Kansas customers have at least one week to cancel service and not pay a termination fee on Verizon Wireless.
Verizon has implemented a fee recovery charge on Kansas customers, called the KUSC. Quoting Verizon: “The KUSC is a Verizon Wireless charge, not a tax, and is subject to change. Please refer to “Our Rights To Make Changes” in your Customer Agreement for information about changes.”
Under carrier agreements with the CTIA, customers have a right to cancel service if any material change is made to their contract. We’ve covered in the past how carriers like Sprint have been great at honoring this, and AT&T has (arguably*) broken the law by not honoring it. Since Kansas is taxing Verizon, and not Verizon customers… Verizon’s passing the tax on to customers constitutes a material change to their service cost that Verizon is charging.
One oddity is that Verizon imposed a firm date of April 1 to cancel sans fees. That’s questionable considering you are supposed to have 30 days from either the change taking effect, or from notification in most cases, to terminate without a fee.
* The lawyers made us say that.
I hope they get dragged over the coals for that 2 week time frame
There is actually incorrect information in this article. The increase was approved by the Kansas Corporation Commission on Jan 20th and Verizon began notifying Kansas customers on their February bills. They stated it would become effective April 1. The standard Verizon notification period is 60 day, not 30 days so it would seem that some customers should have even a bit beyond April 1 but by the end of April the 60 days will have likely expired for all customers.
This topic has been discussed in great detail for a few weeks at “Just Say No to Verizon’s Mandatory Data Plans” group on facebook, at the verizon.com support forums under category “Voice and Broadband Calling Plans” and over at howardforums.com in a couple of different Verizon threads. I have personally assisted over 100 account moves from Verizon to other carriers using this method for customers who are upset about Verizon’s recent mandatory data plans / $240 price increase per line for midrange phones.
Selma,
Can you assist me in moving my phones out of Verizon. I’m sure to get the run around at the Verizon store. Would it be best to call Verizon or go into the store and do this. I’m sure I’m going to have to go up the chain to get this done because I’m sure they won’t just say “Oh your right, we will go ahead and let you leave without a ETF and have a nice day”…lol. Selma if you have any suggestions on how to make this as painless as possible to move from Verizon without the ETF I would greatly appreciate any advice.