Verizon Bills Dead Man, Says 'Death Certificate' Not Enough To Cancel Service

Verizon Bills Dead Man, Says 'Death Certificate' Not Enough To Cancel Service

www.huffingtonpost.com

Don't die without sharing your PIN numbers.

That seems to be the lesson learned from Verizon's recent botched handling of a deceased man's account.

Bill Young of Calvin, W.Va died in June 2009, but Verizon Wireless continued to bill him until February 2010.

Young's daughter, Cynthia Lacy produced a death certificate for the company to certify her father's passing, but was told by a Verizon representative that without her father's PIN (personal identification number), she was not allowed access to the account, reports the St. Petersburg Times.

(visit the link for the full news article)

I hate verizon...I simply loath that company. They are soulless even for a telecom...even for a major corporation. Whenever I had to call them up their phone tree was so intractable that I could spend hours on it without ever reaching a human being and would end up cussing at the phone.

BUT this is a new low even for them. What part of the man is dead don't they understand...

'Well, there's nothing else I can do for you,' the representative said before laughing and hanging up the phone.

So wrong so totally wrong.

To be fair they did finally resolve the issue but it should not have had to take outside involvement to do so.

Also the person who refused to do anything was simply lacking in compassion but management sets the tone and the subordinates follow.

www.huffingtonpost.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

[edit on 3/9/2010 by iMacFanatic]

reply to post by iMacFanatic


Read on...

Verizon will refund Lacy for the months she was wrongfully charged.

As with most cust service these days, they get things wrong constantly, and it is definitely frustrating, but if you remain patient through the process, things can usually work out in the end..

as was the case in this situation.

reply to post by iMacFanatic


Man, it is such a difficult choice. Which company do I hate more? AT&T or Verizon? This may swing the balance in favor of hating Verizon more.... for now. But AT&T is still hot on their heels.

Working in TElecoms myself in a technical aspect, but having got here via the customer service route, I can sympathise with both parties.

For the most part, the plebs employed in Customer Services are usually either those who cannot do much else or those who are passing through, with neither group really doing a fantastic job. This seems like a blatnat case of the Cust Services rep being a total plank, rather than a policy by Verizon.

When I worked at NTL (now Virgin) here in the UK, we used to get alot of these types of calls, as people die of course.

Personally, I would offer my condolences and say "I know it's a difficult time and I want to help, so if it is convenient please coudl you send in a copy of the Death Certificate and I will close the account".

If it's a true claim, they send it and account is closed, if it's a fraud, then they won't send it in and end up paying. There shouldn't be any Data Protection or legal issue with this, it seems like an over zealous Cust Services rep to me.

reply to post by JacKatMtn

Like I said...to be fair to verizon.

But still management sets the tone and the serfs follow suit. What do you wanna bet the manager of this specific customer rep. was a major hard ass?

reply to post by iMacFanatic


no doubt there.. All of the companies I have dealt with, NTelos, Sprint and the mother of all frustrating to deal with HUGHES, can really boil the blood..

It's not by chance, you just have to be patient and keep climbing the ladder and hopefully get to a rep who will actually deal with you in a fair manner..

from my exp, it's usually only when your contract is up when they decide to sweeten the pot...

My advice.. never renew a contract, if your time is up, stay month to month and purchase a new phone (if needed) elsewhere and just change the ESN..

That gives you a bit of leverage, not much but it helps..

reply to post by JacKatMtn

I grew to hate annoyance on line aka AOL almost as much as verizon...and I only dwelt with them for 3 months...I did a trial with them and didn't care for their service so after a week or so I quit or so I thought...the rest of the time was spent arguing with their reps who did not want me to quit so kept trying to sweeten the pot as it were and when that failed simply would not process my cancelation until I threatened to go to sue.

reply to post by iMacFanatic


So Would you say that I should feel good about not being in a Verizon coverage area?

reply to post by JacKatMtn

I haven't dwelt with them for years...I share wifi access with my neighbor and I use T-Mobile. They are annoying but nowhere near as bad as verizon or att.

This sort of thing is why my phone is one of those pre-paid types. Hell, I only talk on the damned thing about half an hour a month.

I feel for the lady. I had Verizon for a few years and when I bought my house and was moving I had to cancel my service with them since the place I moved to only had one single service provider at the time. So, I called them up, explained why I was canceling my service, paid my remaining balance, and got it all wrapped up and am given my cancellation confirmation number.

Thinking that it is all good I forget about it and go on with life. About 5 months later I get a bill from them for an additional 4 months worth of service. Turns out that they didn't shut my service off after all. At least not permanently. What confused me was that the 4 extra months were billed as active after I had already closed on my house and moved, so the service was actually off for about a week and a half in between my shutting it off and the moving date. I checked and it wasn't an identity theft issue or someone else accessing my account, just a screw up on their end.

I called them back up and I explained again why I had to cancel them, since the one single service provider in my town wasn't them, and told them that I had paid my balance and gotten a confirmation number. I gave them the number that they gave me months earlier and they claimed to have no record at all of my ever having spoken to them. I disagreed and said that there had to be some record because they generated a cancellation confirmation number to give to me and I had just read it back to them. The person I was talking to agreed that it was a confirmation number, but that they didn't have a record of what it confirmed and that they still had no record of having talked to me.

This went on for days trying to get the matter resolved and to this day, a bit over 3 years later, it still isn't resolved. They are adamant that they never talked to me, refuse to figure out what the confirmation number they gave me is for, and claim that I owe them for the additional 4 months of services that they provided, and also will not explain the short gap in service when it was off for a week and a half that started on the day I requested the service be shut down and was restarted the first day of the following month.

Since they played games like that with me, I have no trouble believing that they would deny a death certificate as proof to stop services.

Take care,
Cindi

It could be worse. Call most customer care lines in the UK and you get through to India and end up talking to some barely English speaking tit called Gerald or Marvin or some other name that hasn't been used in the UK since WWII.

Or you get through to Wales and have pretty much the same problems

This is just another excuse for people to bitch and moan. My wife died years ago. Bills kept coming to her. It was normal. One's estate automatically assumes the responsibilities of a deceased person and there's a procedure for resolving debts and services. It's often something more than just proving the person is dead.

Some paperwork required hasn't been done here. That's it.