Don't call from your cellphone, it's probably auto-detecting your number and matching it to the account that was transferred to Verizon (and thus, forwarding your call to Verizon).

This happened on my corporate Alltel account also. The unlimited data feature didn't transfer from Alltel to Verizon Wireless. Every time my users accessed data/email from their Alltel Treo, VZW charged per minute.

Luckily our government account center is handling it and the account is going to be credited. Once this is completed the users are getting ported to AT&T (not my choice!).

I would definately shoot off a couple of e-mails... I'd hate to see the OP get her cell phone turned off because of this exorbitant bill.

I cannot believe Verizon is demanding payment without providing an itemized billing statement. Is there something that protects consumers from this? I have yet to receive a bill that doesn't clearly lay out the charges, and I would certainly question one.

If Verizon isn't willing to work with the OP on providing just an itemized statement, maybe a good ole' fashioned letter to her state AG is in order? That's just bad business to me.

Should she really be dealing with Alltel at all? I know Verizon is telling her to, but if Verizon billed her, then they should know what the bill is for.

EECB with a fire under it's tail, as well as a complaint to the FTC and FCC as well for this.

Guess what Erin!? You live in an area of NC, Where even though YOU became Verizon, most of NC became either AT&T, or a company called ATN. Because of that, your no longer mobile to mobile with most of your friends.

Source: Howardforums, tempary alltel buyout thread.

@qwickone: I agree. Once the takeover was completed, and the bill comes from Verizon, then Verizon should be answering the billing questions.

@qwickone: The bill was from July, which is when Verizon was in the process of incorporating Alltel, so technically the OP was still with Alltel. Why Verizon didn't think to set up the system to see the accounts of Alltel users prior to the assimilation is beyond me.

@Verucalise-WelcomeBethany: I actually fired off an email to my state AG about VZW once. Apparently VZW has a dedicated states' AG liaison. She called about a week after I wrote to the AG and made everything right.

Erin, whether VZW credits your account or not, email or write your AG anyway. Typically the AG will aggregate complaints from many consumers and look for patterns. When one emerges, they act. Also, make someone at VZW liaise!

it might be possible that your data was being recorded as voice calls. that happened to me. i had switched from my smartphone to a dumb phone for a day, and my data usage for that day up to when i made the phone switch came in as voice minutes, and i had to get that credited by verizon.

@zacox: Not only is your advice good and useful, you used the word "liaise" ... I'm not sure if it's sad or funny (maybe both) that this totally made my morning.

@DjDynasty: That doesn't explain the charges, though. Just doing the math on the charges, she would have to be talking for over 3 hours every day that month, which she certainly hadn't been.

When I put my time in at a Sprint call center, I ran into this constantly. The billing system can show all the calls made and where they were made to/received from but there is no way we can prove for certain that you actually did use all the minutes the system claims you did. I saw many a supervisor just say "well you the system said you used the minutes so you used them".

On a similar note, we had another policy I never full understood related to minute usage:

1) We were NOT permitted to reveal any unbilled call detail to you. Wanted to find out what number your teen daughter was talking to until 4am this morning? Sorry, you have to wait until your billing cycle completes and a bill generates. Doesn't matter than it's your account and we've already verified your security info, we aren't permitted to give it out.

@alexawesome: He didn't just use it, he actually spelled it correctly, too! It's an internet miracle.

Erin's being billed for a product/service the company cannot prove she ordered nor received.

Given Verizon's response, she should send the e-mails to the necessary recipients, explaining just that, and her refusal to pay more than her contracted plan amount. She should then update her credit reports, accordingly.

A couple years ago, I had Verizon. One month I was hit with a bill that was TWICE what it should have been, and according to the minute usage I kept a very tight watch on (and never came CLOSE to going over)I was still within my minutes allowed on my plan. I did not use any data plans on that phone and did not use the phone for browsing the internet.

I called Verizon and told them my problem and asked them to tell me where those extra minutes were coming from. They said they could not see how/where the minutes were used because once the information was transferred to the billing dept, they could no longer see anything on the Customer Service end.

Then, I asked to be transferred to the billing department and I was told by billing that once bills were sent out they no longer could see itemization of any of the charges. I called bulls**t on that, and made a big stink about how they could not charge me if they could not prove that those charges were legit.

