Crastinate

You.

Are.

The.

Man.

LOVE the percentage strategy!

Ely,

Thanks for the video, I’ll try again this week. I followed the information from your previous posts, along with other successful people’s comments from other blogs without any luck so far. I spent about 3 hours on the phone with various tier 1, supervisors and managers. I was told many times by tier 1 that they could not authorize the cancellation. I spent an hour on the phone with a manager who was insisting that my only options were to accept the credit or cancel with ETF. She would not accept my statements of the facts, and after an hour of arguing she hung up on me, refusing to continue the conversation.

I’m wondering if I’m screwed at this point, if she placed a note in my file essentially saying that I’ve already denied accepting the credit. I’m going to try again to see if I have any better luck though.

Nice video, good info. Thanks
I would add the importance of taking good notes and writing down everything for your records when calling the customer service center. Date and time you called, names and positions of all the people you talk with, what was said, etc.
Take it from someone who worked in a call center for many years. The reps leave very inaccurate log notes and often do not leave any log notes of the call at all. They will just move on to the next call and let the next Customer service rep deal with you. Take Notes…..
PS. The most tenured experienced employees normally have the most desirable work shift. Which is M-F 7:00am to 3:30pm If you call during these hours you may have better luck finding a good rep to deal with.

I actually LOVE Verizon but I watched your video anyhow. I am a real consumer guru so I really enjoyed your approach and tactics!! Brilliant! Do you have suggestions for all sorts of things? I might have to check out your website. Thanks for your time and efforts – you never know!!

Great piece! I love my service with VzW but not all of the extra charges they add onto the bill, I have tried Nextel, AT&T and they stink in NYC-does not work everywhere as VzW does. I am not going to leave because of that but loved you informnative video anyway, keep up the great work!

Excellent Job! Keep up the great work!

Great post. Thanks. Were you able to cancel and port your number? How to you go about doing that? The porting part.

thanks a bunch. I’ll let you know how it works out. I got an iPhone on Saturday- waited for 4 hours at an apple store. I love my gadgets! My advice, go to an apple store. Att stores are getting the shaft.

I’ve been with Verizon for years, and just got new iPhones. I was lucky to be out of contract with Verizon, so I know I can cancel at any time. Which is good, because I wanted to hold on to my Verizon service until I was sure the new iPhone would work out. Lo and behold, AT&T’s service is horrible here, and my phone is useless in my house and in my office. So my point is, before you commit to the iPhone 3G, maybe borrow a friend’s if you can and test it in your house and workplace. Remember there’s a 10% restocking fee if you buy an iPhone and decide to return it within the 30 day window.

hey thanks for the advice. I wanted to check out service before I committed, so I held onto my verizon phone. I’m in a big city, so service has been great. I get full 3g at home and in the office. Looks like I’ll be porting! I’ve had an ipod touch, so no problem with typing, either.

Hey Ely, I tried canceling my account this morning to no avail. I spoke with three or four CSRs, and on the last one I was talking with a guy named Rob. After giving him my argument he took a minute to look over my bill and cited that my FUSC did not raise in the past 60 days, but my Administrative charge did raise .15 back on May 6th. I therefore had nothing left to do but thank him for his time and end the call.

Isn’t this FUSC thing something that is universal? After looking at my bill more closely I’ve found that he’s right, it is consistently .91 cents back as far as April when it was .90 cents and the Administrative charge was .70 cents instead of .85 cents. Therefore it seems like there isn’t anything I can do?

Thanks for the quick and concise reply!

In looking through my Verizon Wireless account online, I can only seem to pull up my May27th-June 26th bill. I can’t get the June 27th-July26th bill to show up anywhere and I have opted to not receive paper billing statements.

Do you have any idea how I can manage to get this bill to show up?

Thanks again.

Oh, apparently I’m just on a different billing cycle and therefore cannot view my bill online until the end of the week. I guess I’ll postpone my arguing until then.

Thanks again for this great tip, I was getting tired of my enV

False!

The FUSC is a federal invoked charge and does not qualify releae you from a ET fee as does the example of the Text Message increase.

It took me about 50 minutes, but I got the ETF waived. Since I wanted to port my number, Verizon agreed to put a note on my account saying the ETF is waived. When I do start service with a new carrier and my Verizon contract is canceled when the number is ported, I SHOULD have no ETF to pay. I’ll let you know if they renig on that agreement.

FYI – They tried to claim I needed an FUSC Exemption Certificate in order to have the ETF waived. Since Exemption Certificates is not stated in the contract, they had to back down from that claim.

Looks like i’m in the same boat as a few others. My FUSF charge has gone down from 76 cents in June to 75 cents in July. The Regulatory and administrative charges as well as the Gross Receipts surcharge has gone down as well.

Looks like I’ll have to wait until next month’s bill and hope they raise these charges then

My FUSC charge went down as well. I didn’t argue the charge, I argued the charge is based off of a percentage of my bill and that percentage went up. I argued my cell phone usage was higher in June than July, so the FUSC charge would be less, however, if my usage would be higher, the FUSC charge would be higher. Anyway, the key to the argument is the percentage changed. It was 1.97% in November 2007 (that stat helps) and I did not receive notice of a change until July, so the charge was raised 25%. In the future, when you cell phone usage goes up, the increase in the FUSC WILL have a greater impact on you.

Amazingly, when I used this argument, they did not try to fight it. It was the easiest part of the call. Oh, by the way, I used the phrase “I think we both can agree that when a percentage goes up, it will have an affect”… saying “I think we both can agree” helped.

