Amen
If you wrap in aluminum foil when not using it, will that keep you safe?
Maybe the tin foil hats guys were closer than we think 
It seems like the much simpler explanation was that there was no available override in the system and the only way to have the phone turned on was to have the payment removed from the account.
Which they should have done and allowed the police to foot the bill. There’s really no excuse for this.
Totally different scenario and not really at all relevant here. But yes they should be able to.
There is a notable distinction here: you personally can choose which corporations you deal with, whereas governments are chosen collectively. (And to state the obvious, you can be a part of a corporation too.) I won’t defend the comment you were responding to, but I think the conversation ought not be framed in its terms. There isn’t as much need to trust a company because you don’t have to move to Canada to stop dealing with them.
What’s the difference?
All corporations are the same…sometimes literally. Consumer choice is a complete illusion.
You are correct. I was mistaken. I thought I read in one article that there was sufficient power from the Li-Ion battery to activate the mic, but now I can’t find it.
Why didn’t they just call Jeff Goldblum?
If the $20 is so meaningless, why did it take the sheriff’s department 11 hours to agree to pay it? According to the article, deputies found the missing man just as the sheriff’s office was making arrangements to pay the bill. Seriously, they argued for 11 hours? Or perhaps the sheriff didn’t even contact Verizon until just prior to the man being found.
As to the issue of Verizon’s actions, the article implies only a single operator was spoken to, and makes no mention of manager involvement. So a Verizon operator risks their job by violating policy and overriding a customer’s unpaid bill status*, or a sheriff shells out $20 to avoid the issue. Sure, Verizon’s corporate policy could use some revamping for situations like this, but I don’t see how Verizon is a “villain” in this case. Hell, for all we know, the corporate policy does allow for emergency phone activation, and the individual operator was ignorant of the policy, or just being a jerk that day. I just don’t see enough information about the timeline or the official Verizon policy to label Verizon a “douche” or even hold them responsible for the situation.
- ETA: assuming they even have the authority or means to override the bill status. The phone’s activation status may be tied directly to the billing system, which will not update unless a credit card transaction is processed.
Allow me to provide some insight;
Law enforcement agencies typically have an agreement with cellphone companies that will allow them in "exigent circumstances’’ to get not only the location, but the name, address and account information of a phone account holder. In order for this to happen, the LEA has to fax to the network ops center a form outlining what they need and why. That form is signed, legal and binding on both ends. There have been (and I don’t know if Verizon does this) cases where the company through their security departments CAN activate and locate a handset. The problem is that if the location software permissions are turned off, that has to be overridden, typically by folks higher up on the food chain than the ones in the NOC.
The idea that Verizon wouldn’t do this speaks more to their backward system of money first THEN service than it does to their at-the-time refusal to turn this phone on.
Re: Tracking. You can purchase and install tracking software on any phone you can have in your possession. In 15 minutes and for about $300 you can have a spy phone of fair to excellent quality that allows you to GPS track, read email/SMS, listen to the what’s happening around the phone and some of the systems will install using bluetooth so you don’t even have to wait around to install it just get the process going and the only way to stop it is to pull the battery.
Should they have? Yes. But they’re not in the ‘doing the right thing’ business, they’re in the cell phone business, if there’s not only no money but in fact a potential liability with activating a turned off phone for “safety reasons” they’re not going to do it. For them, that’s a slippery slope.
You really don’t see any difference between “old man runs away from home” and “building is on fire”? I don’t think I could explain it in any way you would understand.
I mean, we all remember that evil corporation that interned thousands of citizens because of their ancestry, right?
And this differs from the political establishment?
Which they were in the process of doing when the man was located.
Oh I know this one! They made cotton right?
Nice one.
I’ve had a suspended account before, and I would sometimes still have the phone on so I could look up phone numbers in my contacts list.
I don’t know about you, but if I were a CSR, and the police were on the line, the first thing I would do would be to transfer the call to my manager, no questions asked.