More than 60,000 of Verizon D.C.’s residential customers will receive a credit in their August statement to make up for a recent billing error, which is now the subject of an investigation by utility regulators.
Verizon has acknowledged that it started billing in May for a rate increase that wasn’t approved by the D.C. Public Service Commission until June. All told, 60,543 residential customers were overcharged a total of $66,173, Verizon says in filings with the commission.
The overbilling won’t bankrupt Verizon’s customers: Subscribers of most local and regional phone service packages will receive a $2 credit — the difference between the old and new rate — while others will receive smaller credits typically between 20 cents and $1.
But the error nevertheless demands further investigation, the commission said in a recent order, given Verizon’s “assumption” that a rate change would be approved by a specific date, and the company’s failure to explain how it would prevent the same mistake from happening again.
Verizon, which was ordered to explain the slip in detail, blamed the blunder on an “internal miscommunication.”
“We mistakenly put some increases in our billing system a month early,” said Sandy Arnette, Verizon spokeswoman. “We caught the problem, fixed it and are crediting bills and taking steps to prevent recurrence.”
Most Verizon customers probably don’t have the slightest idea they were charged too much, said Joel Lawson, president of the Dupont Circle Citizens Association, and a Verizon landline customer. More than 10,500 customers in the Dupont area alone were overbilled.
“I think in this town of very smart people you would be hard pressed to get anyone to explain their phone bill,” Lawson said.
A more substantial Verizon overbilling occurred in June 2006, which the company chalked up to “human error.” Roughly 11,000 customers in D.C., Maryland, Virginia and West Virginia were charged too much in that incident, in some cases by several thousand dollars. In the District, however, that mistake only impacted 214 subscribers.
All D.C. telecommunication providers are required to inform the commission within three business days of a billing error impacting 100 or more customers or 2 percent of their customer base. The rules were adopted last year in response to Verizon’s 2006 billing mistake.
[email protected]