This has to work, since you’re working (playing) within the rules *they* set.

One thing I might do is notify THEM at the start of the call, that **YOU** are recording the call.
(( Then record it!! ))

Personally, I like to write, and get a written answer. When you do that *and* carbon copy the FCC or FTC they really sit up and take notice.

It was great fun to hassle Sprint on excessive taxes that were going to the wrong State (Taxes were for my old locale, not my current residence, “based on the State where the phone’s area code is located”). — That’s a violation of FCC regulations: Illegal.
.

Gregg – I guess I’m confused as to the argument then. My bill was higher in July than June because I added features but the charge is less. I looked over the last 6 months worth of bills and it wasn’t until the April 21st bill does it mention the rate going up – since it’s July, aren’t I outside the 60 day period?

I only received notice in the July 12th bill, so I was still inside the 60 days. Only once did they try to say I was out of the bill, I told them the notification was not on the June bill, but it was on the July bill. That ended their argument.

I also ran into a supervisor that said she did not have the power to waive the ETF. I stated multiple times the person who escalated to her said she did and that I only wanted to speak to someone who had that power. She eventually “found something” that said she was allowed to waive it.

The key to this, like Ely says, is to know you are right. They will lie about policies/the contract, they will acted confused, they will cite non-related portions of the contract, they will say they can’t do anything, keep referring to the contract and insist you work with someone who knows what can be done and knows the contract.

* correction *
“Only once did they try to say I was out of the 60 days notification”. They themselves claimed not to know when they notified me.

Ely, thanks! I got out of paying an ETF and it took me all of 20 minutes. I did luck out with the people in customer service. It also helps that I’m a lawyer too, and can make an argument without losing my cool. But, your write up and video were rock solid and fool proof. If I had found your site last week, I would have hooked you up with a referral fee, but I was all set to just pay the etf. Anyway, thanks! I already ported. Hopefully, I won’t have any issues. Verizon instantly cut off my online account, so gotta wait for my mail to confirm that etf is waived.

Thanks Ely,

Your suggestions work perfectly. I only had to call twice, and took me ~5 minutes of talking and 15 minutes of waiting. Also, as I read from someone’s post, it worked well with a male service rep, who do a little hemming and hawing, and even offered a credit. The female service rep I talked to the day before just would not budge. Anyways. Thanks for the excellent tip.

No joke – I am seriously hiring you when I need to leave a contract. Forget about Verizon – how are you with car leases?

Thanks Ely for the great tutorial on the ETF waive. I want to ask you a question. Could this be done in store in person? I feel it would have a greater effect when coming forth with papers etc. After all its a lot harder to get ride of someone when in person.

Please advise

Thanks

Ugh 3 people and an hour later, no dice. I’m going to try again today. They’re all offering me the credit but aren’t convinced by my argument to go beyond that

is this still in effect and not over the 60 day limit yet??

i was just on the phone with them about this for over an hour. A supervisor told me that it was stated on my march 29th-april 28th bill that the FUSC changed “on April 1 to 2.38 percent of assessable wireless charges, other than separately billed interstate and international long distance charges. The FUSC on these charges changed to 11.3 percent.” — quoted directly from my bill. Is this true that the 60 days have long passed? how is everyone else able to get the ETF waived so easily? The agreement does say i have 60 days to not accept and cancel my verizon account, etc.. but i am past the 60 day mark. please tell me the secret to dropping verizon!!

@ Ely I just checked my most recent bill and it does say that the rate has changed to 2.42 percent! so i guess i am eligable? ^_^

RAT %#%^#!%& of a manager just applied a $15 credit despite me specifically saying “I refuse to accept the credit”

wow it worked!!! thanks so much for the help. they kept wanting to give me all these deals, but i just kept saying, “no thank you. i would only like to take advantage of what you have stated in your contract.” yay! iphone here i come!

congrats jenna – the fates are smiling upon you I seem to get stuck with multiple supervisors who all say “I have the power to waive the ETF but I’m not going to”

this really works lol after 3 phone calls we got my sister out of her contract that was supposedly extended until 2009 thanks so much

Well, I finally received the correct bill but these people are steadfast. I just argued with a supervisor for 15 minutes to find out that he applied the credit without even getting my approval! After ten more minutes of arguing he said that he removed it but I’m not sure.

Filing a complaint with the BBB right now and intend to call again afterwards.

Did anyone manage to do this without speaking to a supervisor? The CSRs just seem completely ignorant of the contract while the supervisors understand the contract but choose to ignore it.

Rich – that is the exact same thing that happened to me. They applied a $15 credit w/o my consent, saying “this removes any effect, so I can’t cancel w/o a penalty”. Two supervisors told me they have the power to waive the ETF but will not do so.

Alright! So I finally managed to get a helpful CSR apparently. After talking with him very politely for awhile I got him to agree that I was right, but he still said that he couldn’t really do what I was asking. I mentioned to him that no matter what happens I’m going to cancel but in the end I am still going to be a Verizon wireless customer because I plan on getting on someone elses plan (Which is true).

This seemed to open some sort of door because he immediately offered to credit me 1/2 of the ETF. I declined it and he offered to have someone call me back on the subject, but he also said that even if they won’t help me I can call him back directly and he will atleast cancel and credit me 1/2 the EFT, which is very good.

Finally getting somewhere.

Thanks Ely. Your video was really helpful. It hardly took me 15mins to cancel my account. I am going with tmobile hotspot@home and a blackberry.

Everyone seems to have it so easy except for me lol Did you do anything in particular Murali? Or do you know who it was you talked to and their extension?