Pet-Peeve Department - I came across this article and (once I'd stopped shaking my head) decided to pass it along. - bh
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AIKEN COUNTY, S.C. (WRDW/WAGT) - A 72-year old Vietnam veteran shoots his cell phone after receiving a more [than] $3600 bill from Verizon. The one time charge was for data overage on his hot spot, which he says [he] didn't even use.
It was the trip of a lifetime for a lifetime together. Robert and Frances Able celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary by going to California for a month. "We left here September 24th and stayed the whole month of October," Robert Able said. He says he left his hotspot at home while he was away. He says Verizon called him around the third week in October. "It happened to be my [wife's] birthday and got a phone call saying I had a $3600-something Verizon bill for overage. I told them this couldn't be, this can't be possible," Able said.
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This is the typical "once over, lightly" fluff piece which TV "news" generates, filled with buzzwords, but missing both content and context. It generates more questions than answers, such as the obvious one - why didn't Verizon suspend the service if it had exceeded the users' norms? Where does Verizon get the idea that they're entitled to force a user to bear the costs of stolen service?
Sigh.
Bill