Verizon: Hey Zombies, Can You Hear Me Now?

Getting consumers to pay their FiOS bills is important to telecommunications giant Verizon.  The Internet doesn’t just grow on trees, you know.  But Verizon may have created a PR horror show for itself by apparently billing a consumer for services three months after she had died.

According to a story in the Los Angeles Times, Marilynn Loveless contacted Verizon a few days after her mother-in-law, Betty Howard, had passed away after a battle with cancer.  Three months later, Verizon was still billing Howard—and eventually Loveless—for an unpaid Internet bill.

Pick up dry cleaning, pay phone bill... God I hate Mondays. Photo by Dave Hogg

Verizon eventually turned the matter over to a third-party debt collection agency, even with the knowledge that Howard had died in December 2010.  Later on, Verizon reduced the original past due amount of about $110 to $54 after Loveless again notified the company know that Howard was no longer of this world.  In other words,  Verizon’s to zombie consumers was to cut the debt in half.

Cutting to the chase, Verizon eventually pulled the account back from the contingency agency to which it had been assigned and cancelled all of Howard and Loveless’ obligations saying, “Mistakes were made.”

Duh, Verizon.

Everybody knows that the only way to kill zombies is to destroy their mushy, rotty brains.  You can’t just cut the thing in half.

Michael Klozotsky is the managing editor of insideARM.com.  His weapons of choice in the global war on zombies are Whisker Lickin’s Crunch Lovers Tartar Control Cat Treats and a Taurus Model 65.