My 1st Droid Bill!!!!! ACK!!

[papy72]

Not to sound like a jerk, but when you go 'EX-wife' and 'exactly how detailed' it was... I take it you found 'cause' for ending the marriage beyond just a lot of airtime usage... <_< >_> <_< (Note: This is Shifty Eyes and couldn't find something similar.)

We were well on our way by that time, but yeah it didn't help any.

 

[zegolf]

don't know if this thought came up, but my guess would be the O.P. charged the phone purchase to their verizon account?????

Yup. Page 1.

 

[NoKz]

My 1st bill was $142.60, that's with activation fee and taxes. It's not bad at all.

 

[On Droids]

I'll take geography for $100 , Alex

What is .35 cents a minute in roaming charges

 

[ThermalGuy]

Mistakes? Maybe not!

I been a customer with VZW for a while now, and have a corporate discount of 20%. Even with a Blackberry plan, my bill has never been over $100.

My very first Droid Bill is $420 some dollars and thats with my discount!!! What in the world Verizon? What's your freaking deal?!?!

I can't even view the details of the bill right now. Tmo and N900 here I come. Verizon can stuff it, not gonna play their silly games.

I'll put a screenshot of my bill when I get home.

First you need to take a deep breath. It WILL be ok. Mistakes happen. Heck I just got a late payment notice on my car payment that wasn't due for another 2 weeks, lol. When you deal with computers, there are bound to be mistakes here and there. Just call them up, and have them explain to you what the charges are for. Tell them you cannot view the bill and would like to know why your being charged so much. Just remember to breath deeply.

Don't be so sure! All the Telcos play the game of sliding in extra charges hoping you will not notice. Most don't catch it unless the bill is outragous like this one. Look at the accidental key press that launches a data call when you don't have a data plan on a phone. VZN and others have been busted for pre-programing keys to do just this. 0.01kb = 1 Mb of data if you press that key accidentally and you get charged $1.99 for your "mistake".
Consider that they have millions of subscribers doing this accidentally once or twice a month and they are making literally millions on your "mistake" that they have set you up for on purpose.:icon_eek: The FCC is looking into these "unfair" consumer practices.

 

[Mojo]

The OP left way to much to speculate....

Was this a upgrade? Was it a new line? What type of plan are you on? Was the higher bill due to proration? Did you go over min or text? Did you tether and get caught? Did you bill your phone to your account? For someone to get a high bill do to those issues is not uncommon. And generally points to a few things A) The rep did not do a good job of setting the standard of what to expect on your first bill. B) The rep did do a good job, but you did not listen. (I find this happens more often than not) C) You either have overage in some way. Or billed equipment to your account.

If Verizon made a mistake in billing they will correct it. It takes 10 min out of your day to talk to a CSR and find out.

Also to the person that posted that some people from CrackBerry got charged $2500.00 in a single month for tethering using tetherberry. I call BS on that.
This is why.... and something that some of you may not know about VZW and data charges. If you go over on MB weather it is a small data plan or a BroadBand plan or even tethering... VZW will cap your Data overage charges off at $198.00 They will do this only once, and is some cases twice. If you continue to have overage then they will allow the clock to still tick.

 

[angelman]

I was always on pay as you go with tmobile. I hate all the stupid charges, having to check my bill every month to see what they screwed up, paying nonsense taxes etc. I liked it and it worked out just fine, sadly no data though.
Anyway when the droid was released I finally bit the bullet and got myself one with a plan. My wife has been on verizon for a very long time and to be fair has had few problems. They only screw up when they have to do something like change her phone, change the plan etc. which is to be expected because all large corporations are basically incompetent in my experience.
Anyway we get our first bill, for $420! I was expecting $150. My wife was all upset and wondering how we would pay. I told her that obviously it was a mistake. My philosophy is that every bill is wrong, the company is bound to screw up every single time and thus every bill must be reviewed and questioned every month. I noted there was a $208 equipment charge. ANyway it turned out the verizon store had backdated our service to before we got the phones and then the number they gave me had not been released yet from it's previous owner (a company). The company had bought a new phone a week before I got the number and thus I got saddled for the fee.
The woman was very helpful and fixed everything. I received a new bill in the post last week which I have ignored since it has the same nonsense fees in it. I will wait until they send me a corrected bill before paying anything.
Moral of the story, assume everyone is incompetent and a fool, question everything and you won't get ripped off (so badly).
Don't even get me started on the idiocy and criminal incompetence that is medical billing...

