Fed Up With Verizon...Are You?

We have four lines on our cell phone bill. Two of those phones multi-media phones with the keyboards and some of the keys on the dashboards automatically (because of the shortcut option) connect to the web. When we notice this happening we immediately press end. We do not need to connect to the internet with our phones and we don't want to. But at the end of the month Verizon will charge us $1.99 for those brief 1-15 seconds of usage. This has been happening ever purchase these phones four years ago. About every three months I would call Verizon and say, "No, that line is not using the internet," and the customer service rep would say, "Well the user of that phone might be getting games, viewing games or looking at ringtones." Ok. So I believe the rep over my own kid.

But not any more.

It has been happening on my line ever since I purchased the ENV phone last November and I KNOW I am not getting on the web via my phone. When I call Verizon they promise to block this option. I did so, again, two weeks ago and guess what, this month's bill has a data usage charge of $3.98 for the two lines which used .01 kb of data usage. I'm not sure how much time that is but it's not enough to really do anything on the web. Angry and frustrated, I went to the Verizon website to write my complaint rather than talk to a rep on the phone. And I decided to do a little internet investigating. This, it appears, is a problem nationwide.

Here and

Here and

Here and

Here

I am so angry with this company! Reading that this unethical practice is happening with other customers I must wonder how much money Verizon is making this way. It is wrong. But I am just one person with little to no power or influence. What can I do other than consistently write/call and complain. And yet, I still get charged? Should I add up these data usage charges, which we paid, and deduct that amount from this month's bill? I'd like to but probably won't because Verizon has more power than I and could wreck our credit rating.

What would you do? Has this happened to you?