Complaint Review: Verizon Wireless - Basking Ridge New Jersey

My husband and I celebrated our 30th wedding anniversary and had saved and saved for a 2 week Hawaiian Islands cruise with Princess Cruise Line. The sailing dates were Jan 31, 2013 through Feb 13th, 2013.

From past experience of not knowing how to change my phone settings when we were on a Mexican Riviera Cruise years ago, I was very concerned about roaming charges, etc.

Additionally, I chose to take my IPAD with me to catch up on some work but NEVER received a signal trying to use my MIFI device.We disembarked on our voyage, and when I went to call Verizon to get some help on how to set my phone while we were gone for 2 weeks as well as anything additionally I needed to do for my MIFI device BUT I wasn’t able to get a signal.  

I was able to receive a signal for about 1 minute the night of July 31 but lost the signal.My only option was to use the computers at the Internet Café on this ship which cost us $112.43 BECAUSE as much as I tried, I only received a signal when we had docked at the islands.

 On Jan 31, 2013 I emailed Verizon with my concern and received a response at 2:02 p.m. from a customer service rep named Chris, who explained a few things that I could change on my phone to not add any additional charges while gone.**Please feel free to check my phone bill for that time period as my bill wasn’t any larger than it has ever been and there are NO roaming fees.

He specifically states in the email that “Since your current cruise is keeping you in the United States you are not subject to international roaming rates.”Again, I received an email from another customer service rep named Phillip on Feb 3, 2013 @ 2:10 p.m. with additional helpful information which I then applied.During the first 3 days of our cruise while we were out at sea, I started receiving emails with these horrendous “roaming charges” not for my IPHONE but for my MIFI device.

My phone was kept on most of the 2 weeks just in case we could get a signal and any texts from our children who were at home.When we returned home on Feb 13^th, I placed a call to Verizon about these ridiculous charges. The gal that I spoke to was very nice, really listened to my concerns, but all that she could do was to file a “report” of some sort to her higher ups.

Imagine my dismay, horror and flat out anger when they denied those charges. WHAT? Roaming charges on a MIFI device that I NEVER ever was able to use.That was the absolute last straw. Here are my questions:

1. How does one receive “roaming charges” on a device that is the size of a credit card?
2. How about, how does one receive “roaming charges” on a device that you couldn’t even get a signal to?
3. How do you receive roaming charges on a cruise from the U.S.A to the U.S.A.? Notice, neither Verizon reps mentioned anything about perhaps being in International Waters.
4. How does one receive roaming charges on 1 device and not the other when the phone was on pretty much the full 2 weeks and I gave up on the MIFI after a few days?  
5. Comparing my IPHONE bill to my MIFI bill for those same dates, if there were ever going to be “roaming fees” you would expect to see them on my cell phone bill, there weren’t any.
6. If you research my MIFI device bills from the last 12 months, you’ll see that the device was hardly used. I was waiting out my contract which ended 3/28/13 one month later.
7. Why would we spend $112 in Internet Café charges by using their computers, if we could get a signal? That does not make any sense at all!

Bottom line is this; I should not have been charged for the roaming fees and therefore my intention is to not pay for them. My hope is that after 6 executives at Verizon read this email that you will agree that a mistake has been made.  I have now received 2 collection letters for the same issue. I am confident that Verizon will take care of that as well.

I do have every intention in contacting the BBB as well as Rossen Reports for the TODAY SHOW & an attorney if there is not a resolution.  My cell phone contract is up as of August 1, 2013 and I will be cancelling and going to another carrier and I am happy to share my experience any way that I can so that this doesn’t happen to someone else.