My verizon bill

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Here's a copy of my verizon bill:
verizon

My first reaction is "Hey, I don't owe anything"... However, from experience I think I DO, and I think it might be $127. Unfortunately, by putting a big $0 for my balance at the top, people generally are going to stop and simply assume they didn't owe anything.

I've called Verizon about this a few times and 2/3 times the person I talk to ALSO thinks that I don't owe anything. I then need to talk them through my billing history for 15 minutes before they realize I DO in fact owe something. Usually this is after a supervisor gets involved and starts trying to explain complicated billing cycles and all sort of things that neither I nor the CSR actually care to know anything about.

This is how NOT to design an online bill presentation screen, they've taken intimate knowledge about how their internal billing and accounting systems work and broadcast it all the way to the customer. In addition to frustration, this causes confusion and wasted time/money/effort.

On the plus side, I wonder how many millions of dollars per month verizon makes because confused customers try to pay their $0 bill and end up being late for the $127 they actually owe.

Comments

Anonymous said…
I have a loan that does this. It says I owe 0.00, so I tried to apply my entire payment to principal...they didn't do it so I called and found out "even though the bill doesn't show anything due I have a monthly payment that I still have to pay" What? And I was supposed to know this how?
June 27, 2010 at 12:36 PM
Anonymous said…
That's what the CSR for verizon said once "You KNOW you have to pay, just do it (Assuming, I think, that I was trying to get out of paying my bill)" Of course when I told her I wasn't sure exactly how much I was supposed to pay, could she please remind me... she got a bit sheepish when she had to call a supervisor to help her figure it out.

If a person doing this 8 hours per day can't figure it out, what chance do us mere mortals stand?
June 27, 2010 at 2:56 PM
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