AAAAHH!! My phone bill is outrageous! Please help me with a stupd question!

In My Humble Opinion
1

I just got my phone bill this month. It was $144.47 for one month of calls. Usually my bill is about $30.00 a month and is used primarily for internet access–I have a 56k modem which is plenty fast enough for me. After I finished staring at the total, I looked through the bill and found a charge for $87.32 for local calls, $31.87 for tax, surcharges and other fees. None of these fees are explained. By the way, I live in Alexandria, Va and my phone provider is Verizon.

I make calls on my landline phone very seldom, maybe once or twice a week. My monthly charges from Verizon are about $25.00 which is supposed to be unlimited local phone calls, which may be the key to my problem. Every once in a while, Juno (my internet provider) sends new listings of access numbers which I choose several numbers. I just checked the listing and I only check access phone numbers from Alexandria Va. These should only be local access phone numbers. Is Verizon treating these like long distance? Should I contact Juno to see if they are telling Verizon these are local or long distance?

Sorry if your eyes are rolling at my stupidity but my phone bill is always a nightmare to decipher. Also, Verizon seems to have a bad habit of changing billing plans on me and charging me for services that I don’t request and waiting for me to call and complain. Is there a way that I can compel them not to change billing plans or not to bill me for options that I haven’t ordered? Can I have a standing order to contact me first before they do this stuff? Thanks for your suggestions.

I will be calling Verizon customer service tomorrow and will be asking these same questions. I guess if they piss me off too much, I’ll just get DSL and get rid of my landline all together. I can always just use my cell phone if I need to make calls.

2

You might want to check if you have a flat internet monthly rate. I had a rather hideous experience with Verizon dial up internet while waiting for my DSL to be connected.

While I was signing up for Verizon DSL, I was disappointed to learn it would be an 8 week wait. The guy suggested that I get Verizon dial up while I waited, it seemed reasonable. At this point, I failed to ask if it was a flat 19.95 fee. Considering the HUGE numberf of flat rate internet companies out there, it didn’t even occur to me.

My bill came and it was really higher than normal, but I chalked it up to the second phone like that Verizon had come out and installed that month. The second month came and the bill was even higher, and I couldn’t figure out where the huge charge was coming from!

After calling Verizon, it turned out I didn’t have a flat rate monthly internet fee (surprise!). If I exceeded a certain “cap” I was charged extra by the minute. As an avid online gamer and internetphile, I had rung up an enormous bill.

I managed to get one of the monthly overage charges taken off the bill, but had to pay the second month.

Good luck! Verizon is the DEVIL. Don’t even get me started on the stories AFTER I had the DSL installed…

3

Here in Missouri one has to have a landline to get DSL. At least Southwestern Bell requires a landline for DSL.

I would like to save the monthly fee for my home phone and just use my cell phone.

4

Quite a few of the newer local services have started charging extra if they determine your phone is primarily used for data transfer, which of course includes web surfing. I couldn’t find anything about that at Verizon’s site, but it is the fine print on all their junk mail I receive.

5

Thanks for your comments, everyone. Peri, that really sucks about the extra fees. I thought the whole point about an unlimited, flat rate plan was that you paid a flat rate no matter how you used the service. About having to have a landline service with DSL, I might have to go with a cable internet hook-up. Damn, I was hoping to avoid changing from my 56k. If it ain’t broke . . .

6

BTW, I am on SBC, no extra for internet use. (So far.) I think SBC sucks otherwise, but not as much as the other services here. The data fee is one reason I have not switched. Every other provider here now seems to be charging for it on their new packages. SBC is moving into new areas, but is available in only one city in Virginia.

Yes! Call and have them put a no change order on your account. All changes should be initiated by you, called in from the number in question. We did this on the office phones after enhancements were ordered by unknown persons.

7

Verizon is positively EVIL when it comes to switching things on you. We moved across the country mid-plan with them, and spent several hours on the phone every month until our plans expired, trying to get calls taken off our bill that had been free the previous month. It seemed like every month our service area shrank, even though we had one of those “almost-national” plans. And their customer service reeked.

All I can say is, good luck. You’re gonna need it.

8

I recently switched from Verizon to MCI Neighborhood plan (check it out on MCI.com). MCI’s plan is $19.99 a month which includes unlimited local calls, Caller ID, Call Forwarding, Call Blocking, Speed Dial and 3-way Calling.

I never use my calling plan for regional or long distance calls - instead I use those 1010 numbers which are like 5 cents a minute for regional and state to state and it only costs me about 8 cents a minute to call Australia!

9

**Oh, and add Call Waiting to the features above.

10

$144?

That’s gross.

:d&r:

11

When my girlfriend moved out here from San Francisco, she kept her old dial-up ISP and just started using a local number here in Maryland. What she didn’t realize was that, despite having the same area code as all other local numbers, this ISP number was actually charged at long-distance rates. Imagine her horror when the phone bill came and it was a bit over $500 for a month!!! And there was nothing she could do about it–she just had to pay it off over the next few months.

12

In the front of your telephone book there should be a table of exchanges and the other exchanges considered local for a particular exchange for unlimited calling. You might be calling an exchange that isn’t local anymore. It doesn’t have to be that far away in terms of miles.

