A retired teacher tangles with Verizon over an outdated phone and nearly $1,000 she says she is owed

Taylor Glascock/Bloomberg

For years, Harriet, a retired school teacher living alone, felt a little more safe knowing she had a mobile phone in case of an emergency.

Happily, Harriet, who asked that her full name not be used, never had to use it. But it was a comfort. So once a year, she would load another $100 in prepaid minutes on the flip phone. Verizon Wireless, her carrier, required that amount of minutes to be added annually to keep her account open and allow her about seven hours of time on the phone.

By November 2018, 10 years after opening her account, Harriet had a balance of $998 on the phone.

But then her balance plummeted to $0, without explanation.

So began a long battle with Verizon, one of the country’s largest wireless communications companies with well over $100 billion in annual revenue. Harriet wanted the company to restore use of her phone and her $998 balance.

What she got was weeks of dropped calls after long waits on hold, unfulfilled promises from customer service reps, and the general run-around. But no phone service and no $998.

“I called and called and called,” said Harriet, of Brookline.

So off she went to the Verizon store in Coolidge Corner (now closed), where “a not very nice” sales rep abruptly told her Verizon no longer “supported” the flip phone she had.

“They said there was no money in my account and that I had no options,” she said.

Why wasn’t I notified that Verizon no longer supported my phone? she asked.

“They had no answer for me,” she said. “I was very upset and walked out of there feeling very discouraged and frustrated."

Finally, about a year ago, Harriet did what a lot of us would do: she gave up. She had been made to feel she was wasting her time, that she would never get back her money, no matter how hard she tried.

Then, the pandemic struck. And, feeling isolated and vulnerable, Harriet decided she should get a new phone and load it with her missing $998.

Once again, she encountered one obstacle after another in her many calls with Verizon. Sometimes she would get switched from one department to the next. Sometimes she would be told there was no record of her account at all. Sometimes she would be told there was a record, but it showed only that it had been closed.

One thing she heard a lot of was apologies. “They were very good at apologizing: ‘I apologize, we apologize, I’m sorry, we’re sorry,‘” she recalled.

In June, she sent a detailed letter to Verizon.

“I cannot afford to lose $1,000 and am very sad,” she wrote. “I trusted Verizon and have been a loyal customer for a long time [citing her home phone]. I feel deceived and hope you can remedy this matter.”

She got no response. So she called me. I sent a copy of her letter to the company’s communications team, and within hours, Verizon was on the phone with Harriet.

“William” from the executive team quickly apologized and said he wanted to help. Despite all the difficulties others had had finding her account, William said he had Harriet’s complete records in front of him.

So detailed were the records that William was able to home in on 2013, when, he said, she had been a few days late in adding $100 to her account. Under the rules, she was supposed to add the $100 within 365 days of the last time she put prepaid minutes on the phone.

Harriet told me she remembers that occasion. That year, she had suffered multiple injuries in a serious car accident, which slowed down everything, including her getting to the Verizon store. When she got there, the store rep at first refused to allow her to keep the account open, but finally relented.

William, in an opening gambit, used that as the reason he wouldn’t refund the $998 — she had already used up the one break, the one “exception,” the company was willing to give her.

“I’ll meet you halfway and give you $500,” toward renewed service with Verizon, she recalled him saying.

Despite feeling pressure to immediately accept the offer, Harriett rejected it. William said he’d review her case and call her back this week.

But within hours of this column being published online Wednesday afternoon, William called Harriet and told her she would get a full refund of $998.

“I’m thrilled,” Harriet said.

She should expect to receive the check in about a week.

See, persistence pays off.