“Starting next week, Verizon will double the early-termination fee for smartphones. That is, if you get a BlackBerry, Android or similar phone from Verizon, and you decide to switch phones before your two-year contract is up, you’ll be socked with a $350 penalty (it used to be $175),” David Pogue reports for The New York Times.
“This fee drops slowly over time ($10 a month), but after two years, it’s still $110,” Pogue reports. “If the premise of the early-termination fee is to help Verizon recoup its original cost of the phone, shouldn’t the fee go down to zero at the end of your contract? This move doesn’t help Verizon’s reputation for steep pricing and aggressive gouging.”
“What bothers me more, though, is another bit of greedy nastiness that readers both inside and outside Verizon have noticed,” Pogue reports. “Verizon has a bigger scam going on: charging for bogus data downloads.”
Pogue recounts some information one of his readers, a Verizon customer, has noticed:
Virtually every bill I get has a couple of erroneous data charges at $1.99 each—yet we download no data.
Here’s how it works. They configure the phones to have multiple easily hit keystrokes to launch ‘Get it now’ or ‘Mobile Web’—usually a single key like an arrow key. Often we have no idea what key we hit, but up pops one of these screens. The instant you call the function, they charge you the data fee. We cancel these unintended requests as fast as we can hit the End key, but it doesn’t matter; they’ve told me that ANY data–even one kilobyte–is billed as 1MB. The damage is done.
Imagine: if my one account has 1 to 3 bogus $1.99 charges per month for data that I don’t download, how much are they making from their 87 million other customers? Not a bad scheme. All by simply writing your billing algorithm to bill a full MB when even a few bits have moved.
Pogue reports, “At about the same time, I got a note from a reader who says he actually works at Verizon, and he’s annoyed enough about the practice to blow the whistle:”
The phone is designed in such a way that you can almost never avoid getting $1.99 charge on the bill. Around the OK button on a typical flip phone are the up, down, left, right arrows. If you open the flip and accidentally press the up arrow key, you see that the phone starts to connect to the web. So you hit END right away. Well, too late. You will be charged $1.99 for that 0.02 kilobytes of data. NOT COOL. I’ve had phones for years, and I sometimes do that mistake to this day, as I’m sure you have. Legal, yes; ethical, NO.
Every month, the 87 million customers will accidentally hit that key a few times a month! That’s over $300 million per month in data revenue off a simple mistake!
Our marketing, billing, and technical departments are all aware of this. But they have failed to do anything about it—and why? Because if you get 87 million customers to pay $1.99, why stop this revenue?
In an update, Pogue reports, “A reader notes that his AT&T phone has exactly the same buttons and he gets charged exactly the same $2 for an accidental press.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Yet another reason to get an Apple iPhone. No mechanical buttons programmed to scam customers over bogus data downloads. Regardless, Verizon and AT&T and any other scam artist carriers that are conducting systematic ripoffs of their customers should cease doing so immediately. This is exactly the sort of thing the FCC and, perhaps, the U.S. Senate, actually should be looking into. If they aren’t already, they should. And, another thing: Carriers found guilty of such actions should be forced to refund every penny to every customer they’ve ripped off so far.
that I am first to call them “Thieves.”
That is f-ed up. Whistleblowers unite!
Sorry to hear that AT&T;is doing this same thing with the downloads. So happy I have an iPhone where this is a non-issue, and on the AT&T;network where I can check my email while I deal with a caller.
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I wondered why my new Android phone had a separate $ button on it. Problem now is the plastic keypad is stuck in the down position so it keeps pressing $ repeatedly.
Customer support says they should have the problem looked into within a week.
I have had the same accident happen to me many times. Sony-Ericsson phones (of which I have used five) have their “MediaNET” button (This is on AT&T’s flavour of the phones) on the front face. In addition, they have several choices on the main menu that take you online.
This is an insidious scam of massive proportions that totally merits some congressional/senate investigation.
Wow, that’s low, really low. Someone needs a $1B fine.
“This fee drops slowly over time ($10 a month), but after two years, it’s still $110.”
Wrong! Once your contract expires at the end of the contractual period, there is no $110 fee to cancel your Verizon service. David Pogue should do his research instead of peddling blatant lies.
It’s called an Early Termination Fee for a reason. They can’t charge you $110 to leave after your contract is finished. Leave the day before your two-year or one-year contract expires and THEN it’s $110. Or you could always buy the phone at full retail and have no contract at all.
Buy your iPhone as PAYG dummies – higher cost up front but way less cost over time and data plan is included. Even if you move to another phone or carrier there are no termination fees.
