Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[bdawg923 (Max)]

http://verizonmath.blogspot.com/index.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gp0HyxQv97Q

This story is hilarious. It's a problem of terminology. If you haven't heard about this yet, here's a quick summary:

Basically this guy was going to Canada so he called Verizon to confirm how much he would be charged there. They told him he would be charged .002 cents (2 thousandths of a cent) per kb of usage. He was a bit skeptical because this is really cheap, and asked again, and also asked the rep to make a note of what he was quoted. So in Canada, he used something like 35983kb and should, by the rate, have been charged .002 cents/kb * 35893 = .71786 USD, which rounds up to 72 cents (.72). Instead, he was charged $72, because the rate he was charged was .002 dollars/kb, and not .002 cents/kb like he was told he would be. So he called in Verizon and argues with 5 or so people about why he should be charged 72 cents and not 72 dollars and none of them understand what the problem is!! It's actually sad that people like that (a supervisor too) can't do simple 3rd grade math. The video is quite long (22 min) but it's interesting to hear him explain in the simplest terms the difference between .002 cents and .002 dollars to no avail.

Btw, if anybody here needs this explained to them, I'll be more than happy to try.

[Ryan Wagner]

But if it was noted on his account then there shouldn't have been a problem? I have had problems similar to this and I just get the phone number to the corporate office, ask for the CEO, and then I end up getting the CEO's secretary. Believe me, the secretary will take care of your problem because the last thing that they want to happen is for me to get a hold of the CEO as an unhappy customer. I have gotten hundreds of dollars in refunds by doing this (it was nothing underhanded...just their billing mistakes).

[El Guru (Al)]

This sounds very familiar..we had something similar here in Arizona on our November ballot with Prop 203 which should have been an 80? per pack tax on cigarettes but was printed on the ballots as '.80 cents/pack'.  See video AZFamily: Ballot misprint could foil vote

[bdawg923 (Max)]

But if it was noted on his account then there shouldn't have been a problem?

There shouldn't be a problem. But the problem that exists is that when he asks them what he's being charged (he wants to hear them say the rate) they end up saying .002 cents. But they charge him .002 dollars. They think that .002 cents is the same thing as .002 dollars, hence the problem. If you listen to the youtube link you'll understand what I mean. The supervisor is asked what the rate is and he says something like: it's .002 cents. Then he takes out his calculator, plugs in the numbers (.002 [no units] * 35893) and gets 71.786 and says that the man owes $71. But this is the price in dollars and he was supposed to be doing the calculation in cents since that's what the man was promised (.002 cents per kb). So when the supervisor gets 71.786 on his calculator, he thinks that the final price. It would be the price or .002 dollars but to get to cents he has to divide by 100 and then he gets .71786 dollars or 72 cents.

Sorry I started rambling.

[Ryan Wagner]

My response didn't come off quite right. I was agreeing that this shouldn't be a problem since he did have it noted on the account and of course all the representatives repeated the same thing. I have actually shared this with 3 other people now so I have listened to it way more than I should have...but I laugh every time. My favorite representative in the recording was the last lady who said "it is a matter of opinion." For the sake of the world I hope these people don't have college degrees.

[Nogg3r5]

If my next bill for anythiung is left to "A matter of opinion" i will be quite annoyed. unless its my opinion, in which case I wont be paying!

[Ryan Wagner]

Someone who has Verizon should call them up and say that their bill is way to high, and use the argument that it is "a matter of opinion". When they ask what the hell you are talking about just say "oh, guess you're not a manager."