If you open a new account with Verizon, make sure this doesn't happen to you
Verizon reps make more money signing up a new Unlimited Ultimate subscriber than a new Simplicity subscriber.
If you open a Verizon account, make sure that this does not happen to you. | Image by Verizon
Recently, Verizon added a new Simplicity plan, which, at first glance, appears to be priced at $30 per month per line. However, the small print says that this price is "after AutoPay and Switcher discount, plus taxes and fees." To find out exactly what you're going to pay, you have to tap on the "Learn More" lozenge to find out the $30 per month per line price requires that the subscriber use AutoPay and port over his number from another wireless provider.
Verizon's Simplicity Plan carries significant small print you need to read
The bottom line is that the Simplicity Plan is really $55 per month. Agreeing to AutoPay will take $10 off the price, and switching to the plan from another carrier will give you a $15 per month per line price cut, taking the final price down to the heavily promoted $30 per month per line. However, if you are switching from another Verizon account to Simplicity, the best price you can get is $45 per month per line before taxes and fees.
You decided to be a mobile rep; which provider would you work for?
Over the last few years, I've written about many consumers getting caught in cramming schemes. This takes place when a rep adds unrequested items to a customer's order just to help the rep meet certain performance goals for the month. Typically, these items include smartphone insurance, a screen protector, a case, and a charging adapter.
A Verizon customer asked for the Simplicity Plan but got Unlimited Ultimate instead
Now, I have seen another situation take place with a Verizon customer who was leaving a Verizon corporate account for his own personal plan. When he opened the account, he requested the Simplicity Plan, making it clear that he was willing to utilize AutoPay to get the price of the service down to $45 per month before taxes and fees.
Check the fine print for Verizon's Simplicity Plan | Image by Verizon
But here is where the reps fumbled the ball. Despite requesting the Simplicity Plan when the account was opened, the rep put this customer on the $105 per month Unlimited Ultimate plan. More than three days have gone by, and this account still shows that it is on the Unlimited Ultimate as of Tuesday evening.
Days later, Verizon has failed to make the correction
This morning, the customer found out he was still on the more expensive plan getting charged $60 more a month than he was supposed to be. Yet another rep told him that even though he ordered the Simplicity Plan from the get-go, he probably would be billed at the higher rate until the correction was made. When the customer said that this was not fair, the rep said that if he gets billed first, Verizon will fix the mistake.
Why would a rep do this? As it turns out, when it comes to a rep's metrics and commissions, they do better when they open an Unlimited Ultimate account than they do opening a Simplicity account. A rep who feels as though his job is threatened by bad performance could decide to improve his metrics by taking a gamble and signing up a customer for Unlimited Ultimate, hoping that the customer never notices or writes it off to taxes.
A rep could slam the customer, get his commission now, and deal with the fallout later
Because payouts are made quickly, a rep might figure that he'd rather get the higher payout now and deal with any fallout later. Another possibility is that the rep is leaving anyway and will be working for another carrier, or selling used cars by the time the customer and Verizon figure out what happens.
And if you're thinking that this is another story from Reddit that has no verification, the customer in this situation was actually my son. Since he was moving his line away from my personal business account, I was listening in to the call most of the time.
Let this be a warning to anyone opening a new account with any wireless firm. Check to make sure that you have been enrolled in the proper plan, the plan that you requested, before too many days go by.
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