Marine Widow Michaela Brummund Battles Verizon Over $350 Termination Fee

*See update below*

Michaela Brummund's husband, a marine, was killed in Afghanistan by an IED.

Following his death, the young widow decided to move home to Copperopolis, a small California town with a population of just over 2,000, in order to be closer to her family and grieve.

Verizon, however, does not offer cell phone service in the town. Brummund called the phone company to cancel her service, and they hit her with a $350 early termination fee for ending her contract before expired--despite Brummund "being a widow and Verizon not living up to its contractual obligations to provide actual cellphone coverage," as the Consumerist notes.

"I called them to cancel. I told them the situation with my husband. I even said I would provide a death certificate," Brummund told CBS13.

Her father, also a veteran, said, "It's not about the money. I don't care about the money. It's the principle. The man was overseas fighting for our country and lost his life doing so."

Brummund told CBS13 Verizon customer service informed her "nothing could be done" about the charge. Verizon came under fire earlier this year for its refusal to disactivate a dead man's account, saying a death certificate was not enough to cancel his service. In another instance, a Verizon representative allegedly threatened to blow up a man's house over a $308 bill.

Should she be forced to pay the fee? Tell us what you think in the comments section below.

UPDATE: A Verizon Wireless spokesperson contacted the Huffington Post with the following statement:

Verizon Wireless has long supported our troops and worked with members of the armed services with flexibility. Once we understood this Marine widow's circumstances, we resolved the situation quickly. The media turned a moment that needed clarity into a sensational story, and one that's just not accurate. The situation is resolved. Our thoughts and prayers are with the widow and her family.

(via CBS13, The Consumerist)

Comments

[vmlinux]

09:57 AM on 06/30/2010

Verizon Wireless has long supported our troops and worked with members of the armed services with flexibility.
Translation: We have fleeced and abused our troops the same way we fleece and abuse the general populace. Our collectors are taught to abuse spouses of dead people troops or otherwise because grieving people will often pay out of guilt or misguided sense of duty.

Once we understood this Marine widow's circumstances, we resolved the situation quickly.
Translation: Once we understood that we would get bloodied by the populace, possibly invoking congressional hearings forcing us to do business in a forthright manner, we grudgingly dropped the couple hundred dollar charge.

The media turned a moment that needed clarity into a sensational story, and one that's just not accurate.
Translation: And we would have gotten away with it if you pesky kids hadn't showed up!

The situation is resolved.
Translation: Please don't give us any more negative publicity.

Our thoughts and prayers are with the widow and her family.
Translation: Our thoughts and prayers are that the widow and her family will stop talking to the press.

[pup sydney]

08:16 PM on 06/29/2010

Only in the usa people have this nonsensical contracts with this bloodsuckers of tel companies. In eu buy phone you want ANY phone then get your phone company no terminationfees nothing just cost of calls. Why our bloodsuckers can get away with this robbery in the USA? Because they rule Washington. Asphyxiating.

[Bill Delozier]

06:46 PM on 06/29/2010

Another reason to hate Verizon.

[lightningbolt]

04:57 PM on 06/29/2010

Verizon is one of the worst corporations I have ever dealt with. Their customer service is horrible, their custom cellphone software is awful, and they won't stop sending me junk mail despite having asked them many times. I am extremely happy I canceled my service with them. I will never go back. No company has ever made me so angry.

[TomPica]

02:58 PM on 06/29/2010

Verizon Wireless Issued This Statement Last Friday After the Original Story Ran on CBS 13:
Verizon Wireless has long supported our troops and worked with members of the armed services with flexibility. Once we understood this Marine's widow's circumstances, we resolved the situation quickly. The media turned a moment that needed clarity into a sensational story, and one that's just not accurate. The situation is resolved. Our thoughts and prayers are with the widow and her family.

[chipchuck]

03:51 PM on 06/29/2010

I'll translate:

"Once we saw what a doo doo storm our heartless pursuit of profit caused in the media, we let this one go to shut everyone up about it. That way we can get back to milking all you morons for every penny we can. Of course, we don't expect you to understand the importance of bleeding regular people dry. This situation is resolved, idiots, because we're Verizon and we say so. Now get back to being amused by our hear-me-know guy and posting HuffPo Comments about how you hate ATT...from your iPhones."

The problem is that the corporation is so big that no one you can actually contact has the power to make simple decisions like reversing the charge for a dead soldier's wife. They're just as much sheep as the rest of us, and just following orders. We got this here recession on, ya know? :)

[angrymanspokane]

02:54 PM on 06/29/2010

"Customer service" isn't - there's no such thing.

A. We're not "customers", we're accounts. We're statistics that pay for an end product or service. We are only relevant to these corporations in large numbers, individuals are worthless to them.

2. There is no "service". While they do hire a few humans to answer the phones (eventually), they only allow them to use prepared, company approved responses. Any problem to which they do not have a canned solution available goes unsolved - unless the caller has the tenacity to pursue the matter higher up the line.

[jwoolman]

01:17 PM on 06/29/2010

The fact that she was told a death certificate wouldn't matter doesn't mean that's true. Customer reps often just make up answers when it's not on their list of usual problems and solutions. They either are just not smart enough or just don't care enough to deal with anything unusual, their objective is just to get rid of you. They have no financial or emotional investment in the company and certainly don't worry about retaining customers directly or indirectly (from negative publicity and word-of-mouth) if they mess up.

You have to keep going up the ladder until you find someone who 1) actually can think outside the box and 2) has the authority to make decisions. This is true everywhere, not just at Verizon. Send the death certificate to the very top (the CEO) with cc: to various media, and then see what happens.

