Verizon To Increase Text Message Rates From 10 To 15 Cents On March 1st
Saturday January 13, 2007
According to Engadget Mobile, Verizon will increase text messaging fees from 10 to 15 cents per sent or received message starting March 1st. That follows a similar move by Sprint, last October, and Cingular, recently. T-Mobile remains the only national carrier with a text messaging fee of 10 cents... but for how long?
Some believe that such a price hike is a "material change" to your contract with Verizon and that it could allow you to terminate your contract with Verizon (or Sprint, or Cingular) without having to pay an early termination fee (ETF). According to messages posted on engadget and a bulletin board called Howard Forums, a few users were able to get out of contract based on the text messaging price hike, after talking to a supervisor.
Comments
Verizon Wireless has the worst and unfriendliest Voice Mail system of all wireless companies.
If you have a voice mail older than 21 days, the system will not allow you to listen to any new messages until you delete the old messages. If you try to skip the voice mail, the system will put you into a loop and you can not get out of.
All other wireless providers use a quota system. You have 60 - 90 minutes of voice mail space. And you can save messages for any length of time, as long as you stay within your quota. It is a lot easier to operate.
I spoke with the Verizon’s customer service manager several times, and they tell me, “that is how the system works, and if you don’t like it, you have to pay $175 to get out of our service.” They say that the service is guaranteed for 15 days after the signup date for trial purposes. But the voice mail problem only shows up after 21 days. This is deceptive behavior by Verizon to have a guarantee shorter than a well known problem issue.
The other issue is Verizon’s arrogance toward their customers. Any time I call them, I have to go through a time consuming phone tree to get to a customer service representative and after that, their customer service is not even helpful.
And to top it off, Verizon is the most expensive wireless service, compared to the others.
The following are the pros and cons of Verizon’s services:
Pros:
1. Good service coverage
Cons:
1. Worst Voice Mail system - any voice mail saved over 21 days and you can no longer get into your voicemail
2. Most expensive service of all wireless services
3. Worst customer service of all wireless services - not easy to reach a real person, have to go through a time consuming and tricky phone tree
4. Company arrogance toward its customers - their attitude: “we’re the biggest and if you don’t like our service and behavior, go somewhere else”
I might add that Cingular does not let you cancel your contract because of this change. Cingular does not lock you into ANY text messaging plan with a contract, so you can remove your texting plan at any time without penalty. Because of this, Cingular will still charge an ETF of $175 if you break your contract.
Cingular raises their rates from 10 to 15 on January 21, 2007.
It is precisely because you are NOT locked into a text messaging service that this is a “material change” under the FCC tariff. So long as you don’t have text messaging blocked on your phone, you had consented (and cingular had agreed) to provide you with the sms rate as filed in their tariff with the FCC. Now that they have changed it, you are effected because you sms message fee (even if you haven’t received any text messages). There is another part of the clause that says you have to be “adversely affected” - this is satisfied anytime you have to pay a higher price. Don’t let the confuse you by combining “materially” and “adverse” - they are not connected under the tariff. Materially means that it changes the price you would pay, adverse means that the price goes up. With that, you have a right to get out of the contract.
A text data packet actually costs much less to send than a voice packet.
When I actually found out about this, I called Verizon and TURNED OFF texting on 4 of my 5 (family plan) accounts. I will change providers in September (end of contract) due solely to this particular price increase.
That is the best I can do, hope others do the same!