Even with the iPhone, you have to call and tell ATT to block text messages to avoid getting a 20 cent fee every time a random bozo decides to send you one. There should be a setting on the phone itself to disable incoming text messages so you can enable it at your convenience if you wish.
Text messages – WTF – it’s a phone, it’s a computer. Call or email me. Nobody, nowhere, no how needs to instantly contact me, especially for an added fee for a service that transfers far less data than an email or phone call.
I have Verizon, and this happens to me every month as well. The most ridiculous thing is that I have data blocked on my plan, yet every month I am still on the phone getting charges removed.
Yes, ATT does exactly that. The phone I used to have before getting my first iPhone did this exact same thing. It’s crap.
This why I dropped verizon. Always Fighting for those overcharges with a data plan. Yeah they really f’ed my bills up. It was never the same month after month. Problem was solved when I moved to iPhone.
An easy fix for this problem (and it is a BIG problem) is to move your quick keys to do something else. I did this as soon as I got charged the 1.99 the first time. Just because the quick key might have an icon on it doesn’t mean that you can’t program it to do something else. So, I changed all of my quick key actions to start either the calendar, calculator or alarm clock. So now, I have to drill down into the menus to get to the web browsers or any of that other data using stuff. Worked for me. Verizon should just have it that way to start…thats where the real problem sits.
@R2
dude, calm down and quit harping in people. What he is saying is that there is a $110 fee down to the last day. He very well knows the once your contract ends, you can leave without a penalty. Oh, and someone better not dare turn this comment section into a political battle! That pisses me off more than anything else here…
I thought government can’t do anything right?
Can I get an AMEN!?
Hey MDN,
I’ve been visiting this site daily for many years, so I’m curious where exactly MDN stated that “the government can’t do anything right.” Link, please?
I have the same probelm with my Centro on Sprint. I kept it as a backup to my iphone but I get clobbered with inadvertant data charges and theres no way to turn the data off.. I hate SPRINT the people in their stores are liars and scammers also. I went there to change my plan , they made the wrong change and I got stuck with an extra month of their stupid charges cause of their mistake. If i didnt need to keep old number active a little while longer I’d leave them flat..I would never use Sprint again even if they had the iPhone
Telstra in Australia does the same thing. But they have an even bigger scam – they charge you for expensive phone services, especially ringtone subscriptions, which you have never subscribed to. When they recycle a phone number, the subscriptions are left in place and start to appear on your bill, even though you may never have heard of the company providing the service. If you complain, Telstra advise you to contact the provider, and that is not always easy to do, and they are often reluctant to cancel the subscription. The only way to avoid the charges is to refuse to pay the bill and switch to another telco.
Speaking of scams, I don’t know if anyone else sees the Google ads on these pages for ‘a mom’s simple trick for white teeth’ (if you haven’t seen it here, you’ll have seen it on other pages).
Don’t be suckered. The trick simply boils down to mixing two ‘free’ sample whiteners. Except they aren’t free. You get charged a few dollars for shipping but they secretly sign you up for a repeat scheme in the small print and hike the cost up to nearly 200 dollars a month. Apparently it’s difficult to get out of and they’ve even been known to take money out of accounts after cancellations have been made.
That has happened to me with my wife’s non-iPhone with ATT. However, ATT always refunded back the money they took. Never had a problem with this.
you can’t get the iphone payasyougo. it’s on contract or nothing. and even if you had an old fully paid phone that someone gave you, ATT still makes you go for the monthly
MDN, your take, and your suggested remedy, are right on the money. But it will never happen, because these big bad boys own the regulatory agencies.
pogue is right it is wacked. so what that they drop the $110 if you wait one day after the end of your contract. if you are one day before you are hosed. they claim that you are repaying that amount, which they put upfront for the phone for you, over time.
well $350 over 24 months is $14.58, not $10. and $14.58 is how much it should go down every month. so that if you quit one day before the contract ends, you haven’t paid the last $14.58 on your phone so pay up.
with Verizon’s math and reasoning,you not only paid off the phone but they get a nice extra amount off of you. not cool.
Had the same problem with Sprint regarding being charged for text messages I didn’t even receive! After I complained a few times, asking them to be blocked, I had no use for texting, I received complimentary texting. I still don’t use it.
R2, @R2 is correct, you just don’t know when your pants are being pulled down. I have been reading Pogue for 15 years. I have not found him to be a liar.
@ Beowulf
Read the article. It mentions that these keys CANNOT be reprogrammed, for the very reason that they are such a lucrative scam.