[Michael Little]

10:20 PM on 06/28/2010

The Soldiers and Sailors Relief Act will kick in and negate the charges. All she has to do is go to the local Marine station and they'll fill out the form

[moriartty]

09:41 PM on 06/28/2010

This country takes terrible care of it's veteran's and their families. I have gotten the short end of the stick a few times due to being a vet.

[rikster]

09:27 PM on 06/28/2010

Verizon..."the communication company that refuses to communicate" now in your neighborhood..!
can you hear me now...? huh..I said..can you hear me now...?

[section 8]

08:39 PM on 06/28/2010

So much for Verizon customer service my AT&T contract looks better and better all the time...no she shouldn't have to pay...now that this is out I wonder if Verizon can her her now?

[vmlinux]

10:00 AM on 06/30/2010

While I dislike Verizon, ATT is pretty awful too. I don't know if they are bad about collections and termination charges, but trying to get phone service and DSL service out of them if things aren't perfect can be a nightmare.

[section 8]

03:01 AM on 07/01/2010

Well nobody is perfect but maybe you'd like to elaborate on what you mean by "if things aren't perfect"...I'm curious because things are rarely perfect and to not be able to get land line service well that would take either a major credit issue or more likely a debt to the AT&T that hasn't been paid...is that the "aren't perfect" you are referring to? As for DSL well there are sometimes some physical limitations and at other times are some credit limitations. If you're too far away then you're just too far away...as they say if wishes were horses then beggars would ride.

[Yellowbird]

05:19 PM on 06/28/2010

I think every jack*ss in the nation who gets a cell phone with a contract and ACCEPTS THE CANCELLATION FEE as part of that contract is hurting everyone else as well as themselves.

A cell phone can't be THAT important that you would sign such an odious thing is it? I can understand signing that you would PAY FOR YOUR UNIT if you quit. And put the cost of the UNIT up front so you can buy it anywhere else for a lesser cost.

Cell phone companies are getting away with this because the CUSTOMERS ALLOW IT.

QUIT SIGNING UP FOR THESE CONTRACTS AND THEY'LL GO AWAY.

[CRMurray]

03:54 PM on 06/29/2010

Your last line is true but people don't want to pay $400+ for a cell phone. Only the most people that like the tech of phones usually will do that. The regular customer won't.

[1peachcowboy1956]

05:09 PM on 06/28/2010

I remember when cell phones came out and they had a coverage disclaimer...I thought then "Only in America" can you sell something that doesn't work yet. That said, I became a Verizon customer around 1993 and have remained loyal ever since, strictly due to coverage.

If this lady had the service in her name......I don't think lack of coverage is a legit reason per contract. (I could be mistaken)

If the service was in her husband's name, that should be actionable I would think.

Though I feel for her and her loss, if she is playing the sympathy card to try and get out of her deal....well, good luck with that. Corporate greed always rears it's ugly head, and they hire pretty good lawyers to cover all their bases.

[barbara0309]

08:19 AM on 06/29/2010

I work at VZW, and I have handled complaints at the executive level.....something sounds wrong here. I will guarantee that these fees were waived if she reached out to someone higher than a supervisor.

Sadly, in many call centers, there are people in positions of authority (supervisors), who are no better than the customer service reps. It's a low paying job to answer calls, and the people who are hired are usually not the brightest stars in the sky, if you know what I mean. There are many, many good customer service reps, but the ones who argue with you, cuss you out, etc are certainly there (and are everywhere). They may not last long (trust me, I was also in Quality Assurance, and those people will be terminated for speaking rudely to customers), but the damage they do while they ARE there is sometimes insurmountable.

[Tlanice]

12:02 PM on 06/29/2010

I have verizon and I absolutely love their customer service. I recently added a broadband data line to my plan for a family member. Now that it's not in use I cancelled it and while I am being charged a termination fee of about $100 and change, the rep told me that if I just pay my monthly bill, they will pro-rate the termination fee so that it basically shows up as a credit on my account. The only complaint I have is that my calls drop and I do not get service in certain places, I have to step outside. I think that is more to do with the building than the service though.

[jwoolman]

01:01 PM on 06/29/2010

Yes, definitely she needs to go higher up to get it resolved. That's true with any company, in my experience. The reps on the lower levels just know their scripts, and can't get beyond that with a few intelligent exceptions. Took 3 tries to get Verizon to actually make the service call for dsl setup, for example. The first 2 reps set it up, nobody showed. The 3rd time - the rep discovered they needed to use a DOS program (not Windows) to set up things in our area. She knew how, the previous guys didn't and were too lazy to call over a supervisor. She waived the installation fee.

Also a few years ago, e-mail to my local isp was erratically bouncing for months. One mailing list owner looked at the bounce message, after I had to resubscribe for the umpteenth time due to bounces. He discovered that the isp's backup mail server was misconfigured so it didn't recognize our domain (our local isp had been eaten by a regional one), so under high load the backup kicked in and bouncy bouncy. Every customer rep I talked with just denied they even had a backup server... Googling led me to a post by the CEO with an e-mail address on some discussion list for isp execs, I sent him the info, and he immediately contacted the right people and fixed the problem.

[american-dolt]

04:09 PM on 06/28/2010

Corporate America, ruining lives everywhere.

[jaggednerve]

03:54 PM on 06/28/2010

unfeeling, unthinking, uncaring, and worst of all uneducated people manning the phones for the largest banks, phone companies & credit card companies are driving americans to dispair. we have become a nation addicted to the least painful alternative as opposed to doing the right thing by and for each other. the simple act of compassion has been contracted out of the american life.
Disgusting!