Verizon Math

I care a lot more about outcomes than whether the person I'm talking to is "real" or not. If my bill gets corrected by an AI but not a person? I'll take the AI. Think of the classic "is 0.002 cents the same as 0.002 dollars?" call - https://verizonmath.blogspot.com/ - I just tested, and chatGPT seems to understand the difference - so maybe this would be a case where the AI is better.

I assume you meant 10c and not 0.1c. (See https://verizonmath.blogspot.com/)

Verizon math can be a little wonky sometimes: https://verizonmath.blogspot.com/

Amazing this 20 year old blog is still up. Verizon doesn't know the difference between cents per kilobyte and dollars per kilobyte: https://verizonmath.blogspot.com/2006/12/verizon-doesnt-know-dollars-f…

The details of this debacle are still available at https://verizonmath.blogspot.com/!

This reminds of the internet classic VerizonMath: http://verizonmath.blogspot.com/2006/12/verizon-doesnt-know-dollars-fr…

This reminds me of this hysterically funny customer service call to Verizon: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MShv_74FNWU More of the backstory: https://verizonmath.blogspot.com/

(116800000+64896000)*0.00385/100 == 6995 Source: http://verizonmath.blogspot.com

Your pricing page is not as clear as it could be. When people read "$0.001 each" they sometimes understand it to be one thousandth of a cent rather than one thousandth of a dollar. Even though you are completely correct/accurate, people find it confusing (1). Wouldn't it be clearer to say "1 cent fore every ten uses" (or "10 calls for a cent" or "a tenth of a penny per call")? Admittedly, your audience is semi-technical, and should parse it correctly, but why not simplify it? [1] http://verizonmath.blogspot.com/

It's interesting how easily people mistake orders of magnitude when they are using different units of measure simultanously -- in the article you linked, first they say: give it a mark-up from 0.03p to 95p per half litre; and then: In other words, Dasani is less healthy than regular tap water, but at more than thirty times the price. It's not thirty times the price -- it's three thousand. It reminds me of a Verizon Math story[1]. [1] - http://verizonmath.blogspot.com/

Related: Verizon Math http://verizonmath.blogspot.com/

> $0.001 cent https://verizonmath.blogspot.com/2006/12/verizon-doesnt-know-dollars-f…

ah, verizon and billing mistakes, name a more iconic duo. immediately reminded me of the "verizon doesn't know dollars from cents" phone call circa 2006. https://verizonmath.blogspot.com/2006/12/verizon-doesnt-know-dollars-f… https://verizonmath.blogspot.com/2007/08/original-recording-of-verizon…

I'm guessing the same kind of people who don't understand the difference between 0.002 dollars and 0.002 cents (http://verizonmath.blogspot.com/2006/12/verizon-doesnt-know-dollars-fr…

It's Verizon math. http://verizonmath.blogspot.com/2006/12/verizon-doesnt-know-dollars-fr…

Do/did you work for Verizon? http://verizonmath.blogspot.com/2006/12/verizon-doesnt-know-dollars-fr…

Back in 2006, Verizon was similarly confused over the meaning of ".002 cents per kilobyte." http://verizonmath.blogspot.com/2006/12/verizon-doesnt-know-dollars-fr…

Oh lord, it's this all over again: http://verizonmath.blogspot.ca/2006/12/verizon-doesnt-know-dollars-fro…

Obligatory, sort of related post from 2006. http://verizonmath.blogspot.com/2006/12/verizon-doesnt-know-dollars-fr…

I think your friend was actually trying to tell you about this story [1] not something that actually happened to them. [1] http://verizonmath.blogspot.co.uk/2006/12/verizon-doesnt-know-dollars-…

Remember your units!! http://verizonmath.blogspot.com/2006/12/verizon-doesnt-know-dollars-fr…

0.02 cents and $0.02 are two different things. I was confused by your reply. See [1] for a very frustrating example where Verizon reps made the same mistake. [1] http://verizonmath.blogspot.nl/2007/08/original-recording-of-verizon-c…

I'm getting flashbacks to the VerizonMath Fiasco. http://verizonmath.blogspot.com/2007/08/original-recording-of-verizon-…

Sorry but .. "$0.02 cents"? Do you mean "$0.02", or "2 cents" or two hundredths of one cent, or something else? Is this Verizon writing? ( http://verizonmath.blogspot.com/2006/12/verizon-doesnt-know-dollars-fr… )

As a counterpoint, I think in cents per minute regarding phone calls. I can translate $0.008 with a bit of thought but 0.8 cents is immediately obvious. Perhaps that would trip up people at Verizon[0] who think 0.99 cents is equal to 99 cents, but I think your units are fine as-is. [0] http://verizonmath.blogspot.ca/2006/12/verizon-doesnt-know-dollars-fro…

And some of them don't even understand basic arithmetic: http://verizonmath.blogspot.com/2006/12/verizon-doesnt-know-dollars-fr…

Only for reasonably numerate folks. See http://verizonmath.blogspot.com/2006/12/verizon-doesnt-know-dollars-fr… for a related horror story (Verizon and USA, but the basic point holds - you should understand what they really mean, and logic/reason holds no relevance!)

I hate it when I do that! Obviously 25 cents. http://verizonmath.blogspot.com/2006/12/verizon-doesnt-know-dollars-fr…

There was a big stink a few years about about the same 0.015 "cents" with Verizon. The guy recorded his phone call, and wrote a series of blog posts about it. http://verizonmath.blogspot.com/2006/12/verizon-doesnt-know-dollars-fr…

It has to help that he's semi-famous. I remember the exact same thing happening to a Verizon customer a few years back, and it certainly took longer than 5 hours for him to get his money back. http://verizonmath.blogspot.com/2006/12/verizon-doesnt-know-dollars-fr… (the audio link has gone dead) These companies need to learn math.