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Problem Solved: I need help with my Verizon collection bill!

Christopher Elliott on

Maggie DeLoach's daughter has a problem with a Verizon collection bill. But she paid her phone bill in full. How can she get the debt collectors off her back?

Q: I'm hoping you can help us with a Verizon collection bill. I don't seem to be getting anywhere on my own.

Verizon has turned over my daughter Elizabeth's account to a collection agency for a small amount of money which we could easily pay. But we do not want to cave in to Verizon's bad business practices and greed.

My daughter recently switched cellular providers to AT&T. She received a notice that her Verizon contract would be due for renewal at the end of April 2019. We went to a Verizon store to suspend her account where an employee told us that we could carry Elizabeth's number over to a new account after we had paid off the balance of her phone.

On April 22nd we went to AT&T and signed her up for an account. At the same time, we paid the final balance on her phone, $291.

A month after switching phones we realized that Verizon was still taking automatic payments out of Elizabeth's account so we called our credit card and had further payments to Verizon blocked.

 

Verizon then began sending Elizabeth text messages requesting overdue payment of $15 with a "fine" of $25 tacked on.

We went to a Verizon store near us and were told that they could not help us unless we had a PIN for the account. Elizabeth had never set up a pin number.

We wrote Verizon a letter asking them to stop billing and sent a copy of her final payment to Verizon. We also copied the Better Business Bureau.

We went back to a Verizon store, hoping that we could track down her former account and straighten this out. The Verizon store specialist was unable to find an account under Elizabeth's phone number so referred us to a helpline. The helpline was unable to give us information on Elizabeth's account without the PIN and a password.

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