13

Thanks for all your responses. LolaCocaCola, your situation sounds ideal for me. I also use 1010 numbers for long distance, since I make like one long distance call every couple of months. I will check out these great suggestions of everyone’s. I especially like the idea of forbidding all changes unless I call it in from my home phone number. I’m saving this thread and using these suggestions.

14

medstar, I used to work for a phone company - not Verizon - but I did have to deal with Verizon a lot when we had customers change local carriers from Verizon to us. Verizon is a BITCH to have to work with, and IME, their Customer (Dis)Service people are not terrifically helpful.

Verizon DOES change billing plans often, especially where you are. Usally they say it is due to either “naming convention” (i.e., they claim you have the same billing plan but it now has a new name) or a change in their billing system. The best advice I can give you is three-part:

(1) Check your bill for something that says “unlimited local calling” or “measured local usage” or something similar - in other words, look for your calling plan on your bill. In PA, where I am, Verizon only has to provide this info once a quarter - I don’t know about VA, but the rules might be the same, so you may have to go back a few months to find this. If the plan was changed, it should appear on your most recent bill.

(2) Check your local phone book for a definition of what your calling plan means. Sometimes “unlimited local calling” can be tricky - you get unlimited calls, but only to certain parts of your local calling area (they may refer to these as “zones”). Likewise “measured” usage - how they measure each call may depend on where you are calling.

(3) As Voyager said, check your local phone book for YOUR local calling area. The local calling areas do not always make sense, though, so be prepared for that. Example: If you have an Alexandria exchange (say, 703-555), you may only be able to make “unlimited” local calls to certain other Alexandria exchanges (say, 703-554 and 703-556). But, for exchange 703-556 to call YOU might be a toll call - but they can call exchanges 703-554 and 703-557 and have the calls count as local.

There is one more thing that might have happened, too - Verizon may have made an “enhancement” to their billing system that affected your bill. Sometimes these enhancements cause usage to rate incorrectly - e.g., you made a local call that should have been included in your “unlimited” calling package that not only got charged, but you also got charged for each minute of the call (which can be a lot of minutes for 'Net connections). If your usage is really higher than previous, request copies of your last few bills if you don’t already have them and then DISPUTE!!

  • Sorry, this is really long and probably confusing. If you have any additional questions, please let me know and I will try my best to help.
15

medstar, I can relate. My story goes the other way around, though…

I have a contract with Verizon and just recently they screwed over half the people I talk to regularly on my cell. Half of my county (the half in which I live) is Frontier and half is SBC (the half in which my parents live). My mother got her landline phone bill last month and found out she was suddenly being charged long distance to call my cell. When she called SBC to complain, she found out that Verizon had stopped paying SBC to have my phone number local for the SBC part of the county. Was I notified? 'Course not. Evil, evil, evil. When I griped to Verizon, they said they no longer had a prefix that was local to both Frontier and SBC landlines. Argh. That’s just the most recent of my Verizon horror stories. If I lived in a bigger city with more options, I’d do away with Verizon as soon as my contract expires… sigh

Anyway…ok, I don’t really have any advice that hasn’t already been given. But at least you know you’re not alone!

16

Satellite broadband, buddy.

Know it. Love it.

17

MCI Neighborhood is one plan that states there can be an extra charge for internet usage. You can read about it here. Scroll to the bottom right and click for details. It says anything over 5000 minutes may be charged extra or the plan may be changed or your service may be gasp! disconected. That’s a little under 3 hours a day.

18

Whew! I’m glad I’m not alone. I don’t know how many of you feel the same way, but my phone bill makes my eyes glaze over. rockle, thanks for your informative post. As I recall, my usual phone bill is around $30.00-$35.00 a month. Last month, my bill was about $64.00. I thought it was because I didn’t pay the previous month’s bill in time, so I let it go. Dumb, I know. Then this month, for $144.00, and my usage hasn’t changed? I don’t think so. Okay, I will dig up previous month’s bills, print out this thread, and go to war with Verizon. I guess if I don’t get satisfaction, I will look with great interest to MCI and the Neighborhood plan. Thanks for all your responses.

19

I cancelled AT&T long distance because they were charging some kind of (they said) government mandated charges of $3.00 a month for my long distance. At the time, I hardly ever USED long distance. So, I was getting charged 3 bucks a month for…nothing.

I got a phone card from Costco for 20 bucks and it works fine for me…cheap, and no “gov mandated” charges. I also cancelled my father’s long distance, but that got complicated. He is 84 and sometimes he can’t hear the prompts that tell him what he needs to do next in order to complete calls with his phone card. When I was in CA recently visiting Shayna , he couldn’t call me. I can’t go anywhere comfortably without him being able to call me, so I realized I needed to get him set up with SOME kind of long distance plan that didn’t require using a card. Shayna sent me a link to a long distance service that sounds much better than what dad had before…I just signed him up, so I don’t know if it will work as well for him as it works for her in CA. There appears to be a better rate in CA than what is available nationwide.

If you are interested, I’ll send you the link.

Although it doesn’t sound as though the long distance was your main problem.

20

“Is there a way that I can compel them not to change billing plans or not to bill me for options that I haven’t ordered?”

Umm, Im not sure but as I know the law at the moment says they do NOT have to contact you when they change their rates…But there should be a law!

Did you try access4less.com for cheaper net access?