Comments on: Verizon refused to help police locate unconscious man unless they paid his phone bill

By: DrEnter

DrEnter — Tue, 15 May 2012 18:35:00 +0000

Dear Verizon:
F**K YOU.

Sincerely,
Humanity

By: Andrea Dickson

Andrea Dickson — Mon, 14 May 2012 20:12:00 +0000

Yes, this. Thank you.

By: namdog

namdog — Mon, 14 May 2012 09:10:00 +0000

it’s peoples own fault, as long as people keep feeding them money to buy Verizon products , they will keep making them bigger and richer, BOYCOTT those greedy bastards, if everyone stop, buying and using Verizon for 4 months , i mean no home phone , TV,no cell, no internet, everyone cancel contracts , no one pays , then they would see what matters, money or human life!

By: yadayada

yadayada — Mon, 14 May 2012 08:33:00 +0000

This wasn’t always the case. IIRC, in the early days of cell phone competition a carrier in Los Angeles refused to route a 911 call from a another carrier’s customer. This left the caller helpless. I believe this had to remedied by legislation.
I can’t find any reference to it right now, but, like I said this was early in the history of cell phones, and therefor early or pre-internet.

By: LX

LX — Mon, 14 May 2012 08:06:00 +0000

Here in germany, this would be illegal failure to render assistance, so the Verizon worker and/or his employer would be in dock in short order.

By: mjfgates

mjfgates — Mon, 14 May 2012 05:13:00 +0000

I don’t think drive-by shootings really count… but then, I’m old fashioned.

By: Capital_7

Capital_7 — Mon, 14 May 2012 02:24:00 +0000

And they should have been called too!

By: Palomino

Palomino — Sun, 13 May 2012 22:49:00 +0000

(Worked for Sprint here)

We put our delinquent phones first into minimal function mode, usually receiving calls, not making.

Anyway, what if the guys phone wasn’t on? So the operator KNEW the phone was on, or wouldn’t have asked for the payment, because then they wouldn’t have been able to keep their end of the bargain. So the operator HAD to see where the phone was located first, it was the information they held hostage. And some computerized ‘scripts’ will not allow any employee pass a certain point, especially if money is owed. This operator may not have been able to do anything, seriously, like the program freezes, flashing DELINQUENT ACCOUNT. I think the police officer was talking to the billing department, not regular customer service.

By: Palomino

Palomino — Sun, 13 May 2012 22:38:00 +0000

That’s not what he’s saying. You must not have a grasp on all the handshaking that goes on with old software vs. new hardware. I just had to spend about $100 to upgrade from XP to Windows 7 because my laptop couldn’t update, most of it’s functions slowly dissolved. Microsoft has tried to write all the code in between, to marry the old with the new, but it’s a daunting task. But your right too, people want the newest NOT- PROVEN- TO -FUNCTION- FLAWLESSLY model. Large corporations have successfully brainwashed consumers into equating NEWER=BETTER PERFORMING.

Now take a look at my 2003 Dodge Durango’s paint job compared to all of Dodge’s pre 1990 models.

By: foobar

foobar — Sun, 13 May 2012 22:37:00 +0000

Yep, but isn’t that how it should be? I don’t need my phone to work out in the wilderness, and I’d rather not pay for the towers out there.

They’re coverage is quite a bit beyond the city limits. Here in Vancouver it extends well past even the exurbs, though I’m not sure about other elsewhere.

By: Palomino

Palomino — Sun, 13 May 2012 22:27:00 +0000

Yep, $15 will get you a parked rate, and the longer your phone is parked, your contract is extended.

By: penguinchris

penguinchris — Sun, 13 May 2012 19:47:00 +0000

What they don’t tell you is that the cheapest Android phones are often near-unusable, or at least incredibly frustrating to use, for anything beyond what you could do with a non-smartphone (and it’s probably easier to do those things on a non-smartphone).

That’s fine for many people, and probably more than they need. I agree with you in that people have stupid expectations and pay for more than they need.

But if you do need (or just want) to regularly do more with your phone, you have to go at least up to something mid-range (or last year’s top model which after a year is mid-range).

By: jetfx

jetfx — Sun, 13 May 2012 19:26:00 +0000

Wind’s plan is great until you leave the city limits of only a handful of large Canadian cities that they serve, then it’s eye-wateringly expensive.

By: Palomino

Palomino — Sun, 13 May 2012 18:42:00 +0000

The company can change the terms of their contract terms with YOU, it’s in the contract. But YOU can’t change the contract terms, without a penalty, with them. “At a loss” is subjective, any company can add any value they like on their hardware, that’s been a subject here on BB. They can also make bogus claims about connectivity, service quality and so forth. People don’t seem to remember that ALL advertising claims for a product are ALWAYS based on a ‘best case scenario’.

