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Cellular Phone Forum / Providers / Verizon / January 2005Beware of minutes/current billing cycle when "upgrading" plan!
I'm sure this gets posted a lot, but incase there's someone out there who doesn't know.......... I signed on for 2 more years (what can I say? I like Verizon) and went from 400 to 450 minutes. I changed 4 days into my new billing cycle. I was told that I would have the whole 450 minutes for this month (I even asked "will it be pro-rated?" and was told "no"). I decided to call CS to make sure, only to find out that it WAS pro-rated and (how the hell they did THIS math, I'll never know!) I only had 392 minutes this billing cycle (remember I started off with 400)! I just don't want anyone out there burning their additional minutes on their "new plan" only to get their bill and have to mess with CS to "fight it". Janie > I'm sure this gets posted a lot, but incase there's > someone out there who doesn't know.......... [quoted text clipped - 11 lines] > their "new plan" only to get their bill and have to mess > with CS to "fight it". (400/31) * 4 = 51.6 minutes for the first 4 days of the month. (450/30) * 26 = 391.9 minutes for the last 27 days of the month. I don't know how they handle the fractional minutes. Looks like they rounded up on the second calculation. Go over either one of these figures and you get charged overage. -Quick > month. (450/30) * 26 = 391.9 minutes for the last 27 days oops, (450/31) * 27 = 391.9 Went from 30 to 31 days on the top equation and didn't change everything on the bottom one... -Quick Thanks, Quick. I still don't understand why the customer is penalized in this way. For instance, I didn't use any minutes on Th (when my new billing cycle started) or Fri last week. Sa and Su--no prob, unlimited. Monday--new plan. So, (had I not received retention minutes from CS because of this) I would have been penalized for not using those 51.6 minutes from my "old" plan on Th and F. They just disappeared! Now I only have 391.9 of what should have been a pro-ration of 400/4 days plus 450/27 days. See what I mean? Tx, Janie >> month. (450/30) * 26 = 391.9 minutes for the last 27 days > [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > > -Quick > Thanks, Quick. I still don't understand why the customer > is penalized in this way. For instance, I didn't use any [quoted text clipped - 6 lines] > should have been a pro-ration of 400/4 days plus 450/27 > days. See what I mean? Well, kind of... What they do is break your billing period into two separate periods. So what you are asking for is equivalent to rollover minutes which they don't do. In the normal situation if you don't use your minutes for the month they do not roll over to the next month. Kind of the same thing. You also do not have to switch plans in the middle of a billing period. You can accept a new plan in the middle of the month to be effective on your next billing cycle date. The pro-rate is to simplify the plan switch. In your case it sounds like the only change was the increase in minutes. In other cases there may be different promos, different features, and a completely different class of plan. For example going from a national access plan to a secondary line on an existing familyshare. Some things don't even map from one to another and it would be a real mess doing it and then an even bigger mess trying to explain it to customers. That's my guess anyway. -Quick Well, truth is, it won't effect me because I did get extra minutes--just in case. I simply didn't want anyone else getting a bill that actually charged them overage when they didn't really go over their "original allowance" for that billing cycle. I'm guessing it's probably easier getting "retention minutes" beforehand rather than after. Thanks for the explanation, I understand the logic, I just don't think it's "fair". J >> Thanks, Quick. I still don't understand why the customer >> is penalized in this way. For instance, I didn't use any [quoted text clipped - 27 lines] > > -Quick > them overage when they didn't really go over their "original allowance" > for that billing cycle. I'm guessing it's probably easier getting > "retention minutes" beforehand rather than after. > > Thanks for the explanation, I understand the logic, I just don't think > it's "fair". My opinion is if the minutes used are at or below the allowance on the lowest plan, then they shouldn't prorate. Proration should only kick in when you exceed the plan with the lowest allowance. I went from a nation access 400 to a AC 400 and had overage when they prorated and I only used a total of like 200 billable minutes that month. My logic said 'using 200 of 400 allotted minutes should not result in overage' - but verizon's logic doesn't work like mine.. doesn't sound like it works like your logic either. (The csr gave me a credit for it when I complained.) > Thanks, Quick. I still don't understand why the customer is penalized in > this way. For instance, I didn't use any minutes on Th (when my new [quoted text clipped - 16 lines] >> >> -Quick Good job--that's certainly what they should have done! Janie >I went from a nation access 400 to a AC 400 and had overage when they >prorated and I only used a total of like 200 billable minutes that month. [quoted text clipped - 23 lines] >>> >>> -Quick When I changed from a 400hr/mo plan to an 800hr/mo plan, I had used about 350hrs on my currnet month plan. But I changed in the middle of the billing period. I was told that since my old 400hr/mo plan calculated to an average of 13min per day, and since I has used 350 in 15 days (resulting in an average use of 23min per day for 15 days...) I was charged an "overage" of 8 minutes per day, for 15 days (8*15) for a total of 120 OVERAGE minutes. EVEN THOUGH I DID NOT EXCEED MY MONTHLY ALLOWANCE OF 400 minutes. I guess what they were trying to say was that had I continued on that average with my old plan, without upgrading, I would have been over my minutes. So they charged me that much to upgrade my plan to my new amount of minutes (800). Funny thing is, they did offer that I could wait till the end of the billing cycle to upgrade. I said, no, do it right away. Of course I did not