I had a “Bundle” of phone services, supplied by Verizon Phone Company.

I was never told I would be charged $120 if I terminated any major party of my service.

My cell phone had unlimited long distance and my home phone had the same.  I thought I would stay with the cheapest one, but it didn’t work that way.

When I cancelled my Verizon Long Distance service, I was not told about the $120 penalty that would show on my next bill, but it did.

While complaining to the outsourced Indian Verizon representative, Verizon told me that I made a verbal agreement to pay this cancellation fee if I made certain changes.  Honestly, I don’t recall anything like that, and, why can the phone company have verbal agreements for charges?  How do they prove that you agreed? 

The magic of it all is, that if you re-activate your plan again, put it back where it was, they will graciously waive the $120 fee.  This is blackmail as far as I am concerned.  What do you think?  I say, “Play hard, but play fair.”

Author’s Note:

Although the above article was written a few years ago, in my estimation, the business model of most companies, including the Government,  has become fierce.

For instance, in 2023, the State of California approved the Middle Class Tax Credit law.  That meant, if you filed a 2020 return on time, and according to your household size, you would receive $350 to $600.

The refunds began in October or 2022. I didn’t receive mine. I waited. The final credit dates were the middle of February, 2023. Still no credit came to me.

Than I began calling the Ca Franchise Tax Board, and the Money Network Account Services, they used to distribute the cash. This went on for about 2 weeks.

Each entity had several numbers to call. Most of them were automated. Once I did speak with a live person, which was very rare, they would tell me it was “all fine” on their end, and I should call the other company.

I file my taxes with Turbo Tax, and what eventually came to the surface was, that Turbo tax does not have a drop down menu for the “type” of home address to use.

So, if you live in an apartment – APT, there is a spot to type the unit number there. However, there are no other options.

I filed in my space number by typing in “SPC 78,” after the APT label. This made the number of data spaces too long, although there was no blocking of the data input. Not on my end, anyway.

However, for the 2021 filing year, the partial space blocking occurred. So, now California got a return, stating that my SPC number was 7, not 78. Guess where my refund credit card went. Never to be heard of again.

The return required, for me to receive this credit, was correctly filed, as to my address. But the next year’s return, was truncated, to the incorrect address.

After two weeks of attempting to determine what the problem was, and how to fix it, I spoke with a really nice Money Store Agent. She corrected the problem, and although I still have not received the refund, I believe it will arrive.

So, where do the fierce business practices come in? Well, The Money Network Account Services knew that I had not cashed my credit. I imagine their accounts swell with credits that were never cashed.

Would they fix this later? Your guess is as good as mine. The Ca Franchise Tax Board, although they hired The Money Network, has no communication with them. Their choice, so the FTB has no responsibility to see that the credits were issued.

There has to be a name for the “No Liability” world that we live in. I call it “Faultless Business Practices.” These days you must be a determined computer savvy customer/client, in order to receive what you should.

So much for the China produced products, that we buy from Amazon, don’t even perform their primary purpose. If you don’t like it, call China.

Judy