Chris is taking on Verizon over what he says are fraudulent cell phone data plan charges. He says his dad uses an old plan that charges 1.5 cents per kilobyte as opposed to Verizon’s current rate of $2 per megabyte. There are 1,024 kilobytes in a megabyte.

On top of all that, Chris swears there’s no way his dad could have even accidentally used the data.

He writes:

*Phone is not used for data, and the web browser has never been opened.

*Phone user uses the phone as an offline PDA with the ability to make phone calls, and therefore, there is no reason for data to have been used.

*Verizon was unable to provide a list of IP addresses for the data use incurred.

*Verizon thought it acceptable to charge $500 for 35 MB of data consumed (that nobody
in my family can think of how it could have been consumed, even accidentally).

*Verizon was unwilling to help with a credit of any sort unless I stated that I would remain with the company as my wireless provider.

*Never was I connected directly to a supervisor, even when I requested it (twice, with different representatives).

This is absolutely outrageous. Never have I felt so violated by a company. If you wish to publish this on the Consumerist blog, please do so. Any suggestions as to how we could resolve this issue and get a proper apology and credit from Verizon would be appreciated.

Verizon is balking at Chris’s complaint. Has anything like this happened to you your technophobic parents?

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