Bills for your cable, phone, internet and wireless services can be exasperating.
It’s common for companies to offer discounts, but they’re usually only for a limited time. My family goes through this every year with Optimum, so we invest in time to call so we can make sure discounts and credits are re-upped before they expire. It can be time-consuming and frustrating, but it’s worth it to save what can be hundreds of dollars a year.
Our readers, also, often share with us their cost-cutting victories.
Ellen Storch, though, is facing defeat after trying to get Verizon to honor a promise she said it made in writing.
She has a landline phone and DSL internet service, which she knows is generally slower and less reliable than cable or fiber optic internet. Over time, Storch said, she’s had lots of service interruptions. When she’d call to complain, she’d sometimes get a credit to make up for it.
“The majority of the time when an offer of a credit is made, it is for a couple of dollars,” she said. “To get any more, one must be willing to dig in for a protracted, and often unpleasant, battle.”
After an outage that lasted more than two weeks in October 2023, and after countless calls to complain, she was given a $10.66 monthly credit that would last for all of 2024, she said.
“Notwithstanding this, nearly every month when my invoice was generated, the credit was not applied, causing me to have to make numerous phone calls to Verizon rehashing what had transpired and arguing that the promised credit be applied,” Storch said.
When she called to complain about the missing credit from her August 2024 bill, the representative said they would take care of her with a “recurring” $10.66 credit — with no talk of an expiration date, Storch said. She received a confirmation email dated Aug. 7, 2024 that said, with typos: “A note from your agent: There':s a recurring adjustment everymonth and it was promised by the representative amounting to $10.66.”
Ellen Storch says this copy of an email from Verizon, which also contains her handwritten notes, shows the company didn't put an end date on a monthly credit she was given.Courtesy Ellen Storch/Canva
Storch took that to mean the credit would be permanent.
But subsequent bills didn’t show the credit. When she called that fall, the representative said they couldn’t find the email that noted the “recurring” credit and the monthly discount would end in December 2024.
A dissatisfied Storch sent a letter to Verizon’s CEO, which led to a back-and-forth exchange with someone on the executive relations team.
In one email, the representative said Verizon’s computer system could not handle credits for more than 12 months. In another, he said he was pleased to have resolved the issue.
Storch was incensed. Nothing was resolved. She believed she should not lose out because Verizon’s system is unable to honor longer term credits or because a Verizon agent made a mistake, if that’s what happened, she said.
“I would like Verizon to honor its written commitment of a `recurring $10.66 adjustment’ to my invoice,” Storch said, and she asked Bamboozled for help.
We reviewed copies of the emails and letters.
To be sure, the Aug. 7, 2024 email about the “recurring” credit does not have an end date nor does it explicitly say it’s a forever discount.
We asked Verizon to take a look, and Storch got a call from a representative.
It went nowhere, she said.
“I would generally say that the representative seemed to go into the conversation having dug in her heels with the opinion no further compromise should be made,” she said, noting she feels like she lost ground because the representative said the monthly credit would end in October, not in December as Storch was previously told.
Of the Aug. 7, 2024 email promise, the representative said “the person will be coached,” “people mess up,” and what Storch said was her favorite: “The email doesn’t say ‘recurring’ indefinitely.”
The representative said she’d note that Storch was not satisfied and she would send a written summary of the conversation.
When we asked Verizon for an update, it said it came to a resolution with Storch.
“Because of privacy laws, we won’t be able to elaborate on specifics, but feel free to reach out to the customer for additional information,” the company said.
Privacy laws? This isn’t a health insurance privacy matter that’s covered by law but Storch offered to give written permission for it to discuss her case with us. Verizon didn’t respond about that.
A letter was delivered to Storch a few days later, saying her monthly credit was ending in October and it noted her dissatisfaction.
“Thank you for your patience and your continued loyalty to Verizon,” it ended.
Storch, who has been a Verizon customer for more than 40 years, cited a 2024 interview given by Brian Higgins, Verizon’s Chief Customer Experience Officer. He said “...it’s about the individual customer and the individual interaction,” and talked about valuing customers.
“We recognize right up front for the customers that hey, we see you, we understand the kind of relationship you have with Verizon, and we want to make sure that you know that we’re aware of it,” Higgins said.
Storch said Verizon fell way short of that.
“That I have been a customer for in excess of 40 years only exacerbates how much Verizon has missed the mark,” she said. If customer service is a priority, “Verizon should now live up to this commitment,” Storch said.
Stories by Karin Price Mueller
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Karin Price Mueller may be reached at KPriceMueller@NJAdvanceMedia.com. Follow her on X at @KPMueller.