Remember back when candy bar phones and flip phones were the hot new thing, and all the wireless providers jumped into the fray trying to offer you rollover minutes to come sign up with them? Well, if the rumor mill is to be believed, we might all be climbing on board the rollover train again… this time, in the data era. [More]
verizon wireless
The Consumerist Guide To Understanding Your Verizon Wireless Bill
By 5.31.16 — Updated: 12.13.16
We’ve spent a few months looking at why cable and internet bills are so confusing, and where all the fees come from. But if there’s one bill in our virtual mailboxes that’s even more bloated and byzantine than pay-TV bills, it’s wireless bills. Hundreds of millions of us get them, but odds are that most of us don’t understand every fee, tax, or surcharge we pay. So now it’s the mobile industry’s turn under our microscope. Up first: Verizon Wireless. [More]
Verizon Wireless Hangs Up On You When You Record Them Back
By 5.25.16
One might think that if a company wants to have a conversation with their customers, once they’ve got them on the phone they’d stay on the line long enough to actually talk to them. But that wasn’t the case for one Consumerist reader, who said a Verizon rep hung up on him when informed that the customer would be recording their call. [More]
Verizon Will Charge Customers $20 To Upgrade Phones Because They Can
By 3.31.16
If you’re a Verizon customer planning to upgrade your phone, don’t be surprised when you’re charged an extra fee: as of Monday, April 4, the carrier will charge customers $20 to activate upgraded devices, even if they don’t buy the device from Verizon. Customers who get their phones elsewhere simply get the fee added to their next bill after the upgrade. [More]
Netflix Admits To Throttling Its Own Streams On AT&T, Verizon Wireless Because Data Caps
By 3.25.16
If you have a network connection of a certain speed available on your phone, you expect receive data at roughly that speed, more or less. That’s how it works. Except that’s not how it’s been working for Netflix: the popular streaming video service was moving at a fraction of what users expected, on Verizon and AT&T networks. Consumers were all ready to line up and blame their mobile carriers, but the wireless companies weren’t the ones screwing around with anything, as it turns out. Netflix was. [More]
Verizon, FCC Settle “Supercookie” Investigation With $1.35M Fine And Opt-Out Ability
By 3.7.16
In 2014 and 2015, Verizon caught a lot of attention for doing a couple of very sneaky things. One, they were inserting a little piece of code into all the web traffic on your phone to track your every digital move for advertising purposes. And two, they weren’t letting you opt-out of the tracking, even if you opted out of the ads. [More]
Phoenix Suns Trying To Lure Fans By Offering Free Verizon Data With Each Game Ticket
By 2.22.16
When you’ve got seats to fill at a professional sports game and the team isn’t doing so hot, any bit of extra incentive to get fans to buy tickets can help. In an effort to lure tech-focused fans, the Phoenix Suns have partnered with Verizon Wireless to offer free mobile data with every game ticket purchase. [More]
24 Stories We Covered In 2015 That We Never Saw Coming
By 12.31.15
The following is a true story: One day, two Consumerist staffers were chatting about the work day. One said, “I can’t believe I’m writing about the legal ramifications of butt-dialing.” The other replied, “We should probably remember this conversation for a year-end story about things we didn’t expect to ever write in 2015.” A calendar alert was made, and our future selves were duly reminded. [More]
Verizon Adds Yet Another Activation Fee For New Wireless Customers Because They Can
By 11.12.15
You know what the best thing is about mobile phones? Countless fees! Wait, no, that’s the worst thing, sorry. My mistake. But Verizon seems to have the same confusion, because the nation’s largest-by-far wireless provider is now adding even more fees onto their customers’ bills, because they can. [More]
Verizon Wireless Asks FCC For Permission To Start Offering WiFi Calling
By 10.26.15
Not one to be left behind while the other major carriers are hanging out on the technology bandwagon, Verizon Wireless has asked the Federal Communications Commission for permission to enable WiFi calling on its network. [More]
Coming Soon To An AOL Ad Network Near You: All That Data Verizon Collects On Mobile Users
By 10.7.15
When Verizon first announced its plans to acquire AOL back in May, jokes abounded. The name “AOL” still conjures the sound of modems screeching and a friendly digital voice announcing haltingly, “You’ve got mail!” It does not, on the other hand, immediately inspire one to think of a $4 billion media and data empire. But the latter is exactly what it is — and in conjunction with Verizon’s more pernicious tools, it may be about to get a whole lot bigger. [More]
Verizon Joins Yearly New iPhone Party, Not Price War
By 9.25.15
This year is the first iPhone upgrade cycle after all major carriers have eliminated or de-emphasized device subsidies, and carriers are apparently anxious to scoop up new customers: especially the big spenders of the phone world, people who simply must have the newest phone model every year. Verizon Wireless apparently thinks that it’s above the price war, but is happy to offer annual upgraders a special financing option. [More]
Verizon Prepping Trials Of 5G Wireless; Could Be 50 Times Faster Than 4G
By 9.8.15
Odds are that your wireless provider’s 4G LTE service is nearly as fast — and maybe faster — than the wired Internet service to your home (if only it weren’t so expensive on a per-gigabyte basis). But Verizon says it’s getting ready to test 5G service that could blow all current wireless — and most wireline — broadband out of the water. [More]
Verizon Stops Throttling Data For Unlimited Wireless Data Plans, Doesn’t Tell Anyone
By 8.14.15
For four years, Verizon has been throttling 3G data speeds for its few remaining “unlimited” data plan holders who dared try to take advantage of having access to supposedly unlimited data on their wireless devices. But earlier this summer, the nation’s largest wireless carrier quietly put an end to this supposed “network management,” but only because it has done such a good job of driving customers away from their unlimited plans. [More]
Verizon Gets Rid Of Contracts, Cheap Phones (For New Customers Only, Of Course)
By 8.7.15
T-Mobile may have a fraction of the customer base of industry-leader Verizon Wireless, but the little magenta company’s decision to do away with contracts continues to influence its bigger competition. Today, Verizon announced that new customers will no longer have to sign up for contracts, which also means they will have to start paying full price for their phones. [More]
What Can You Do If Your Mobile Carrier Sends You An Update That Breaks Your Phone?
By 8.5.15
When you buy a new phone or tablet, you’re not just buying it as-is in its current state. Software is dynamic, and constantly updated. In a sense, then, you’re also making a bet that your device will keep working into the future, after countless rounds of mandatory system updates. And usually, it does! But every once in a while, something goes wrong. And for that small handful of consumers, that’s where the real trouble begins. [More]
Verizon’s Go90 Mobile Streaming TV Service To Launch With Tiny Beta Test
By 7.28.15
It’s been almost a year since Verizon first announced it would launch a streaming TV service and the company is just now getting around to naming it — Go90 — and providing details on its eventual launch.
[More]
Verizon/AOL Merger: Good For Their Business, Bad For Your Privacy
By 5.13.15
Every day, the great amorphous mass of consumers creates millions upon millions of trackable, quantifiable pieces of data. Every purchase at every store. Every click on every website, every bit of geotagged data, every installed or opened app and every interaction on social media. All of it adds up together into one giant Mount Everest of data to be sliced, diced, bought, sold, and traded. [More]
