Verizon Wireless grilled for sneaky fees

Verizon Wireless is defending itself against customers who say they were charged for accidentally visiting the Internet landing pages on their phones.

Verizon denies that it’s engaging in what’s been called “phantom” fees. According to customers, pressing a certain button from the main menu of Verizon phones — flip phones or others that don’t have data plans — takes them to a landing page for the Internet, but even if they immediately exit without loading any Web pages, they’re charged $1.99 for Internet access that month.

DSL Reports and the Cleveland Plain Dealer have covered this issue in the past, but an article from New York Times columnist David Pogue got the Federal Communications Commission’s attention. In the same letter asking Verizon to explain $350 early termination fees, the FCC also demanded an explanation for the $1.99 Internet charges.

Verizon said (PDF) no such fees are charged if the customer doesn’t navigate beyond the phone’s Internet landing page. Essentially, the carrier said that the newspapers and complaining customers got the story wrong. When Pogue asked a Verizon spokesman to reconcile the number of complaints about the fees with the carrier’s response, the spokesman refused.

The evidence against Verizon doesn’t look good. Between the Plain Dealer columnist, Pogue’s readers and Pogue himself, who says he’s seen the $1.99 charges on some of his bills, it’ll be hard for Verizon to argue that there’s nothing wrong with current practice. What’s the solution, then? Phones that don’t have data plans should warn users when they’re about to incur extra charges, the same way you used to get warned about roaming rates.

Either way, we need to get to the bottom of this to figure out who’s lying. Though most of the anger directed at Verizon lately has been due to early termination fees, I hope phantom fees don’t get ignored.