‘Unlimited’ EVDO ends up costing Verizon $1 million
- October 24th, 2007
- 2 Comments
Without grabbing a dictionary, it’s pretty safe to say that most people would interpret the term "unlimited" to mean "without limits" or "endless" or "we won’t cut off your service if you download too much stuff."
To be fair, the fine print on Verizon’s unlimited EVDO service said that e-mail and internet browsing were all-you-can-eat, according to Ars Technica, but had no such allowance for videos, music, or other large files.
But after roughly 13,000 customers found themselves unable to use their data services due to an arbitrary, unknown usage cap enacted by Verizon, New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo fought back by saying that "when consumers are promised an ‘unlimited’ service, they do not expect the promise to be broken by hidden limitations."
After a 9-month investigation, Verizon has agreed to pay out $1 million to customers who had their service terminated, which in turn left them with useless handsets and data cards. It’ll have to pay out $150,000 to the state of New York as well. Verizon has also now removed the term "unlimited" from its BroadbandAccess plan. So for $60 a month, you can now get sorta-unlimited-but-watch-your-step wireless data access.
Verizon to pay $1 million over deceptive "unlimited" EVDO plans [Ars Technica]
NW Guy (Who am I?)
10 months ago
WHAT?? That only comes out to $80/subscriber; which is a major rip-off for early service termination. How about Verizon reimburse them for a new phone and 1 month of service (for the frustration of changing carriers the first time) at the Carrier of their choice.
Oh yes, Verizon should also send them a check equivilant to what each subscriber’s early termination charge would have been.
That provides decent compensation; then if they want to add a penalty to that…
Michael Mortimer (Who am I?)
10 months ago
Well, at least a company got slapped and was forced to change its false advertising.
I don’t like advertising that is limited by fine print [that no one reads.]
It’s just like when carriers advertise great plans, but by the time we are done with add on taxes, fees and what not, the price of a plan goes up $10 to $15 monthly. The only reason we tolerate it now is that everyone knows to add those amounts to the plan total.
And don’t even get me started on the lottery. They advertise $100 million, but deduct present value and taxes, the winner gets $25 million. I digress, forgive me.
But I liked this post. Must have really frosted Verizon on principle [since $1 million is probably 5 minutes profit.]
But like I said, the bigger benefit is that the Company will stop advertising “unlimited” plans.
I’m tired of seeing this kind of false advertising out there. And while the fine print may take out the “false” in the term, it’s still “shifty.”