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Verizon Wireless is facing a new class action lawsuit from a customer who says the company adds extra charges to his bill for services without properly notifying him or providing him an adequate contract in writing.
By adding the services without sending him a written contract to agree to, and in light of the company’s push to convince customers to choose paperless billing, Verizon is putting consumers at a disadvantage that violates New Jersey’s Consumer Fraud Act, plaintiff Stephen Simoni says.
Simoni, who lives in Wyoming, filed the class action lawsuit and is seeking to represent a Class of consumers from his home state who had similar charges on their Verizon bill within the last six years. He is unsure at this point how many potential Class Members there might be, but estimates there are “most likely many thousands.”
According to Simoni, one of his wireless phones got damaged between November and December 2019 and he initiated a claim for insurance coverage through Verizon’s carrier, Asurion.
While working with an Asurion agent to process the claim, the agent solicited Simoni to purchase a monthly “Smart Home Support” protection plan, he says. The plan would reportedly cover more than just Simoni’s phone — it would offer him protection for various other household devices that operate with Verizon’s wireless service.
Simoni says Asurion told him he would receive an email explaining more about the plan and its terms and said he could cancel it at any time, the procedure for which would also be outlined in the email.
The plaintiff says he never got a “confirmation of sale” for the protection plan, but Verizon added the monthly Asurion charge to his Verizon bill without him realizing it.
“Verizon did not adhere to its well-established policy of sending consumers a notification of the new ‘Next Bill Summary’ caused by the addition of the new charge,” his class action lawsuit says.
Simoni says he became aware that he had been charged for the plan nearly a year later when he got a paper receipt and account summary while purchasing a new wireless phone.
He later contacted Verizon and demanded reimbursement. The company “only provided a minimal refund and blamed [him] for not having read his monthly paperless bills.”
The Verizon bill class action lawsuit was originally filed in state court in New Jersey on Nov. 30. This month, lawyers for Verizon moved to have the case transferred to federal court. Now it is being considered by the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey.
Are you a Verizon Wireless customer? Have you discovered charges on your Verizon bill for services or goods you didn’t realize you had purchased? Tell us about it in the comment section below.
Lead plaintiff Simoni and the proposed Class Members are represented by Stephen J. Simoni of Simoni Consumers Class Action Law Offices.
The Verizon Bill Class Action Lawsuit is Stephen Simoni, et al. v. Cellco Partnership, et al., Case No. 3:20-cv-20513, in the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey.
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1,257 thoughts onVerizon Class Action Lawsuit Says Extra Charges Added to Bills
I paid off a phone a while back using a card and I keep getting emails from Verizon saying I didn’t pay my phone off. It was more than 1k and they appear to be attempting to fraudulently charge me for something I already paid for.
In June 2022, my husband and I decided to finally put our accounts together into one account. We had recently started an LLC business and thought we would close our accounts and open a business account together. Prior to switching accounts I had upgraded my phone in March 2022. In June 2022, my husband upgraded his phone and also did a PROMO offered by Verizon for a Samsung Watch, free activation and only $10 a month. We were told our bill would be $238.00 on the 19th of every month. Starting, just one month later, our July bill was $650.88. A month later, in August 2022, our bill was now $862.85. I had checked my bank account prior to seeing the bill, and saw Verizon had taken $671 from my account, on a date that WAS NOT my agreed due date. From this time, we contacted Verizon over the phone for countless hours, with several representatives “investigating” our case. At the end of every encounter, we felt our issue was resolved, to have another shut off notice the next month. First, how do we have a bill that is so high when we’ve only had the account open less than two months?! We then went into a corporate store in our town, and they also “investigated” our case, and discovered we had been being double charged every month for our account, on two different dates. We were promised a refund, at the very least a credit of $478 onto our Verizon account. Again, we thought things were resolved as the representative in the store had been on the phone with corporate and he assured us our bill was fixed, and wrote down what our next bill would be, which was $238. Our next bill, September is now $150?! Okay, here we think things are resolved finally, and our due date was what we thought the 19th of every month. Another month goes by, another shut off notice from Verizon. We call again, to get the same scenario, they “investigate”, tell us what they think we want to hear and then resolve nothing. October bill is now $245.15. WHY AM I STILL PAYING A MONTHLY BILL, WHEN I WAS CHARGED $862.85 THE FIRST 2 MONTHS OF OPENING AN ACCOUNT!? I felt like since I was never refunded my money, that I should at least have had credit on my account. Our phones are shut off again come November, our bill is now $522.90. December, our bill is $591.49. We finally had enough, and went to T Mobile and they ended up having a buyout PROMO where they would pay our devices off from a different carrier. Once we did that, we now have a whopping bill of $2495.41. I understand being charged our last bill and the charges of the devices. My husband called Verizon after the switch and had asked what his final bill was, he called two different times on two different days, and they preceded to tell him the account was up to date and he did not owe anything. Here comes mid February, we receive a letter from a collections agency from Verizon. We call Verizon March 7, AGAIN, and they tell us we had reactivation fees due to late payments, they put him on hold to “investigate” and the phone disconnected and never called us back. First of all, THAT WAS NEVER mentioned from Verizon not even once, as they acknowledged their mistakes EVERY time we called, and we are being charged for the reactivation? Let me mention one more CRUCIAL fact, Half way through this process, November 2022, a representative we had called, I had requested I speak to a supervisor regarding this. I finally get to speak with a supervisor and after her “investigation”, she discovered that when we had went in to the store to close our accounts and open our business account, that in fact one of the personal accounts were still active as well as a business account. So everytime we would call, we would either speak with personal account customer service or business account customer service. Apparently the two departments do not communicate? However, every time we called, we talked to one of the two departments, therefore all of the notes from our conversations were not in one spot. The supervisor told me to called Business, and I asked her why I have to call business and resolve this, when she is a supervisor, isnt that her job to resolve situations like these, or at least escalate this to someone who has the authority to do so? I hope I wrote this to make sense, as after 6 long torturous months, we are still dealing with this headache, and I believe Verizon should be exposed for the robbery they are committing to their customers.
