How I Cut My Verizon Phone Bill by $75

Last summer my daughter hosted an international exchange student from France. Since Charlene was only 14, I felt it was really important for her to be in regular contact with her parents in France and encouraged her to make brief calls on a daily basis. Over her two week visit Charlene's calls totaled 20 minutes - a very reasonably number. Much less reasonable was the phone bill that arrived several weeks later. The international calling section was nearly $90!

2. International calling plans and a $250 cup of coffee

When I called Verizon they informed me that had I subscribed to their international calling plan, at $4/month, the calls would have been billed at $0.10/minute. Since I don't usually use our Verizon service for international calls, I was unaware that their default rate is almost $4.50/minute! The service representative informed me that since this is their published rate, there is nothing he can do about it.

He was not impressed with the fact that I could have used a prepaid calling card and paid $0.035/minute to France, which is more than 125 times cheaper. He was similarly unimpressed with my saying that while I knew I'd pay more than the $0.10/minute that I'd get with a plan, I thought it would be "only" 3 or 4 times more expensive than the Verizon plan rate, instead of 45 times more. At this point I realized I needed to move on to a supervisor.

After two attempts and a total of 30 minutes on hold, I managed to speak with a supervisor. The supervisor repeated the same explanation. At this point I was faced with two alternatives. I could vent at the supervisor, likely getting nothing but short-lived relief, or I could try to calmly convince him to step beyond the "party line." Not wanting to throw away $90, I opted for the latter.

"Imagine" I began, "that you're walking down the street, and you come up on a diner. Feeling like having some coffee, you step in and order a cup. You've had coffee in other diners for a buck or two, so you don't bother checking the price on the menu. The waitress serves you, and after you drain the cup, you ask for the check."

Then I got to my point. "The check arrives" I said, "requesting payment of $250 for the coffee. Shocked and angry, you ask to speak with the manager. 'What seems to be the problem, sir?' asks the manager. You show him the check and ask if this is not a mistake. Perhaps they meant $2.50, and misplaced the decimal point. 'No' replies the manager. 'This is our price for coffee when you are not a member of our $4/month frequent coffee drinkers club. See right here on the menu it says that very clearly.' How would you feel?"

3. A solution found

The supervisor heard me out, and then offered a compromise. "I can't re-rate all the calls" he said, "but what if I re-rated half of them?" "Back to the diner", I replied. "How would you feel if the manager offered to cut the price of your cup of coffee to $125? That's a very generous offer, given that he could force you to pay the full $250, but a $125 cup of coffee is still insane."

At this point the supervisor asked what I wanted him to do. I asked if he could back-date the international calling plan for me to cover the period of the relevant calls. He agreed, and a few days later I received a credit for just over $75. The bottom line is that if you talk to customer service reps as one human being to another, sometimes they'll see the light and help you out.