Robert wanted out of his Verizon FIOS contract when he made a move and made sure his new home was not in the coverage area. Despite his reasonable assumption that he would avoid an early termination fee, Verizon stuck him with an ETF specifically because he’s moving to a non-Verizon area.
Confused? Join Robert:
I had Verizon FIOS in Dallas, Texas. I called Verizon to cancel my service because I was moving. Prior to that, I made sure service was not available at my new address. Since service was not available, my only choice was to cancel (not that I wanted to, but had no choice). Since I was under contract, I figured no Early Termination Fee (ETF) would be charged since I’m moving. However, after calling and speaking with a manager several times, because I’m moving to a “non-Verizon area”, they are going to charge me the ETF, which is $100. I honestly feel like they are stealing from me. This isn’t fair at all. I can’t refuse to pay this because if it goes to a collection agency that will result in bad marks on my credit report. I don’t want that.What advice would you give me in this situation?
If you’ve moved and been stuck with an ETF, how were you able to get rid of it?
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Hearing the story after the fact is not a clear indication of whether the op said cancel before the VZ employee stated they could not provide service to the new location. that one little detail can be used to argue the lack of VZ side of the contract. whine and moan all you want. it all comes down to who does not want to pay more.
and i am not a student of law. i am a victim of it. your quotes and thoughts seem to be from a prosecutor not a general law student. keep trying though. if you cannot see that there are no clear cut decisions in law, you will have a long dreary existence.
I think this falls under the catagory of yeah they can do it but they are jerks to do it. I signed a contract for a famliy plan with T-Mobile and got two phones, one for me and one for my mom. She died like, maybe a month after that, very unexpectedly. I went back to the store and told them she died and that I couldn’t afford the family plan on my own and wanted to change my plan. They could have said no, I did sign a contract, but seriously that would have just made them jerks and I would have hated them for it. Instead they got themselves a loyal customer. This guy was leaving Verizon, true, but if he’s ever in an area again where Verizon is available this experience might lead him towards another company…
Seriously? He assumed there would be no ETF? I can assume things all I want, but you’d better believe I’d be calling the company to at least discuss it before moving.
You signed a contract. I bet if you read said contract the out of area information was in there. It’s not stealing if you signed / agreed to the contract.
I am in the same situation. I am currently in Maryland but move to Korea. I would gladly continue using FIOS at my new address if I could. However Verizon doesn’t provide their service to Korea. I don’t mind my credit report and continue to fight with this disgusting company. I will generate many postings and hope to spread over many consumer websites and send emails to national news media.
Same thing happened to me, but the rep that showed up at my door to sign me up said that if I move to an area that does not offer the service the ETF does not apply. Then when I moved they were laying the cable down. The rep cancelling my service said that there would be no ETF. That rep never cancelled my service, was billed for 4 months at my old apt. Fixed that, then they added an ETF. During that time I had FIOS reinstalled at my home. Called and they said they would take care of it and remove it from collections. Received a letter from the collection company and now they say there is nothing they can do about it.
Verizon Staitc IP
When I signed up with FIOS the technical support team stated that I could use the DHCP offering in lieu of Staitc and we confgured my server to use the Static IP Address in the router (mostly the setup was int he router and i spent hours on the phone with Verizon). I guess it was similar to sharing the IP address. So it was working fine until July from November. I could not access my server. When i arrived back to my office to access the router, i had no access there either. I called Verizon and they tell me i have to go back to Static IP addresses which cost $50 more per month. The only thing my server does is create an FTP drop point and i can do that on line for $5 per month with various service providers. So i cancelled my FIOS.
Now they want $250 on early termination and I don’t think i should have to pay that since their change caused my server to go down without my knowledge. While i cannot claim much in lost income, it is the hassle.
I see this rate jump all over the internet from $179 to $360 and i recal the early term being $179 and now i am told it was always $250. They don’t put this in writing.
So 1) Do I argue my point about the static address changing and 2) Do i fight the early term fee and where can i find out what the documents stated. When i called i was told as of today the term fee was $360 but the gal looking at my account states it has always been $250.
Do they even know.
I just spoke to a supervisor and said she was waiving the ETF for my situation.
I had regular FIOS TV and internet and paid for an installation in late 2008 and about 4 months later in 2009 Verizon called me and offered me the bundle but I had to sign a contract. After reading the contract I saw the ETF wording and did not want to be held to that if I moved. After nearly a month without signing the contract Verizon called me and stated I had to sign it or I would revert back to my original plan.
The guy at that time stated if I moved to an area Vzn didn’t have service that I would not be charged. I moved in April 2010 and was stunned that Vzn wasn’t available in the area of Dallas that I moved to so I had to cancel. And of course I was charged the ETF.
I have been dealing with them since April and finally got a supervisor on the line and as I stated above she said she would waive it and gave me her number to her desk to call in a couple weeks to make sure it was waived. Fingers and toes crossed.
I’m also dealing with this issue. I’m moving not because I want to or chose to, but because my landlords unexpectedly decided to move back into the place I’m renting, and my new place doesn’t have FIOS availability. I entered into a new two-year contract earlier this year, having no idea that I would be moving – or, obviously, I wouldn’t have locked myself in. Anyway, I went in person down to my local Verizon office and asked them about what I could do, and they recommended that I start up a new Verizon land line (which is available at my new place) and keep it for one month and then cancel. There’s no ETF for phone service, and the FIOS ETF doesn’t apply if you continue one Verizon service after you cancel. Just thought I’d share this clever solution – I was grateful that the Verizon reps were clearly sympathetic to my situation and found a way to help me get out of it with as little cost to me as possible.