Remember those early iPhone bills that were 200 pages long? That was a glimpse into how they track data for these types of devices. It’s one of the ways they sell you on the unlimited plans, to scare you with nickel and dime charges if you don’t get it. They do the same thing with text message plans.
I told my daughter (V cust) about this yesterday and she basically shrugged her shoulders, like, ‘so what?’ until I told her that people are getting charged $1.99 for the alert message they get even *after* they’ve voluntarily blocked their access to the web (since reprogramming is evidently not an option).
I think Verizon knows people expect to be ripped off and won’t bother do much about it.
BTW, since ATT is not yet set up in SD, I’ve been happy with Sprint’s $$ practices.
I was never charged for an a browser alert message back on my Samsung 8500 2G phone (when browsing ate into the minutes plan).
Five years later, when my Samsung bit the dust, and I replaced it with a Sanyo on the original Sprint Vision network, data costs were a few cents by the kilobit, not by the MB. Even then, flat rate access was $15, which transferred over to my Palm Centro and now includes unlimited SMS text messages.
I have to give Sprint credit for not gouging its customers.
Apple needs to become their own wireless ISP. Forget AT&T;and Verizon.
Does Obama know about this? Nancy should start working on the Wireless Reform Bill NOW!
I can just see it. Waaaavy dream sequence starts here….
Millions, no tens of millions of Americans don’t have smart phones. The new Wireless Equality Act of 2009 will provide phones for all Americans.
The new public option will supply Americans in need of wireless with a competitive Government designed instrument.
See: http://www.gdc4s.com/content/detail.cfm?item=32640fd9-0213-4330-a742-55106fbaff32
By avoiding frivolous features such as GPS, App stores, etc., the Federal Government (your friend) will be able to usher in a new era of wireless egalitarianism.
Those not wishing to purchase the public option are free to continue their existing plans but an additional tax on those luxury plans (in addition to all existing taxes on wireless service) will be added.
Individuals opting to have no wireless service at all will pay a fine.
To manage this a new government agency, The OWE, Office of Wireless Efficacy, will work closely with the IRS to gather the necessary revenue to support this program.
Only those Americans making over $500,0000 per year will be taxed an additional 1% to pay for OWE cellular devices.
I got a new AT&T;phone, which I use ONLY for phone calls. In the first week, I noticed that inadvertently, my imprecise button-pushing kept getting connected to the web, so I took it in a nearby AT&T;store and asked them to disable web access.
They said people often did this, especially for phones for their kids, and cheerfully disabled web access, and showed me how to do it for myself.
No problem.
It goes farther that just “bogus” download fees. Ever notice Apple’s Safari *does not* have the most obvious feature – to open with a blank page?? The moment you open Safari you are being hit with data fees before you even begin your new search. Every time you begin a search you get charged twice to load the same site you left off your last search with. To get around this, I’m forced to open a second (blank) page and delete the first one to avoid automatically being charged data fees when I’m out and about – an unwelcome and laborious task.
I ended my 2 year contract with Verizon before moving to the iPhone. Customer Service asked why I was terminating. When I told them it was for the iPhone the rep said “we’ve had a lot of those lately” so it’s no surprise that they are retaliating on their own customers.
Thank goodness for “iPhone-era” data plans. Vodafone AU screwed up their original 3G launch by giving out iPhones and still charging them with the old data rates. I got a call from them saying don’t worry if you get a TWO THOUSAND DOLLAR BILL in the mail, it’s happened to lots of customers and we’re reversing the charges. Accounting must’ve hated seeing all that go.
uhh… wtf are you talking about?
On the iPhone you get unlimited data… so… you shouldn’t have to worry about it, it’s the same $30 every month…
On a computer perhaps using a mobile broadband device to tether to, you can change the Safari preference in the ‘preferences’ menu option to open new windows with a blank page.
Apple isn’t screwing you, it’s ok.
Your point is dissolved.
they all suck.
Verizon and ATT don’t provide phone service, they provide profits.
MDN word – poor Which is why we’re all poor and they are all rich.
87-million customers, 3 times a month, 1 year, $2 per fraud, $6-billlion a year.
How is this not fraud on a Madoff scale? Throw ’em in jail!
@R2
I think we all got what Pogue was saying, and David makes a good point!
Even worse are the sales people who sell you a GoPhone and tack an iPhone data charge to that account hopping you don’t notice. (As I’ve wrote here before, it happened to my kids, more than once)
Yeah well fck Verizon ! I had them for years. And it did nothing but suck ass!