Google Makes Up For Verizon’s Bad Math, Offers $150 To Screwed-Over Chromebook Owners

When the Chromebook Pixel went on sale in mid-2013, it came with two years of free 100MB/month data from Verizon, but owners are now finding out that Verizon pulled the plug on the free data after only 12 months.

When the Chromebook Pixel went on sale in mid-2013, it came with two years of free 100MB/month data from Verizon, but owners are now finding out that Verizon pulled the plug on the free data after only 12 months.

Earlier this week, the mathletes at Verizon were caught once again making up their own rules about the meaning of the quantity “2 years.” People who had bought Chromebook Pixel laptops under the illusion that the promised two years of free 100MB/month of wireless data were suddenly finding out that Verizon was only giving them one year. So far, Verizon hasn’t explained its idiocy, leaving the Chromebook’s maker, Google, to do damage control.

ComputerWorld’s JR Raphael, who first reported on the year of data being taken away from users without notice or explanation, now has an update, reporting that Google is going to offer $150 to affected Pixel owners in order to atone for Verizon’s Verizon-like behavior.

“While this particular issue is outside of our control, we appreciate that this issue has inconvenienced some of our users,” a Google rep told Raphael.

Anyone who has already contacted the Google Play Store support folks about this problem should be receiving a $150 Visa gift card soon, says the rep. If you purchased a Chromebook Pixel when the two-year data plan was being promoted but haven’t contacted Google Play support or want to make sure that you’re in line to receive your gift card, here is a link to the phone numbers you can call.

Verizon is still playing coy about what the heck happened, only saying, “We understand that some Chromebook Pixel customers may have lost their promotional data, 100MB a month for two years, early… We apologize for this and are working on a solution for those customers.”

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