Manhattan, NY – Verizon slyly overcharged and double-billed Beth Israel Medical Center by millions for years, the hospital claims, and has allegedly refused to refund the money.
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The hospital should have known to ask for an exemption on certain data services, Verizon allegedly claimed — services Beth Israel didn’t want in the first place.
The utility said other refund requests were too old for them to pay out.
Blame it on the impossible-to-understand utility bills, Beth Israel said.
“Verizon attempts to prevent discovery of its overbillings by designing its bills in such a massive, complex, technical and obfuscatory way that its bills will not be understood by its customers,” according to court papers.
Beth Israel was over-charged by $1 million through long-distance rates that were 10 times the 3-cent-a-minute rate in its contract; billed $340,000 for data services it never used; and charged about $7 million for services it had already pre-paid, according to a suit the hospital filed against Verizon in Manhattan federal court last month.
The hospital wants its money back, along with $25 million in punitive damages.
Speaking about verizon, it’s in place to mention that something needs to be done in the catskills where verizon holds a monopoly on phone service, not allowing others to enter the market, an charges 50.00 per month plus fees and taxes which equal to approx. 80 dollars p/m. In the city I have a plan which costs only 35.00 p/m and includes everything I get from verizon.
Anybody wana join me in a class action to stop this?
I have been overbilled month after month, only to find out that it’s too late to refund my overpayments. My hope is that this will trigger a much needed class action.
All utility bills are designed to confuse, but none do it as well as Verizon.
Have a friend, an accountant, who got a monster $500 bill from Verizon. He called them and challenged them line by line and got rid of most of it.
I used to work in a yeshiva many years ago and part of work was to go over the utility bills. Knocked one gas bill down from $7500 to $1500 by challenging them all the way through arbitration to appeals. Didn’t need a lawyer, just some “sechel”.
To add injury to injury, the utility companies keep getting permission from our state legislature in NY to keep hiking the rates despite that we pay the highest rates in the contiguous 48, about double the national average.
The utilities were required to simplify their bills so what they did was to lower the amount paper per bill, but still kept you in utter confusion.
Complain to “our friend” Silver who has legalized homo marriages and allows the utilities to take as much as can from us.
I was livid when I found out that verizon was charging me I think 3.50 a month for a few years for what I thought was some sort of line-in policy. It turns out it was a policy on my actual phone. If I had no working phone they would send me a loner phone. This during an era that a phone can be replaced for under 10 dollars. That is insurance tha equals six times the price of the actual product annually. A disgrace!
I opened an account with verizon and asked for everything unlimited but they didn’t add txt messages to the plan and I used how much I wanted after a month I got over a $700 bill. I called in right away and they told me they will call me back but of course they didn’t so I called back another 2 times. It past already 3 moths and they still didn’t do anything. Any suggestions?
Lots of these charges on utility and phone bills are outrageous but remember the old English saying – buyer beware. You have to check your bills carefully when they come, not wait till years later.
Actually, for residential customers, it is NOT difficult to find Telecom errors. But, for businesses, it is very complicated. In the case of Beth Israel, if you look at the (court) complaint you see that it involves items such as IOT (Intelligent Optical Transport) services and DWDM (Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing). These are not items that most individuals can handle. I know of a heimeshe company (costmc.com) that helps medium sized businesses/organizations (e.g. Hospitals etc.) get back refunds and credits from the Telecoms and Utility Companies with no out of pocket costs. If you are a medium-sized company, you probably should not try to go it alone. You will likely NOT find these errors, hence the class-action lawsuit by Beth Israel.
I’m having an awful time with verizon in the catskills, trying to get my line turned back on for summer since June 18, they keep rescheduling my appt’s for repair to come out, they don’t show up, don’t call, & it’s at least a 20-minute wait on hold (sometimes longer) if u try calling them! doesnt any other phone co. service the Catskills?! they’re a nightmare!
I don’t have verizon phone services at all but I’m wondering if anyone can help me with my con edison bill. I’m living in a 2 bedroom apt with separate unit air conditioners and I received a $350 bill for the month of may/june before the real heat. I find their bills are always outrageous high and was about $90 for a month I wasn’t home. I tried shutting the main switch to see if the meter is still going and it didn’t. Nobody to talk to
With Verizon it’s really very simple…if you don’t ask questions they rarely offer to remove erroneous charges. They change plan features often and certain optional services can be included with new changes, yet they continue to charge unless questions are asked. Sometimes there are representatives that really do help sort out these problems, getting the right one on the phone is a matter of luck. I was paying for call waiting as an option when a representative said that it is now included in my calling plan and arranged for six months worth of credit for the over charge. My best advise is to call their billing/customer service dept every six months and ask for a review of you account. These comments are for their land line service, but the same applies to their wireless services as well as internet and TV.