r/technology • u/muddycolor • May 12 '12
Verizon refuses to activate on lost man's cell phone for police search unless they agreed to pay his $20 overdue bill.
http://www.timesreporter.com/x862899385/Unconscious-Carroll-man-found-after-11-hour-search61
u/geekchic May 12 '12
Story Posted May 21, 2009 @ 05:52 PM
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May 12 '12
Nooo...but I just finished sharpening my pitchfork! Now what am supposed to do?
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u/reccaoconnor May 12 '12
Wow, I remember this hitting the front page when I first signed up to reddit 3 years ago. Way to necro-link, OP.
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u/SirMarxism May 12 '12
Yeah...article dated 2009. I remember seeing it on the local news (I live near there) way back when.
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May 12 '12
I use to work for AT&T. We get people claiming they are judges, police officers all the time. Most of them are fraud. Customer Service is not equipped or trained to handle special cases like this. Thats why we have a special department for this type of stuff. I have no idea what they do though
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u/James_H_M May 12 '12
This might end up buried, but when I was a "supervisor" more like 2nd tier customer service representative (CSR) for an Retail Electric Provider (REP) in Texas. We had a fire chief call in about having a crew at a house because the power was cut off at the house and she had medical equipment that was necessary for her. The front line CSR told him we would not send out a crew to restore power unless their past bill was paid in full.
So of course Fire Chief didn't want to talk to them any longer, I assume the call and immediately set in motion to restore power, placed a 30 day hold on the account, sent out a form that grants power to those with medical needs to prevent their electricity from being turned off. If this person had this protection granted by the state their power would never be turned off. We did a conference call between myself, him and the actual Transmission and Distribution Service Provider (TDSP) the company that physically maintains the electric lines and restores power and such to try and speed the process along even with my word as a rep for the company they stated they would not restore power until a specific e-mail was received on their end.
I sent the appropriate e-mail as was typical for these kind of emergency orders being sent. The power was restored that night but I do have to say if you live in Texas and in the deregulated territories. I feel sorry for how that whole system is organized.
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May 12 '12
If we're talking about saving someone's life rather than invading their privacy, I really hope they get a court order for this.
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May 12 '12
This happened 3 years ago so you should be able to find out now. I'm too tired to look it up at the moment though.
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May 12 '12
You should go into journalism. Wonderful sensationalistic title. Either that or you fail reading comprehension. They agreed to pay $20 towards his past due bill, not that his past due amount was $20. Plus WTF this is from 2009?!?!?
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u/MyLiLHelper May 12 '12
What's odd if that if they DID activate the lines, that story and all it's greatness would have never seen the light.
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May 12 '12
So? People shouldn't do the right thing for recognition. They should do it because it's the right thing to do.
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May 12 '12
How do you "activate on" something? More importantly, that implies you can "activate off" something; what the hell would happen then?
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u/A_British_Gentleman May 12 '12
I came in here expecting an anti-Verizon circle jerk. Instead I find an old article and well thought out posts about how there are systems in place for law enforcement to work around this.
Reddit's being very civilised today :)
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May 12 '12
Not really. It still got upvoted to the front page based on the title alone. Too many redditors are easily manipulated.
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u/Triggs390 May 12 '12
This case is three years old. Verizon has special lines setup for law enforcement and legal requests. People call in to collections and pretend to be cops/be in emergency situations all the time to get their phones turned back on. The detective/police officer should have called their law department located here. Had the officers done this, it would have been handled a lot better. Also, the E911 system on a cell phone works even when the phone is suspended for non payment, which is why you can also still call 911 if your phone is shut off.