Okay, I messed up. This past month, especially during the honeymoon, I was using my cell phone’s internet client to check my e-mail, etc… I didn’t think it’d be that big of a deal. Maybe $10–$15 worth of charges, right? I get my latest Verizon cell phone bill and it’s almost $100 more than usual. Apparently I used 6 megabytes of data, and Verizon wants $97 for it. What.. the.. f—k?

To rub salt in the wound, Verizon offers a pre-paid “data block” of 10 megabytes for $25. Or unlimited data usage for $40. But of course, they can’t retroactively add these plans to your phone if the bill has been generated, according to them. Which is total baloney. According to the woman I spoke to, if I had changed my plan last week (to have the data block), I wouldn’t have had to pay this charge. Glorious!

I know the error is clearly on my side, but don’t you think they could have a little compassion for someone? The $95 for 6 megabytes is clearly raping the customer for no good reason, when compared to their other plans— that’s $15 per megabyte, compared to the pre-paid 10 megabyte block coming out to $4 a megabyte. Blah.

Also, looking at my phone bill, I noticed minutes deducted for calling voicemail. I was under the impression that calling your voicemail was always free with Verizon. Bzzzt. Wrong. According to Wikipedia (and other sources):

Verizon Wireless charges customers peak minutes if a user dials his/her voicemail during peak hours which is in contrast to its competitors. A customer may have mobile to mobile but will still be charged peak minutes for dialing his/her voicemail. Many customers are used to having free minutes when checking voicemail and are unaware that Verizon Wireless is deducting peak minutes.

Awesome!

Anyways, when our contract is up, Heather and I will most likely be finding another wireless provider.