After weeks of complaints from me, they finally admitted they could not determine why the extra charges were there and dropped my bill. However, 2 months later my contract was up and I dropped them for t-mobile.

I actually work for Legacy Alltel, and you need to get a Converted Alltel CSR. There's three types of reps in this transition, Alltel reps handling the accounts that have NOT been migrated to Verizon, Verizon reps that have always worked for Verizon, and Alltel reps that have been migrated to Verizon and are trained in both systems. She needs to get over to the third kind. What most likely happened, is your data plan did not got converted properly, therefore eating up all your minutes.

Okay some insider information. I do customer service for Verizon via an outsourcer. Whereas we received over 2 months training for vzw, we were trained for only 2 days on alltel plans, services etc, yes 2 days!!!! What was more wonderful is that a whole bunch of us straight after training were tossed into the alltel customer care queue.

What's even bettter is that a large number of our supervisors received the very same amount of training, but we do have a few staff direct from vzw corporate with us but of course they can't help everyone. If you get a good rep most of them will conference in alltel reps who can walk them through stuff (even though it would make sense to still have the alltel reps handle the accounts but I guess they are getting ready to clean house reps included).

And it is true for many accounts we can't see past month's bills so it makes it hard to establish usage patterns, abrupt changes in billing or discuss past balances.

I am sure there have been far worse megers but this one is far from impressive from my view on the front lines.

I am still trying to resolve a similar issue... Verizon continued to charge me for an additional line I had NO CONTRACT for, and had in fact been cancelled. When I called Verizon's Customer Service, I talked to STEPHANIE as well. She informed me while she agreed with me that I shouldn't be charged for something that was canceled at the end of the previous billing cycle, and had no current contract for, in her opinion, the charge was valid, because "We bill a month in advance."

Luckily, I have friends who work for the former Alltel corporate offices, and are now Verizon employees. They attempted to get me the overcharge credited back to my account. (so far, not successful) And NOW, after getting a new Verizon bill, they actually have UNDERCHARGED me by almost $70.

Best moment so far: A corporate guy from Verizon on speakerphone commented that "it appears my problems began when I reached out to Customer Service."

Round Two is about to begin...

Sorta related, Qwest did this to me with my landline once long ago, my first real experience with a company during college. They charged me for something I didn't ask for, billed me for it, and I lost the bill. I disputed it, got nowhere, and the next month the 'consolidated' the bill into one past-due amount and from that point forward, no one at Qwest could even identify what the charges were for. It was just a bill due in their system, and I had to pay it or go to collections.

I once had Verizon employees swearing up and down that my $500 in overages for one month were legitimate, but they had no records of what or who the calls were to. All they could guess was that I signed up for a daily horoscope service, or accidentally left AIM logged in on my phone.

A call to a reasonable person at Verizon uncovered that they had been charging me by the minute for each "unlimited, free, in" picture message I sent and received. Apparently, when your phone transfers data, it makes an invisible "call" on the back end, and I was being charged for each of these "calls" because they had coded my phone wrong. If I hadn't noticed that the date/time listed next to every overage charge on my bill matched up with the picture messages I still had in my inbox and sent box, they would have maintained that I was responsible for the overages.

What I am saying is do NOT let them scare you into giving in and paying the bill. Call and insist that there must have been a mistake in how your phone was set up, either when you got it, or when you got switched to the Verizon network. They are trained to INSIST it is your fault, but they absolutely make mistakes.

@MikeF74: +1

This is pretty common with call centers these days. I can't tell you how many times I've been on the phone with Charter this week (sadly). I'm almost always greeted by the mechanical lady, who says "It looks like you've called us recently regarding your cable TV. Are you still having the same issue?"

Call from a landline, which will force AllTel to jump through oops to identify you before they pawn you off on VZ, which may give you hope of getting answers.

@dragonfire81: How bizarre - as a Tmobile customer I can look that up online. It might take a few days to post (at the most), but I can do it anytime, even if the cycle just started.

@DjDynasty:

not true, Alltel's midwest network is mostly GSM that got sold off to AT&T or ATN. North carolina is all CDMA, therefore its verizon.

Welcome to Verizon :)

One thing you might try is sending off a feedback email on their website. When I did that, I received a call from a very helpful rep that fixed some problems I'd been having for months. It was much more helpful than all of the visits I made to the local Verizon store.

I'm not sure if that will help because of the whole Alltel acquisition mess, but it's worth a shot.