Eric recently acquired some new smartphones, charging them to his Verizon bill. Seems straightforward enough. The problem was that when he went to pay that bill, the charge still hadn’t hit his account. He tried to make an overpayment so he could start working on paying off the bill for the new phones, but the system wouldn’t let him. A mobile phone company doesn’t want its customers to send it money? That can’t be right.

I tried making a payment well over my due balance yesterday when to my surprise Verizon didn’t want a penny more than the balance due. While I understand why credit card companies may not want a credit lingering on credit card accounts I was perplexed as to why, under contract for many more months, Verizon would not take an overpayment.

I was paying $100 more than my normal bill because I have 3 smartphones on my family plan with one of which I recently upgraded and had the cost charged to my account thinking I could simply pay it off quickly & promptly.

The online payment system refused my money and when I called customer service they also refused my money because they did not know how to override the system. They basically said the system is setup not to take a penny less or more than the balance due. While I’ve never underpaid my balance I can’t attest to the fact a payment would be rejected for any payment less than the balance. However, I do know that they won’t take any extra money. I searched Consumerist but hadn’t seen a similar case, I guess either nobody pays ahead and runs into this issue or other companies gladly take extra payments. After all who refuses to take more money?

Does this even sound right for Verizon to refuse extra money from me?

It’s probably in order to avoid the administrative nightmare that happens when customers make a typo and pay $900 extra on their $90 bill. Sure, you’ll have to wait a few days to start paying off those phones, but feel comforted Verizon is looking out for you. Or themselves. Both, really.

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