When Matt ordered his phone from Verizon, he expected a confirmation email. What he got instead was a phone call from a stranger who got his email by accident. The message contained loads of personal information. Matt, freaked out about the privacy violation, is going to use the free month of service Verizon offered to make up for the lapse to reduce his early termination fee.

He writes:

I just wanted to share this info, figured it’d be relevant for security and cell phones.

I’m a Verizon customer and ordered a phone online (jumping into that smart phone herd), well the rep at the store setup my email incorrectly. The confirmation email goes to some random guy, who calls me and says, “i got this weird email that has your phone number, postage tracking number, address, full name, and last 4 digits of your credit card number.” So obviously, I have no clue what he’s talking about.

I call Verizon, spoke with a rep, she didn’t even know what to say or do so told me to wait for a supervisor call back. Wait…..no response so I call Verizon. I call Verizon again and ask for a sup and tell Zach that this is not my fault, their rep incorrectly entered my email addy and now random dude has it all. I work for Parole, so i’m well aware of fraud/forgery and what it’s like to have your privacy compromised, and how easy it is for someone to use your info, thanks to Verizon. The sup said, “no big deal, they can’t do much with that info anyways.” I told him there was a UPS tracking number, they know exact date/time my phone is coming in. They can call Verizon and easily get around an inexperienced rep to have all my info switched them, minus the bill. So he doesn’t say much, and offers 1mo free service.

I figure who cares, call retention to opt out of my contract. They will make me pay the ETF (despite the fact they messed up and sent all my account info) and all they can offer me for the slip up is 1mo free service. So I say give me the month (so i can save the $60), then opting out on 9/8. I asked them, all talking puppet stuff aside, what’s your policy when you compromise a customer’s billing info? The retention rep (Myesha) honestly said, “we don’t have anything in place so I wouldn’t know”.

So I highly recommend all Verizon customers to speak with Verizon to see what they have in place when they give out your billing information to other people. Otherwise, you’ll end up getting random phone calls letting you know you’re billing info is out there.

It’s alarmingly common to get others’ paper bills in your mailbox, but not as much with e-bills. Has a mix-up like this ever happened to you?

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