The OP left way to much to speculate....

Was this a upgrade? Was it a new line? What type of plan are you on? Was the higher bill due to proration? Did you go over min or text? Did you tether and get caught? Did you bill your phone to your account? For someone to get a high bill do to those issues is not uncommon. And generally points to a few things A) The rep did not do a good job of setting the standard of what to expect on your first bill. B) The rep did do a good job, but you did not listen. (I find this happens more often than not) C) You either have overage in some way. Or billed equipment to your account.

If Verizon made a mistake in billing they will correct it. It takes 10 min out of your day to talk to a CSR and find out.

Also to the person that posted that some people from CrackBerry got charged $2500.00 in a single month for tethering using tetherberry. I call BS on that.
This is why.... and something that some of you may not know about VZW and data charges. If you go over on MB weather it is a small data plan or a BroadBand plan or even tethering... VZW will cap your Data overage charges off at $198.00 They will do this only once, and is some cases twice. If you continue to have overage then they will allow the clock to still tick.

 

[garrett]

Also to the person that posted that some people from CrackBerry got charged $2500.00 in a single month for tethering using tetherberry. I call BS on that.
This is why.... and something that some of you may not know about VZW and data charges. If you go over on MB weather it is a small data plan or a BroadBand plan or even tethering... VZW will cap your Data overage charges off at $198.00 They will do this only once, and is some cases twice. If you continue to have overage then they will allow the clock to still tick.

you sir are incorrect and here is your BS.
http://forums.crackberry.com/f71/omg-help-190239/

This morning I got out of class and went to check my messages on my phone. There were none. So I went to call my girlfriend and I got a recording telling me I was being connected to Verizon for a billing problem. WTF??? My parents are never late on anything!!! I got through to this lady at Verizon and by the time she answered I was pissed and really worried at the same time. She told me my service was suspended until payment was made on the account. Okay maybe dad forgot to pay something. When she told me the bill was $3890 I almost swallowed the phone thinking someone had hacked my service. She then told me that it was all data charges and that because I was tethering my phone without a plan there normal $250 limit on data charges did not apply. WTF??? I surfed and did email and worked myspace and listened to music online. My freind who told me about tetherberry said it was bull**** and said there were people here who knew how to do it right. So I ask you this. HOW DO I FIX THIS? MY DAD WILL KILL ME!!! She said a letter was already sent to the bill address so if I cant fix it I am in deep ****.

as you see the limit to data charges only applies if you have a tethering plan and went over.

 

[Mojo]

Garret, I have read that post on CB as well. I still don't buy it. To get that amount of overage ($2500.00 worth) you would have to use 10000 MB @.25 per MB that is nearly 10gigs of data... If this was true, 1) VZW would have gave a credit of most of that back and defaulted back to the Data Cap charge of $198.00 as a one time curiosity if this customer was/ had a good history with VZW. And 2) if he was consuming nearly 10gigs of service via tethering without a tethering plan. His phone would have been suspended much sooner due to a extreme unusual amount of usage

 

[Laurence5905]

Well, my first Droid bill is $370.28. Of course, $258.61 is the Droid itself, plus the Multimedia Dock, plus sales-tax. So I'm thinking the general consensus is correct -- he charged his phone to his account, or Verizon mistakenly added it to his account after he paid for it with another method.

