Last month I received a text message from Verizon informing me that I was almost out of minutes for the month and that I should upgrade my plan. It was only half way through the month and there was no way I was going to stop using my cell phone for two weeks. I decided to go online and see how much time I had left. On Verizon's "your account" page there is a small status bar showing you how many minutes you've used and how many you have left. When I logged in to my account, I saw that the status bar was red. I was more than 100 minutes over.

The charge for exceeding your allowed minutes is $0.45 per minute. The smallest upgrade would bring me from 700 to 1400 shared minutes and cost approximately $20, a lot cheaper than paying for the premium minutes. OK, no big deal. I upgraded. The Verizon problem was fixed and out of my mind.

A few weeks later I received a text message that my $293.99 cell phone bill was scheduled for payment! Impossible, I couldn't have used 1400 minutes in one month! Anxious to see the charges, I went online and checked my bill. According to Verizon's website, I still had over 300 unused minutes that month. This didn't make any sense. I didn't go over my minutes. Why is my bill three times what it should be? The only reason I could think of was it must be a mistake. Still hopeful, I called customer service to resolve this ridiculous mistake. After twenty minutes of listening to a prerecorded message telling me how much my call meant to them, someone finally answered my call. He introduced himself as Dave. "How can I help you today, sir?", he said. I explained the problem with my bill. "This makes no sense.", I told him. "The day after I upgraded my plan, your website showed I had 600 minutes left.". Dave said, "According to the system, you upgraded half way through your billing period. The added minutes went towards that half of the month. You should have gone to your local Verizon center and they would have prorated it for you.". I argued that there was no mention of this in their message or on their site. No matter how much I pleaded and threatened to leave, Dave would do nothing for me. Neither Dave nor his supervisor, Sandy, seemed to care whether I stayed or left. I am now forced to pay a $300 phone bill all because Verizon doesn't properly inform their customers on how they are being billed. Although, none of this matters to Verizon because apparently they don't care!

Needless to say, as soon as my contract ends I will be looking for a new provider.