Recently, Verizon was accused by a user on TikTok of fraudulently withdrawing almost $1,000 from her account and then refusing to immediately refund it.
While this incident was frustrating enough for the original TikToker, another user’s video suggests that this may be a pattern of behavior for the company.
In a clip with over 20,000 views as of Friday, TikTok user TiTi (@frecklezncurlz) says she purchased a WiFi hotspot from the company and was supposed to receive a $200 gift card as part of a promotion. She did not immediately receive the gift card—instead, she says her account was fraudulently charged $400.
“What? I don’t even owe y’all a bill yet,” she remembered thinking.
Upon contacting the company, she was told that the charge was a “system error” and that they would be refunding the money not to her bank account, but to her Verizon account. When TiTi pushed back on this idea, she was told it was the only way the situation could be rectified.
Frustrated, she decided not to pursue the issue any longer, thinking she could simply use the Verizon account credit to pay her future bills.
When this credit ran out, TiTi says she received an email from the company apologizing for not giving her the $200 she was originally promised. In its place, they told her they would put a credit for $333 on her account.
Despite sending this email, she says Verizon did not provide her with the credit for several weeks, eventually prompting TiTi to call and resolve the issue. She was finally given the credit—but then, something interesting happened.
“My card stays locked, and my card is no longer on file with Verizon,” she explains. “I get an alert that they just try to hit my card for—guess how much? $333.”
This seemed to confuse and anger TiTi.
“I’d like to know, where did you get this card from? Because I took my card off of your account,” she says. “How many times are you gonna blame the system?”
@frecklezncurlz #verizon #fyp ♬ original sound – TiTi 🇵🇷⭐️
In the comments section, users shared their own issues with the company.
“They just charged 150 on my account and they can’t explain to me why when I’ve paid all my bills,” said a user.
“This happened to me I called everyday until. They got it right,” offered another. “I don’t use auto pay for that reason.”
“Girl I been thru it with [them],” stated a third. “Soon as I am finish paying them I’m done they are scammers.”
The Daily Dot reached out to Verizon via email and TiTi via TikTok direct message.
Update 12:56pm CT Feb. 28: In a TikTok DM exchange with the Daily Dot, TiTi suspected that something was amiss with Verizon.
“I definitely think this is on Verizon, as it’s something that is continuous and that happens with a lot of their customers and it’s something that happens frequently,” she wrote. “A lot of the times, they don’t like to take accountability for what they’ve done and then when they take money from us, it’s almost impossible for us to get it back.”
“My question is, if they were to have charged it, would I have ever gotten it back? Or would have it been just ‘credited’ to my account the way it was in November?” she continued. “In November, they didn’t even notify me — I saw it on my account and contacted them!”
To conclude, TiTi offered a message to Verizon.
“Be more loyal to your customers,” she stated. “Make sure that the effort put into the fraud department, and the effort when something is taken, is the same effort put into giving back what was taken from customers. We are customers for a reason! We would like to be treated with respect!”