EDIT: As a great example of Verizon's customer service -- I noticed while paying my bill just now, that my $100 rebate status was listed as "invalid," which it shouldn't have been. I purchased my Droid on Nov. 6th, and the cutoff for the rebate (according to the rebate form I filled out at that time) was Nov. 7th. I dialed *611, got transferred around a couple of times (ok, fine, every big company does that), got in touch with someone who knew what the problem was, and got myself a new rebate tracking number. Total time of the call: 13m 22s. Not bad at all, when you consider that they've sold HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of Droids, and have nearly that many rebates to deal with.

So to the OP -- calm down, and let Verizon's customer service do what they do best: Serve the customer!

I've been with Verizon since 1994 (back when they were called Bell Atlantic Mobile, and my cell phone had to be professionally installed in my car) and I've NEVER had a problem getting something fixed when there's been a mistake. That, and their incredible network, are the reasons I didn't jump ship and buy an AT&T iPhone years ago when they first were available. And it's why, despite the Droid's few flaws, I'm confident that the Droid will get better and better as time goes on and the software is patched/updated. I feel that Verizon WANTS to keep me as their customer, and they've done an excellent job of it, for over 15 years now.

 

[garrett]

Garret, I have read that post on CB as well. I still don't buy it. To get that amount of overage ($2500.00 worth) you would have to use 10000 MB @.25 per MB that is nearly 10gigs of data... If this was true, 1) VZW would have gave a credit of most of that back and defaulted back to the Data Cap charge of $198.00 as a one time curiosity if this customer was/ had a good history with VZW. And 2) if he was consuming nearly 10gigs of service via tethering without a tethering plan. His phone would have been suspended much sooner due to a extreme unusual amount of usage

maybe............. maybe not, but i have seen threads like that come up half a dozen times. i doubt there all doing it just for some attention. i could be wrong but it seem unlikely.

to be honest 10 gigs of usage over a month weather is be on a phone or on a home connection isnt much at all. i used to monitor my usage on my home connection and use somewhere in the range of 250 - 600 gigs a month. so for someone to use 10 gigs over a ~30 day period shouldnt take much. he said he was on myspace and streaming music so he could have surpassed that in a few days.

 

[Mojo]

On a PC, no 10 gigs is not really a lot. Especially if your doing a lot of muti-media stuff. But I run all my stores off of data cards and internet is used a lot and we do have a hard time getting to 5gigs. But we dont allow for media stuff either.

As for a phone, without tethering it would be nearly impossible to reach that high of data. I use my phone for data nearly non stop. And as of right now I am at 3438987.19kb in usage. That is what like a little over 3gigs. And my billing cycle changes tomorrow.

 

[garrett]

On a PC, no 10 gigs is not really a lot. Especially if your doing a lot of muti-media stuff. But I run all my stores off of data cards and internet is used a lot and we do have a hard time getting to 5gigs. But we dont allow for media stuff either.

As for a phone, without tethering it would be nearly impossible to reach that high of data. I use my phone for data nearly non stop. And as of right now I am at 3438987.19kb in usage. That is what like a little over 3gigs. And my billing cycle changes tomorrow.

exactly but if you were teathering i would be quite easy to surpass 10 gigs

 

[the3dolla]

uhhhhh

Mine was $713.. billed droid and eris to the account..also the car mount. data is 45/mo each for first month since you pay ahead on verizon.. for those who are like "wth" either don't understand simple billing or there was a mistake.. I'm banking on the first.. I have 5 phones. 3 dumb and 2 smart.. My bill used to be around $160.. prob be around $215 now..

 

[lschmitt]

Did you have an existing account with Verizon? Maybe you had a past due amount that was added to your new bill. Also, there is the activation fee.

I remember when I got my storm last year and they billed everything on my first statement. It was like $500. I wish I hadn't done it that way but oh well. When I got my Droid, they didn't charge me any activation fee or anything. Just call VZW, or log-on to MyVerizon to check it out.