Verizon employees are bad at math

[rbcp]

The picture of the check is funny enough (it's by the xkcd guy), but there's a whole story behind it involving Verizon's billing practices.  Apparently Verizon is advertising data rates on their cell phone services as .002 cents per kilobyte, but then they're actually charging people .002 dollars a kilobyte.  The story and the 26 minute long sound clip of a guy talking to various Verizon employees is at this site:

http://www.boingboing.net/2009/03/19/verizon-doesnt-under.html

Not only is their computer making this mistake, but every employee this George guy talks to insists that there is absolutely no difference between .002 cents and .002 dollars.  George is awesome at giving examples of why these numbers are different too, but each new level of supervisor refuses to agree with grade school level math.  The one at the end actually says to George, "That's your opinion..."

http://verizonmath.blogspot.com/ also has some extra details on this story and the latest xkcd comic references it in the alt text.

One other thing - the supervisor lady at the end of the call gives her phone number and direct extention.  I tried calling her on Friday but just got her voicemail.  It'd be fun to ask her some questions to subtly make fun of her poor math skills.

[DBK]

Bah, I did this at Burger King back in the day when they were advertising Whoppers for 0.99 cents.  I got a coupon out of it!

[barura]

That's pretty cool, if that was in Ireland, the person (cause we aren't really that fussy about stuff like this, land of consumers, YAY!) who would inquire about that would most likely be told to "Fuck off" in a whimsical way. Hell, I know I've been told to fuck off for being correct sometimes!

[sigflup]

This is fucking insane. They just don't get it, over and over again then say 0.002 cents. The check? Well deserved, I think.

[sigflup]

Does anyone have an english transcript or something of the recent pirtatebay trails? I hear the movie industry is similarly confused between kilobytes and kilobits. I don't speak swedish

[handl3r]

Does anyone have an english transcript or something of the recent pirtatebay trails? I hear the movie industry is similarly confused between kilobytes and kilobits. I don't speak swedish

bork bork bork

[rbcp]

After I listened to this I asked my kids (9 and 12) if .002 cents was the same as .002 dollars, just to see how easy it would be to mistake the two.  They immediately said no.  I tried to convince them otherwise, using the same arguments as the Verizon people, and they wouldn't believe it.  Nice to know my kids are at least a little smarter than Verizon supervisors.

[ApprenticePhreak]

Makes you wonder how many other people are getting the shaft when it comes to this being unable to figure the math. Granted a large portion of people will more than likely be unable to figure out what percentages are going to do what; granted it's easier to tell a percentage of 100 to 1, a good chunk of people won't realize they're being shafted.

Pay attention to your math, kids.

[Telcogal]

The Verizon Wireless folks are just as stupid:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WdKwRdWocco

[evilgold]

I remember reading about this but i never heard the call. This is great!