Complain about a product or service

Verizon Yellow Pages

Matt of Manassas VA writes (10/8/01):
I represent a Maryland based plumbing and HVAC company doing business for over 50 years. We have advertised in the Bell Atlantic/Verizon Yellow Pages for years and have continually paid the charges on time.

The 2001 Yellow Pages were placed and we agreed to the charge to be billed monthly. Each month our Verizon bill stated we owed no charges for the directory billing. We are in several books and are charged through our corporate account for many of our directories.

Nine months into the contract we received a bill for over $74,000. I spoke with a representative from Verizon. The Verizon representative said they were having billing problems and he would work it out. He reviewed my account and said there were no charges due. I sent a copy of the bill to him and he said the charge was indeed due, but that he would work out a compromise for the charges.

I was handed to a national customer service representative and we worked out a deal where I would pay 50 percent of the past charges and 100 percent of the charges moving forward. We agreed that this was fair and The customer service representative just needed to get one more approval.

In good faith we paid the past due amount expecting to receive credits for future advertising. Verizon came back with an extended payment plan for the entire amount due. I explained the issue is not the amount due, it was the discrepancy in billing. We are part of a publicly held company operating on a monthly budget and going back to pay for a 9-month discrepancy will place an undue hardship on our business.

Most companies would have been out of business by a charge of this magnitude. I feel we worked out a fair compromise and now that Verizon has its money they just want to sweep us under the carpet.

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