By: auralee

auralee — Sun, 13 May 2012 17:10:00 +0000

Back when telephone service was regulated, you could always get a human simply by dialing “O”, and the person was, as far as I recall, always helpful; if you were having trouble getting through, they could even tell you whether the phone was off the hook or if something was out of order. And not only was service faster and much more reliable than it is now, but it was extremely cheap, even though it was all via landlines (which are much more expensive to install and maintain).

By contrast, when I went to visit my dad and he didn’t answer the door and his line was busy, it took me twenty minutes to get hold of a human, and she could tell me nothing about what was going on (how is it that the Feds can eavesdrop on all our transmissions, but she couldn’t tell me whether anything’s actually being transmitted?) It turned out he was dying inside.

By: Æ

Sun, 13 May 2012 12:21:00 +0000

I work in customer service for a major telco. While the operator is in the wrong for not taking initiative and simply reaching out to another department for assistance, law enforcement do have very specific ways to contact companies for these types of issues. If the man’s bill was past-due, he mostly likely went to collections and their sole purpose is to clear the past due amount.

By: retepslluerb

retepslluerb — Sun, 13 May 2012 11:34:00 +0000

Thing is, I can’t really fault them for the “stick to the script”-mantra. Yes, it can be annoying to the customer in seemingly obvious cases, but sometimes they are just that: Seemingly.

I had to force myself to not 2nd-guess the script a couple of times and in some cases it was the correct thing to to: Some option I didn’t know about and didn’t find on the net and *zing* my stuff worked again.

By: retepslluerb

retepslluerb — Sun, 13 May 2012 11:34:00 +0000

Thing is, I can’t really fault them for the “stick to the script”-mantra. Yes, it can be annoying to the customer in seemingly obvious cases, but sometimes they are just that: Seemingly.

By: purple-stater

purple-stater — Sun, 13 May 2012 09:27:00 +0000

The only problem I see in this story is that the Law Enforcement officer was trying to get the user location without a warrant.

By: elix

elix — Sun, 13 May 2012 07:12:00 +0000

Nimdae’s post begins with:

I promised myself not to read any more of Rob’s alarmist product/service bashing articles anymore, but … I figured I’d see what he had to say.

Now re-read Antinous’ comment.

By: Anon_Mahna

Anon_Mahna — Sun, 13 May 2012 05:55:00 +0000

This is essentially why I quit working for Comcast’s ISP many years back. ‘Fuck getting the customer taken care of, stick to a script or else!’ mentality wore me thinner than a politician’s integrity.

I’d rather whore myself out that be a phone jockey again.

By: Andrew Kane

Andrew Kane — Sun, 13 May 2012 05:18:00 +0000

One warning about StraightTalk: the allegedly “unlimited” data plan (the one for which my roommate opted) is not, in fact, unlimited. StraightTalk has threatened to remotely ‘brick’ his phone for using too much bandwidth. When he asked how much he had used and what the limit was, they told him “we do not have this information.”
WTF!

By: Andrew Kane

Andrew Kane — Sun, 13 May 2012 05:13:00 +0000

This is what happens when you post while drunk.
And I don’t mean your comment- I mean my reply ;^)

By: Andrew Kane

Andrew Kane — Sun, 13 May 2012 05:10:00 +0000

I’m afraid I don’t understand to whom you refer here. Is it Verizon, Nimdae, or Rob?
I’m guessing it’s Verizon (I think) but is Verizon a “he”?

By: Andrew Kane

Andrew Kane — Sun, 13 May 2012 04:39:00 +0000

Unfortunately I suspect that the likely outcome of a lawsuit in this case would be:
1) Service rep gets fired for instigating lawsuit, subsequently starves or goes on public assistance (or both);
2) Verizon pays a fine which approximates to a slap on the wrist so light it might just as well be a kiss.

And that’s only if Verizon loses.

By: Jed West

Jed West — Sun, 13 May 2012 04:14:00 +0000

This sounds like the officer called and didn’t identify himself properly. All of the majors carriers have teams/departments to handle police inquiries. When I worked for Boost Mobile if someone called and identified as some kind law enforcement we gave them the number to call (we didn’t transfer because the team that handled the calls recorded the caller IDs).

By: That_Anonymous_Coward

That_Anonymous_Coward — Sun, 13 May 2012 03:36:00 +0000

The Flight Attendant who gave up her card was paid back.
She was also credited with saving the lives of many of the passengers by putting herself in harms way by hiding passports.
Back when Flight attendants weren’t our “front line” against terrorism and passengers might have been seen as something more than revenue cattle.

By: Andrew Singleton

Andrew Singleton — Sun, 13 May 2012 03:34:00 +0000

They did. Megaupload was a straight up government sponsored execution.

By: That_Anonymous_Coward

That_Anonymous_Coward — Sun, 13 May 2012 03:32:00 +0000

1 – Stay Classy Verizon.
2 – What does it say when there is no official number for LEO’s to call?
3 – While this might be 3 years old, its not the first or the last time this will happen.

By: Marc Mielke

Marc Mielke — Sun, 13 May 2012 02:34:00 +0000

Yeah, do you know where the call center is, and whether they extradite to the US anyway?