Verizon Wireless data meter accuracy questioned after $9,100 bill

Verizon Wireless is facing questions about the accuracy of its data meter after a series of newspaper stories on customers who were charged big overage fees after unexplained data usage increases. The Plain Dealer of Cleveland detailed a $9,100 bill charged to a customer named Valarie Gerbus. “For months, the mother of two from suburban Tampa paid $118 a month for her cellphone package that included 4 gigabytes of data, which she says she never exceeded,” the article said. “That changed last month when Verizon charged her with using an eye-gouging 569 gigabytes for a whopping $8,535.” Verizon added $600 to the bill when she dropped her plan. Gerbus refused to pay and asked Verizon “repeatedly” to explain how her bill soared, but she got no answer, the article said. "I told them that I won't pay the bill,'' Gerbus said to the Plain Dealer. "I can either wait until they take it to a collection agency or when they take it to court. Either way, my credit history will be ruined. I can go bankrupt here.'' Gerbus was planning to file a complaint with the Federal Communications Commission, but then Verizon agreed to waive the $9,100 bill after the article ran. Gerbus still has to pay a cancellation fee.

Plain Dealer reporter Teresa Dixon Murray described her own "mysterious" increase in Verizon data usage in a story on September 2 and was then flooded with similar stories from customers around the country. In a followup article last week, Dixon Murray wrote that "thousands of people, mostly Verizon customers,” said they had “seen their data use jump significantly—doubling or tripling since the spring in many cases, even though their cell phone habits haven't changed.”