand what the real issue was.
I also had found how the floor manager handled the situation was a bit unprofessional for a CSR manager. She kept cutting you off and referred you to a calculator as if you were an annoyance who didn't understand their billing when you were the one trying to give her an education on how the quoting and billing does not match on the basic concept that.
I see that they acknowledged that their manuals and references are going to be updated, but they also might want to take into consideration some higher level training or education for floor managers. Like many others, I'm very impressed. You did an extremely good job at keeping your temper, and at explaining the problem without much preparation.
I was going to chime in with another suggestion for technique, but a lot of people have done that very competently here, so I'll leave it at that. Different Robin than Dec. I take advanced calculus in college, and you really have to be care with your units when doing math, unfortunatly this math they are doign is extremely simple math, i bet my 5 year old son could do this math.
If these people at verision need a mathmetitcian to point this out to them i know of several. Apparently to work at verision you have to be a high school drop out. Also if they cant do this simple math makes me scared to ever do buisness with them, because i doubt that these peopel even know how to read.
Also can you imagine how many people they have ripped off? Secondly just because a computer tells you one thing does not make it right. The person that did the programing of thier system screwed up, and that is the key of why they dont see this mistake. They just assume the cents become dollars because the computer does it. And you can not obvisly tell them any different just because they believe the computer. Its like saying you have a 2cm stick and if you attach 5 of them together you get a 10cm stick, only problem here is verision thinks if you take 5 2cm stick and put them together you get a 10meter stick.
They are just simply idiots. It's amazing how dumb people are. Sorry you had to go thru this, however, thanks for blogging about this. Now I'm sure everyone will be watching their Verizon bill more carefully. Apart from the issue of math competence, calculator use and math education in general this affair raises, it is also interesting to note how the U.
I much prefer the flat rate plans availabe in the U. Dear George, I deeply admire your patience. If you have any problems understanding this, please leverage someone from your accounting department to help you understand it, as I'm sure they know the difference between dollars and cents.
Wish you all best W. Hi, in reading the comments I feel I have to disagree with the definition of "-fold" as given by Damien. I looked up the definition on m-w. Legally, if one party is allowed to record a call and all parties are aware recording may be taking place, then any involved party may record the call. Your comment makes no sense. Wow, I am so shocked by what I just read! We have a very simple way of looking at our clients. The company is not going to to go broke over a credit of that miniscule amount for them, not you!!
Because of them fighting you over this, they have now given one easily credited charge and the end of the problem over to x amount of people now knowing about this incident and losing present clients as well as potentual ones. How sad. I currently have Sprint service and I am very happy with the customer service I've had with them I feel really stupid admitting this, but I probably wouldn't have noticed the difference if you hadn't pointed it out.
When the math is written out I see the point, but when we speak it I can see how they don't understand what you're trying to explain. I guess the reason they get away with stuff like that is that most people don't pay that close of attention. OR most people would have understand her to mean. Kudos on getting your money back though. I started out doing dial-up tech support and billing for a little no-name company that had a very small service footprint, making good money, which supported every piece of software and hardware under the sun.
We spent a lot of time of the phone with each customer, helping them solve their problems. At the same time I was working with top-notch people, most of which had a college education and loved their jobs.
In the long run, we hung up and 10 seconds to 10 minutes later, we would do the same thing on the next call. Time went on, and eventually the big companies, Verizon, Comcast, and Cox were the only places that were hiring for billing and tech support.
I moved on, the pay did increase a fairly small amount, but it was what i knew and enjoyed, at that time. The rest are what the most of the veterans call "monkeys with headsets". Unfortunately the big communication giants, unlike the companies I started with, don't care about hiring people that have hands-on experience.
Don't care if these people can answer a simple question about math. Don't care if these people can actually help and, at the same time respect the customer.
