So I know we are to blame for the situation that we are currently in, but it is beyond our control. We have a 12 year old son that is currently in kidney failure. We have been making regular trips every week to the children's hospital for the last 6 months for 3-4 days at a time. We have had Verizon service for many many years. Of course with the time that my husband and I have to take off work we are struggling financially at this point. We have had over $700 in reconnect fees within the last 3 months due to the fact that I can only get a paper check from my work and some weeks I could not pick it up in time for my payment arrangement and deposit it into our account because we are over 2 hours away from home. We are paying as much as we can each month because we have to have our phones for doctor's calls, etc, but we keep getting bills that are well over $1000 each month due to all the fees. I just need to know if anyone else has had any experience with an enormous amount of reconnect fees and how was it handled? At this point I may just have to get phones somewhere else and I do not want to do that.
That math doesn't check out...
An agent with a kind heart can sometimes go above and beyond to get you caught up, but not $700. That's several months worth of service for the majority of users. A reconnect fee is $20 per line. Three lines puts you at $60 - 3 months is $120.
If we divided 700 by 60, this gets us 11.66 - there is absolutely no way you have nearly a years worth of reconnect fees and still have service.
Actually we have 5 lines and we had 6 at one point. We got rid of one line as soon as we had the chance. Our kids have cheap phones but they’re in high school and have to have phones because we are out of town so much. We had 3 reconnects in October, 2 in November, and 2 in December. I have the bills to prove all this. I would never make something like this up. I just needed advice not criticism. Like I said, I know we got ourselves in this situation.
I’m sorry we have 7 lines and did have 8. I forgot to include my phone and my husband’s. We have 6 kids combined. He had 3 when we got married and I had 3. We have custody of all of them.
SHOOPER0221,
We know it's important to be able to stay connected when you have a family member who isn't doing well. It's our hope for things to improve really soon for your son. We certainly understand that circumstances change and can have an impact on your ability to make payments towards your account. Reconnection fees can add up quickly, so we get that having multiple lines and being interrupted more than once within a month makes a difference. The good thing is that we provide the option to make payment arrangements with our Financial Services Team to help prevent unexpected service interruption and unwanted fees. In most cases arrangements can be made right from your My Verizon account using the steps shown on this link https://www.verizonwireless.com/support/set-up-payment-arrangements/. You may also make arrangements by phone at 866-266-1445, but keep in mind that arrangements made with the assistance of a representative are subject to a $7 agent assist fee.
ShawnteJ_VZW
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Suggestion: If the kids aren't old enough to pay for their service you could suspend some of those lines. Verizon won't provide all that service for nothing.
The assumption that they will only disconnect once per month is incorrect. We have $180 of reconnect fees since 1/12/19. To break it down, we have 3 lines and were disconnected 3 times. To date we have paid more than $1070 to Verizon since 1/1/19 to try to get current (thank goodness for tax refunds!!). We are $133 away from being current (for the bill due 3/1 which technically shouldn’t be a foundation for disconnect in my opinion since it’s currently only 11 days late) but they disconnected us 3 times from 1/11/19 and 2/18/19. We are trying to get current but the suspense/reconnect fees are completely at the whim of the company. If you can find where they are limited to one reconnect fee per month, I’d like to see it!!
Additional side note: the last $133 is scheduled to be paid this Friday. I realize beyond any doubt that we have been behind, due to an unexpected job change beyond our control. But this feels more like bill padding. Cut offs every week or every other week just to add $20/line per bill for each cut off? That could amount to $240 per month (for us) but I’m guessing they cap the reconnect fees at the amount of your bill...
@BHENDERSON28nash wrote:The assumption that they will only disconnect once per month is incorrect. We have $180 of reconnect fees since 1/12/19. To break it down, we have 3 lines and were disconnected 3 times. To date we have paid more than $1070 to Verizon since 1/1/19 to try to get current (thank goodness for tax refunds!!). We are $133 away from being current (for the bill due 3/1 which technically shouldn’t be a foundation for disconnect in my opinion since it’s currently only 11 days late) but they disconnected us 3 times from 1/11/19 and 2/18/19. We are trying to get current but the suspense/reconnect fees are completely at the whim of the company. If you can find where they are limited to one reconnect fee per month, I’d like to see it!!
The question is, why on earth you are reconnecting, only to again be disconnected, if you cannot pay the amounts due? (All amounts due). That’s your answer to not getting multiple reconnect fees.
AT&T and prepaid are looking better right now. Prepaid is simple, you pay, it works for a month. And you’re only paying for service, not expensive phones as you have to buy them up front. AT&T requires a $0 balance once suspended in order to reconnect, so you don’t have multiple reconnect fees (just one).
Somewhere in here is a lesson in financial responsibility.
BTW, I have 5 lines and with a 22% discount, 20 gigs, $15 line fees, my bill is $168. We do not use installments, but purchase new phones once a year at full price and sell the older ones.
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