James's Weblog

A few weeks ago, I got a new cell phone and switched from Verizon Wireless to Sprint.

I didn’t remember when I purchased my old phone or what the terms of my service agreement were, so I went to Verizon’s website to look up my account information first.

Current calling plan:
America’s Choice 300 General .00 Long Distance $35.00 1y 0502

I interpreted this information to mean that I had a one-year commitment starting in May 2002. I assumed I was free and clear, so I switched carriers.

I then got slapped with a $175 early termination fee.

I called Verizon. It turns out that I had a two-year commitment and that the “1y” is an internal code not meant to be decipherable by users. To add insult to injury, I missed my end date by only two weeks.

There are a couple of things wrong here:

• Verizon’s website provides no clear information about what the contract duration is.
• Verizon’s website provides external access to internal information. If something is for internal use only, keep it internal. Otherwise people will assume that information is supposed to be relevant to them and is meant to be decipherable.

Had Verizon not generously provided useless but misleading information, I would have called them to find out my service agreement details. At best, Verizon is totally clueless and is too lazy to make their website usable. At worst, Verizon’s committing fraud. “1y” is readable enough to be misinterpreted but vague enough for Verizon to avoid accountability and to claim that they didn’t lie outright.

Of course, it’s not in Verizon’s best interests to let people know when their agreements expire, so what do I really expect?

One of the main reasons I switched away from Verizon at all was because I was throwing money away; each month I paid $35 for less than 10 minutes of actual usage. Sigh.