Verizon Tells Cops "Your Money Or Your Life" 593
Mike writes "A 62-year-old man had a mental breakdown and ran off after grabbing several bottles of pills from his house. The cops asked Verizon to help trace the man using his cellphone, but Verizon refused, saying that they couldn't turn on his phone because he had an unpaid bill for $20. After an 11-hour search (during which time the sheriff's department was trying to figure out how to pay the bill), the man was found, unconscious. 'I was more concerned for the person's life,' Sheriff Dale Williams said. 'It would have been nice if Verizon would have turned on his phone for five or 10 minutes, just long enough to try and find the guy. But they would only turn it on if we agreed to pay $20 of the unpaid bill.' Score another win for the Verizon Customer Service team."
Re:What about E911? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Terms of service (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Terms of service (Score:5, Informative)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/9-1-1#Inactive_telephones [wikipedia.org]
Incorrect. 911 services in the USA must always work from any phone. Even disconnected unpayed cell phones.
Re:Frankly I'm siding with Verizon. Good for Veriz (Score:2, Informative)
The first time I heard the story, the person was Winston Churchill. But it changes all the time. I've also heard it be George Bernard Shaw. Here goes:
Winston Churchill was at a dinner party, and asked the woman next to him if she would sleep with him for one million pounds. She hemmed and hawed for a while before saying "Yes, I would." Churchill then asked her if she'd sleep with him for 10 pounds. Aghast, she asked him, "What kind of woman do you think I am?" Churchill replied, "We've already established what kind of woman you are. Now we're just haggling over the price."
Re:Terms of service (Score:3, Informative)
At any rate he wasn't trying to call 911, he was passed out in a ditch somewhere high as a kite.
The cops were trying to find said dude, by getting his phone turned on (for a few minutes) and establishing a trace to find him.
Re:Mandatory assistance (Score:2, Informative)
An interesting idea - but what about family members who don't want to be found? A man leaving his family, or a domestic abuse victim, perhaps?
Also, how many people would this affect in practice? I can't imagine that the set of people who need to be found in an emergency, who just happen to have not paid their bills, and despite their lost network access they still have their phone with them and turned on, would be that significant anyway. Should laws be based on one-off rare cases? We don't even know if it would've worked in this case - did the guy have his non-working phone with him, when he fled in his craze of insanity? It's also unclear if they would've been able to find and contact any family members in time, too.
Nothing but good things to say about Verizon (Score:1, Informative)
When my daughter was diagnosed with leukemia, and was in the ICU for a week and in the hospital for few more weeks, the last thing on my mind were my cell phone minutes and my plan...
Both me and my wife (family plan) made so many calls that we got a two bills (we did not open our bills for a few months) for over $1,000 each (sorry do not recall the exact figure)
One call to Verizon, quick explanation of what happened, and they wiped out all the excess charges, put me on a larger plan, and gave me a 22% discount on top of (which they still honor, so today I still pay 22% less)
In all other occasions where I had to call for support, billing or technical, or just to ask a quesiont, all issues were resolved quickly and efficiently, and to my complete satisfaction.
Re:How do you punish a corporation? (Score:3, Informative)
Cell phone technology is still new, and the capabilities are still being learned.
This is true, and cell providers still haven't standardized even by region, let alone provider, how to send caller information to 911 dispatch stations. Every time a client of mine decides to deploy PhaseII at their center, programming has to come up with a new workaround for whatever weird quirk their local providers have with their service.
On the other hand, getting specifications and parameters from the telcos is like pulling teeth, even when it's for 911 call centers, so 3/4's of the time we end up having to figure out what's different on our own. Verizon definitely has the most quirky rebid setup of any of the providers we deal with.
Re:Not murder (Score:5, Informative)
Read it again:
during which time the sheriff's department was trying to figure out how to pay the bill
The $20 wasn't the issue. The fucking paperwork was the issue.
Re:Not murder (Score:3, Informative)
You're thinking of Qwest actually. AT&T and the rest of the phone companies handed over data without a warrant, and Qwest told the US Gov to go pound sand.
Re:Not murder (Score:2, Informative)
Warrant not Necessary (Score:4, Informative)
See e.g. Searches And Seizures FAQ (PDF) [jamessansonelaw.com]. The police don't need a warrant if they have a reasonable fear that their safety, or that of the public, is in imminent danger. This case seems to be a cut and dried emergency case. Now, whether the Verizon operator had a legal duty (moral duty is obvious) to comply with the police's emergency request.. I imagine the operator, or Verizon itself, could be charged with Obstruction of Justice [wikipedia.org].
Re:Not murder (Score:2, Informative)
Informative? Do not mod him up, it's a troll. From tfa:
the sheriffâ(TM)s department agreed to pay the overdue bill. After some disagreement, Williams agreed to pay $20 on the phone bill in order to find the man
Re:Not murder (Score:3, Informative)
If government is trusted to hand out the actual death penalty to living human beings defended by draftee lawyers, why not to large corporations that are surely better represented?
I might be wrong, but it's my understanding that the death penalty can not be invoked without it's use first being approved by a jury of peers. That is to say, the government is expressly not trusted to hand it out.
Re:Not murder (Score:3, Informative)
Back in 2000, maybe 2001, Verizon bought out my cell phone company, AirTouch. I had been an AirTouch customer for 4 1/2 years without any problems. Within just one month under Verizon, I called them up, told them to disconnect my service, and that as long as I had a choice, I would never do business with them again for the rest of my life. Yes, it was that bad.
You may or may not be familiar with the now-famous "verizon math fail" recording that was posted on YouTube. That recording was about 22 minutes long, and has since been removed from YouTube for some unknown reason. A greatly abbreviated version of the recording is available here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lCJ3Oz5JVKs&feature=PlayList&p=95B5172372D9931E&index=0&playnext=1 [youtube.com]
The full transcript of the phone conversation is available here: http://verizonmath.blogspot.com/2006/12/transcription-jt.html [blogspot.com]
Even more astounding than this massive, multiple-empoloyee FAILURE, is this reply he received via mail later: http://verizonmath.blogspot.com/2006/12/just-got-email-from-verizon.html [blogspot.com]
This astounding and almost unbelievable blunder caused a huge number of emails and phone calls to Verizon, and at first they still refused to get the point: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WdKwRdWocco [youtube.com]
And just for good measure, here is a recording of another service call made to Verizon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nGCOiC6YQ18&feature=related [youtube.com]
Re:Not murder (Score:3, Informative)
I hope the hell it is. In another country I lived in, it sure was a felony to hinder or refuse aid in emergencies. It would be considered abandonment with death as a result, and would carry the same sentence as manslaughter.
Here in the US, it appears to be the other way around -- don't try to help anyone, because you risk being sued for doing so.
Still, when a police officer on duty states that there is an emergency and someone's life is at stake, I would think that even the US would have laws that supersede corporate rules.
The supervisors of whoever refused help are likely the liable parties here -- if they haven't told the employees to cooperate in life-and-death emergencies, it's on them. The employees themselves? Face it, they're only half a step up from asking "do you want fries with that?", and are paid not to think, and never deviate from their instructions on the pain of risking losing their job.