A Counting School - Hardcore Chartered Accountancy

Verizon makes me laugh: .002 dollars <>= .002 cents

It's been a while since I posted anything from Videosift just for the heck of it  - but this one is a winner.

The clip is merely a recording of a conversation between, George Vaccaro, a man overcharged for service by Verizon and their inability to comprehend the difference between two thousandths of a dollar, and two thousandths of a cent.




If you're impatient, here's the three minute remix. Some people have too much time on their hands.

To add insult to injury, Verizon e-mailed him and offered to give back half the money they're overcharging him. Insane.

Now before I go on, I'll spoil the suspense - Verizon, after making an insulting 50% refund offer, finally offered the full 100% earlier today.

Now Verizon wasn't very apologetic in its response - they want to make it sound like a misunderstanding. If it was, it's only on their end.

As slashdotter Lproven writes, "And it must be said that the customer here is really not very good at explaining the arithmetic. . . . [B]ut what he mostly does is repeat himself. He does not explain himself well at all."

There's two issues here - aside from the fact that George - Lproven also gives some leeway for the fact he must be frustrated - but the explanation could be a little clearer.

Having said that, you'll hear the second level supervisor say, "I've never heard of .002 dollars" and "I'm not a mathematican".

It's scary to think they can be this bad at math - but it also makes you wonder if rather than being incompetent, they're actually being sinister?

They don't seem clever enough to be sinister, but who knows?