*Menu
Search
Submit
Newsletters
E-Edition
Southeast Missourian
*
The Bottom Line
Melissa Miller
Melissa Miller is business editor at The Southeast Missourian. A graduate of the University of Missouri Journalism School, she's worked as a reporter, photographer, editor and as the executive director of two not-for-profit organizations. After living in Michigan and then Indiana, she moved back to her hometown of Jackson, Mo. In addition to writing daily stories for The Southeast Missourian, Melissa coordinates editorial content each month for Business Today. Business Today is a monthly publication for southeast Missouri's business community. Monthly themes include health care, agriculture, women in business, technology and more. Business Today is direct mailed to business owner and managers throughout southeast Missouri and southern Illinois. Follow her updates on local business developments at www.twitter.com/semissourianbiz or on Facebook at www.facebook.com/MelissaMillerSoutheastMissourian

Recent posts
Archives

Verizon offers refunds for data charges

Posted Monday, October 4, 2010, at 10:02 AM

Verizon Wireless could pay out up to $90 million in refunds to cell phone customers who were improperly charged for inadvertent Web access or data usage over the past several years, the Associated Press reported today.

The Federal Communications Commission had asked Verizon Wireless last year about $1.99-a-megabyte data access fees that appeared on the bills of customers who didn't have data plans but who accidentally initiated data or Web access by pressing a button on their phones.

In a statement on its website Sunday, Verizon Wireless said most of the 15 million customers affected will receive credits of $2 to $6 on their October or November bills. Some will receive larger amounts. Customers no longer with Verizon will get refund checks.

Any Verizon customers out there noticed these data charges?

Comments

View 1 comment or respond
Community discussion is important, and we encourage you to participate as a reader and commenter. Click here to see our Guidelines. We also encourage registered users to let us know if they see something inappropriate on our site. You can do that by clicking "Report Comment" below.

  • I was a telecom manager at a newspaper where I rode herd on about 700 wireless devices on a variety of carriers.

    When we moved about 400 of them off ATT and onto Verizon because of signal and support issues, I noticed that it was easy for a user to inadvertently connect to the data area with a couple of accidental keystrokes. I did it myself several times.

    I retired two years ago, so I'm letting all my telephone knowledge leak out of head as quickly as possible, so I don't remember whether Verizon came up with a fix to block our accounts from accessing data or if we just refused to pay it.

    For some reason, I think it was the former, because I don't recall doing any extra auditing steps to strip out the data charges.

    I hate to say anything good about ATT, but I believe it was possible to block data access on them without jumping through any hoops.

    -- Posted by ksteinhoff on Mon, Oct 4, 2010, at 10:40 AM

Respond to this blog