know the significance of my decision. Kinda sucks really. I think most people decide to upgrade to more minutes when they see there are at great risk of overrunning (or maybe already have). Why not just let that go, since, after all, they are upgrading to more expensive service. But, OH NO, big V just has to add insult to injury by slapping you in the face for upgrading before you overran your limit. Just stupid PR in my opinion. -Frank > I'm sure this gets posted a lot, but incase there's someone out there who > doesn't know.......... [quoted text clipped - 10 lines] > > Janie Ooops.. not 400hr/mo and 800hr/mo, but 400MIN/mo and 800MIN/mo. Sorry! :) -Frank > When I changed from a 400hr/mo plan to an 800hr/mo plan, I had used about > 350hrs on my currnet month plan. But I changed in the middle of the [quoted text clipped - 39 lines] >> >> Janie Well, I did email my salesman (who is new to Verizon, I actually recognized him as being with a different cell company in the past) to let him know to be aware of this and hopefully prevent him any problems with customers, because I like him and honestly believe he believed what he was telling me. (Hmm, I wonder how many people have me going directly into their spam folder? :). As I said, I was "an informed customer" thanks to you guys, he just wasn't as informed, apparently. I asked when my new plan would take effect (now), how many minutes I would have for this billing cycle (450), and if they were pro-rated (no). I'm just *lucky* to be anal enough to have called CS a few times to find out for sure. The first CS I talked to told me that I could count on "around 420 minutes this billing cycle", but made no mention that the billing cycle itself was two complete entities! I asked all the right questions. I guess that's why I got the retention minutes, because I explained my story nicely, but did say it wasn't fair. I suppose as long as CS ends up NOT charging for "overage" that isn't really overage in these situations, we can live <G>, but I think it's a bit annoying to even have to call CS about it. Janie > Ooops.. not 400hr/mo and 800hr/mo, but 400MIN/mo and 800MIN/mo. Sorry! > :) [quoted text clipped - 44 lines] >>> >>> Janie > I suppose as long as CS ends > up NOT charging for "overage" that isn't really overage > in these situations, we can live <G>, but I think it's a > bit annoying to even have to call CS about it. About 2 years ago I think they had a big push about this problem. During that period I called to check on plan changes at least 3 times (and changed once) and all 3 CSRs insisted on explaining the prorate in excruciating detail. I would tell them that I understood it very well and they pressed on anyway. It is a constant issue. It's an easy concept but hard to explain and I think people get some idea of how they think it works in their mind and then don't hear the explanation when given. Waiving the overage charges in these cases is an exception but an exception that they make almost every time. I do think they check for previous occurrences on your account. -Quick I know on some level the way Verizon does this makes sense, but I probably always "get a break" because I historically use half or less of my monthly allowance, and I have free LD from home so I rarely even use N/W minutes. Because I am going on vacation at the end of this billing cycle and will be away from my kiddo, I have been "hoarding" my minutes till my trip. The fact that I was being screwed in this matter (and not in a good way :) by essentially losing so many of my allowed minutes in the first 4 days of this billing cycle is what really pissed me off. I forget that other people actually REALLY use their phones and their minutes. As I said, it all worked out for me and I'll probably still only use a total of 200 minutes this month if even that, but felt that I most definitely should have been allowed my 400 minutes even if they were all on the last day of my billing cycle! See what I mean? Thanks, Quick. Janie >> I suppose as long as CS ends >> up NOT charging for "overage" that isn't really overage [quoted text clipped - 17 lines] > > -Quick when I called Tuesday to change my plan to the new one, she looked at the figures for all the lines and said it would be better to wait - I think it was like 113, 100 and 6 on a 400 plan (per web site), with 10 days left in the cycle - I thought it wouldwork for proration, but maybe she has more up to date usage than I could see. Or she didn't want to risk more problems for me - my other account is apparently a mess. (see my last post in the PA/TN thread) > When I changed from a 400hr/mo plan to an 800hr/mo plan, I had used about > 350hrs on my currnet month plan. But I changed in the middle of the [quoted text clipped - 39 lines] >> >> Janie > Funny thing is, they did offer that I could wait till the > end of the billing cycle to upgrade. I said, no, do it > right away. Of course I did not know the significance of > my decision. Most often they encourage you to wait until your billing cycle. They will usually do the math for you to see if you are in jepardy of pro-rate overage charges. > Kinda sucks really. I think most people decide to > upgrade to more minutes when they see there are at great [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > add insult to injury by slapping you in the face for > upgrading before you overran your limit. I guess they could avoid all the problems and bad feelings by only allowing plan changes to take effect on the billing date. -Quick I, too, got stuck in pro-rating until I realized that the extra 100 minute bonus I received last year was still in effect for this entire billing period. So, while I would have gone over, the bonus takes care of the overage. To Verizon's credit, the 'bonus' lasted longer than they said it would, and it stayed with my account even after making two plan changes in over two months. Not everything they do is unfair. Bill Radio Click for Western U.S. Wireless Reviews at: http://www.mountainwireless.com > > Funny thing is, they did offer that I could wait till the > > end of the billing cycle to upgrade. I said, no, do it [quoted text clipped - 18 lines] > > -Quick |
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