What do they care about? Taking the next call. If you can get someone off the phone, or pass them off to a "supervisor", which is rarely better, alas the adage, "crap floats to the top" you are a good little robot. If you say, "Hey this customer has been treated badly. I have, as well as many others, customer and employee alike, experienced this many a time. Quantity vs. Quality, aka how many calls can we answer with the least amount of dollars.
This is a disease symptomatic of corporate America. They need to wake up. If you answer calls, using people an hour and nothing is solved, how many calls are you going to have the next hour? It's called multiplication. If you can answer calls in 2 hours and every problem is solved, it's called division, or at least equilibrium. Ah, corporate logic. I'm aware that it's a little confusing, but seriously, didn't these Verizon people ever do anything with units?
I probably just confused them all! Switch to Cingular! I've never had any problems! This MP3 was posted on Abattoir. Net where I heard it Dude, you were very much in control and I commend your imperturbability; I've been known to tape calls and exploit idiots and I can tell you there would have been many more comments issued if that was myself on the line with that level of cue-card-reading stupidity. Nice job, thanks for sharing -- that was a great call!
The way to make them understand it is to say "put one cent in your calculator". This way the end result will be in dollars and maybe, just maybe I have to agree with people regarding this issue: you did a good job remaining calm on the phone despite the idiocy you were confronted with. I'm wondering if you got it resolved because, even though I wouldn't do it, I'd definetly -want- to jump in and help you out. Contracts with telecommunications companies rarely to never state the price of the package involved, let alone a package which will be used in another country.
If the contract states that he can check pricing by calling the company which, at least in many places, is a legal requirement then any price he is quoted by the company's representatives on the supplied phone number is binding to the company. Honey, call me too suspicious, but if they are so incredibly stupid, and there's more than one of them, it just might be that they are not just a bunch of retarded monkeys, it's possible that Verizon is telling them to lie, in order to confuse the customers.
Think about it this way: if every person who gets the bill gets a little confused and doesn't notice the cent - dollar change, they make a fortune of people's backs without anyone noticing. And that's not being idiots, that's ingenious.. Maybe you can take it further, you might be on the track of something bigger here. Could be they trust people to think they are just stupid and let it go.. The customer shouldn't have to explain math to the provider.
Too many times customer support is viewed by companies as the last resort, which is pathetic considering how inept they are. Blake That is fun though. The CoGos next to where I worked had. I think I'll start doing that. Verizon customer service is terrible and I'm not surprised they couldn't understand what they themselves were saying. As an employee and stockholder of one of the most successful companies in America Gotta go, my stock is up.
As a former VZW customer service rep, I would have graciously credited the entire amount to your bill. Being that a CSR has no control over the pricing of the plan, I would have advised you the pricing was incorrectly calculated and no fix was possible until management grew some brains.
At least you would have understood why some people no longer use their service or work for them! Good luck getting the right person on the phone, might I suggest you find a local employee and befriend them. That would be personal service that the we are bigger, better, dont care about the little guy companies out there. I had a similar problem, little off topic, but in the same ball park of CSRs not understanding the diffrence. Years ago when first signing up for a broadband connection, I was quoted X kilobytes per second.
Come to find out I would only recieve X kilobits per second. The CSRs read kbps as kBps. Partially my fault, still a classic example of mindless CSRs. Have you seen the new India search engine www. Anyone else try this yet? I havent listened to the audio but im not entirely convinced someone could be that stupid. Lots of times when im at my work and i encounter a customer that doesnt know tit from tat when its common knowledge ill just play dumb and frustrate the S out of them so that they leave.
I know thats not good customer service but im not IN customer service. Either way, its possible she was just playing dumb with you so that she wouldnt have to admit shes wrong. My suggestion, if the floor manager wont do anything then tell them that you are no longer going to call them about the bill and the next phone call they will be recieving will be from your attorney. Then have a law buddy write a letter on some professional stationery and send it to them and wait for a response.
I dont think they're going to go to court over 71 dollars.
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