verizon believes 0.002 dollars is 0.002 cents
This is pretty old (circa 2006) but I've never seen it before… so I thought I'd write a quick piece about it. Verizon (a phone and data carrier in North America for those of us in Europe) seem to be really struggling with simple multiplication. It all revolves around the customer service representative not being able to discern the difference between 0.002 cents and 0.002 dollars. Obviously, the unit different here means there is a one-hundred fold difference between the two. I say 'obviously', but the caller in this recorded phone-call to Verizon explains to the representative in a multitude of different ways. No matter how hard he tries to get through to the sales rep, he fails to understand.
I can't believe it. How stupid do you have to be to not understand the difference between a $0.002 and 0.002¢? The poor guy had soaked up 35,893Kb of data transfer whilst in Canada (which Verizon charge 0.002¢ for, which is $0.00002). However, when he got home he had a bill of $71.79. Obviously, they have charged $0.002 per kilobyte instead of 0.002¢. Hilarity ensues when he attempts to get his bill rectified (and so he should, considering his bill should only be $0.72). The recorded phone-call is pretty long, so if you want it compressed, there is a YouTube video (~3 minutes long). The YouTube video doesn't really go into the same amount of detail as the phone call, but if you listen to the call first and then watch the video, you can see how prolific the problem is. Furthermore, the guy in question chronicled his quest for a refund in the Verizon Math blog. Worth a read!
I can't believe it. How stupid do you have to be to not understand the difference between a $0.002 and 0.002¢? The poor guy had soaked up 35,893Kb of data transfer whilst in Canada (which Verizon charge 0.002¢ for, which is $0.00002). However, when he got home he had a bill of $71.79. Obviously, they have charged $0.002 per kilobyte instead of 0.002¢. Hilarity ensues when he attempts to get his bill rectified (and so he should, considering his bill should only be $0.72). The recorded phone-call is pretty long, so if you want it compressed, there is a YouTube video (~3 minutes long). The YouTube video doesn't really go into the same amount of detail as the phone call, but if you listen to the call first and then watch the video, you can see how prolific the problem is. Furthermore, the guy in question chronicled his quest for a refund in the Verizon Math blog. Worth a read!