I have been a Verizon customer since the late 90s. The only reason I have stayed as long as I have is due to the areas they service. We live in a rural area and when others are over with a different cellular company, they constantly have dropped calls.
However, Verizon does not care that I have been a loyal customer for many years. I have three lines I pay for monthly. I recently noticed charges on my bill that I did not sign up for nor did I consent to their cloud storage, their home security, etc.. Although, I was charged many months for services I did not even know I had. Clearly, I did not need them, because I never used them. They should be able to look at my account and see that. No one is helpful and no one is able to get a supervisor or manager on the phone to address my concerns further. We need to stop these companies from taking advantage of us and our hard earned income.
Best Regards,
At the time of activation I was promised half off activation fees for all devices (4) that I brought with me, monthly discount for auto pay which I was enrolled, military discount which I never recieved, and rebates that I never received or used. I was charged full price for activating fees,
an additional $80 that the store promised would be credited to the next statement. I have yet to see that credit. I spent hours on the phone to fix the inflated charges and a few credits were given at that time with Verizons demand for me to accept a new offer to issued the rebates and used the $1150 in rebates to pay for the rest of the bill that they didn’t want to take the time to fix. Like the rebates they were asking me repay that I never recieved. Upon leaving Verizon less than a year later Verizon is demanding I repay $1150 for rebates they never gave me, and bogus inflated cellular fees that I never agreed to, they can’t explain and don’t add up to my monthly service costs. I have requested a break down of all the charges and Verizons legal representation for over a year and Verizon refused to do both. I have requested in writing and by phone. All they keep repeating is I owe $2600 with no explanation in one liner letter responses. Verizon wasn’t even billing the state taxes correctly, each line was being billing differently from incorrect states. I’ve never seen anything like it.
I have a claim against Verizon false advertising on Black Friday 2023. We were promised an IPad and a watch free as commercial runs with phone upgrade. At the store we got aware we only had to pay tax and cellular service 9$/iPad and 9$/watch. As we have two lines second set would be half off for the service.
As it appears all the devices were back ordered and got shipped month later in spite of charges for upgrade to higher plan. Then charger device finance which we never signed and had to go to the store to apply ‘promo’ as they said. Then charged activation fee for each device $35 which nobody ever mentioned and run crazy as they couldn’t get our device online bs of shipping problem that was saying we haven’t gotten a device when we did. We were honest. and shipped a SIM card for one of the iPads which lates appeared unnecessary. Feels like Verizon false advertised and change rules as they go. Now my bill is $800 and I can’t find loose ends with all the charges and promotions and surcharges and buyout claims. What the hell and they claim I can’t return all the devices as it’s been over a month even though they got activated a week ago only after hours on phone and plethora of store visits. I am sure we are not the only on this end of scam deal!
Yes got me to still
I have been charged an additional $5.99 for almost six months because verizon cloud was enabled without my knowledge or consent. I did not receive any text or email notification about the change either. I accidentally happened to check this month’s bill when I noticed the charges. I spoke to an agent and they refunded the money and they sneakily said “ Oh it must have been enabled by mistake and we did not do it”. If that were the case I am not sure why I did not get any notification nor why they were so generous to refund me for my fault. Please review your monthly bills
My parents just traveled internationally and they were suprised by a $420 bill. We found out it was a travelpass charged every single day adding up to the $420 bill. The typical customer and especially those in the older age group, would be oblivious to such charges without being notified. My mother denied usage of her phone while overseas, but it’s likely that some background data was used as she did not deliberately disconnect her phone via airplane mode.
I have 3 phones on my Verizon account and I didn’t order them and no one contacted me to see if it was alright too. And I try to let Verizon Fraud team know and I haven’t heard anything back from them too.
I gladly paid for Verizon TravelPass during a Caribbean Cruise last Christmas. In addition to the TravelPass charges Verizon billed me an additional $1000 (500 on my phone and 500 on my wife’s phone) initially claiming it was a third party billing by my Cruise Line. I had no need for this third party service that they billed me for without authorization since my cruise line had free WiFi.
I filed a small claim against Verizon and have a pretrial scheduling hearing on December 12th.