Verizon has agreed to pay the FCC a whopping $25 million for a slew of “inadvertent billing mistakes.” The carrier will also be issuing credits and refunds to eligible customers.
“This settlement acknowledges our prior announcement that we will reimburse about 15 million current and former customers who may have been mistakenly billed,” Verizon confirmed in an official statement.
“[We] will spend $52.8 million to reimburse those customers. [In addition], we will provide targeted information about data usage and tracking to new and existing customers, [while] establishing a special internal team to track customer data usage complaints.”
According to the carrier, current customers will be notified of the pending reimbursements in upcoming bills.
Former customers can expect to receive a letter and refund check in the mail.
In most cases, credits and refunds are pegged to hover in the $2-$6 range. Some, of course, will receive larger amounts.
So, what caused the problem?
Well, Verizon claims that the “single largest” issue – involving the vast majority of credits – has been linked to data “acknowledgment” sessions
originating on pre-loaded phones.
The sessions reportedly triggered an erroneous “pay as you go” charge of $1.99 for customers who did not have data plans and were not otherwise using data features on their devices.
