By 
Verizon sure has a funny way of overcharging people for their services. We saw it last year when the carrier admitted they had been charging customers a bogus data access fee and then proceeded to issue $90 million in refunds. This time, the complaints didn’t come from your average customer. Rather, the US government discovered that Verizon’s MCI Communications Services Inc. had been asking for taxes and surcharges that violated the deal between the two parties. How much is Verizon paying now? $93.5 million right into Uncle Sam’s pocket. Think of it as a reverse bailout.
[via Reuters]
93.5 million to the government? how about giving it back to the people that were affected by it.
Read it again silly mens. This was for a contract b/t the Gov’t & Verizon. The people who paid it out DID get the money back.
As well as the previous occurrence where customers received payments.
It was a refund to the government, who was overcharged.
I think the government might need it more then the customers ;) cause in the end they would be just looking for that money from us anyways
93.5 million is nothing when you have trillions of dollars in debt all this is going to do is go to one of the many crooked politicians pockets
you just know it all dont you
Aw did that upset you? You one of those politicians??
I’m an anonymous person on the internet and I’m going to be mean to you for no reason other than I don’t want to be at work. GRRRRRRRR
Ya know, there’s a lot more trolling and flaming on the new Disqus system than the old one. Yikes. Can’t we all just get along? lol
What a great company!
This would of bankrupt Sprint lol
Would have.
Sprint would’ve never done this in the first place stick to the topic.
Did you actually have the balls to say ” stick to the topic”?! You, who can’t seem to get past a story about something not even remotely close to involving SprintNextel or the EVO without leaving some insane Sprint/EVO rant regardless of the subject and who has never posted anything resembling objective, ever? Good grief.
Ofcourse the customers that put out that money wouldnt get it back. Lets give it to our government that spends more then what they have…
You’re retarded, read the article again. It was the government that was getting ripped off, moron.
name calling, nice.
Unfortunately its true; The majority of Americans are morons (or act like it a lot)
Phuc my ozone
Why would the money go to citizens? Verizon was overcharging the government. Therefore the government gets its money back.
The first part of the article was about vz customers being overcharged and they already got a refund.
amazon appstore downloads take FOREVER!
how does the government overlook 93.5 million?
Its easy to overlook that relatively small amount of money when compared to the amount of money that flows through it on an annual basis. As one Tennessee congressman said “a million here, a million there, pretty soon you are talking about real money”.
$93.5 million is nothing to the US government or to the Cellco Partnership -which is what comprises Verizon Wireless – Verizon Communications Inc. and Vodaphone (55% and 45% respectively, at least from what I understand – I sure as hell don’t own either). Verizon Wireless generated US$63.4 billion revenue in 2010. For normal people, $93.5M is a ton of money. For corporations that generate that kind of money and have hundreds of billions of dollars in assets, it is like shortchanging the guy at the corner store three cents and having to pay it back.
Why is it that tech people are THE WORST at talking about Politics…….
Because the internet is a series of tubes…not a big truck that you just dump something on.
I was going to say “because they learned all their politics from reading YouTube comments”.
I think of this as I have always said they have been RIPING OFF EVERYONE FOREVER. They are useless anyway score one for the government.
…wait so, you’re saying that Verizon is ripping off everyone. That would include themselves. So Verizon is ripping off Verizon?
That does seem pretty useless. In fact it would make them so useless that they could never hope to become one of the largest telecommunications company in the United States…oh wait.
Quit trolling everything Sprint/Verizon you stupid d***** bag. It makes you look so narrow minded and hopeless. Why don’t you broaden your horizon’s? Go comment on something OTHER THAN Sprint/Verizon.
And honestly, if all you’re gonna do is say how “stupid” or “useless” Verizon is, don’t say anything at all. Do these websites a favor and keep it to yourself.
OK I take back my last comment to you as you really just relish the chance to talk trash and get a rise out of people. Don’t worry your bend over is a comin’ if your planning on purchasing the evo 3d or any of sprints other 4g devices as they will be changing to the much better LTE technology that your shiny phone won’t have the radio to use. Will you still praise them? More than likely as you dont seem to see facts when they are right in front of you. Have fun my friend at least our phones (with verizon) run an actual network worth signing a contract for cause we won’t be given the bait and switch midway into our contract. It won’t be so bad, right? You’ll still have sprints god awful 3G network, what’s left of clear’s wimax netwirk, and your $10 data premium sprint makes you pay. Hey, but it’s unlimited, right? So I guess you’ll be ok.
93.5 Million , Verizon made that before I got through typing this sentence .
Fraud, Waste, and Abuse is a problem in the government. I’m glad someone caught this one. As to how the government may have overlooked it, they may not have. It may have been that when the budget for this service contract was set and the government representative may not have known that taxes were included. Or the representative may not have known that VZW was going to charge for service. Or VZW’s automated billing may have automatically debited the entire amount, including taxes, and the government representative (when billed for an entire fiscal year) may have seen the extra charges and it took this long to get the paperwork rolling in order to get the refund.
There may have been no intention of foul play on any party.
There’s no reason to bash VZW or the US Government for THIS transaction, based on the facts presented. Be nice, People!
I’m an attorney working on building a class action against VZW for unfair overage charges and early termination fees against CONSUMERS, not government. If you are located in MA and have been affected by substantial overage charges and/or an ETF, please write to let me know your situation and I will get back to you…[email protected]
I suspect that Verizon will find a a way to pass on the cost of the fine to its customers anyway.
Maybe this is a downpayment to KO the Tmobile an AT%T merger
Not surprising in the least, the reason why VZN is able to maintain such a large network is because they charge so much for their plans n’such. Eventually people get used to paying that much for service so big red thinks they can up the prices surreptitiously…I’m glad they got their hand caught in the cookie jar this time.
Why u think Verizon has the best Network? Well, ripping people off !!
All you people need to go to each carrier’s website and do a price comparison.
AT&T pricing = verizon exception of the unlimited data
Sprint is $10 cheaper than AT&T/Verizon
Tmob .. didnt check them.
So it’s not like it’s a rip off.