VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. - "Hold the phone!” That is what some Verizon customers are being forced to do after discovering an unknown spike in data usage on their bills, customers like Virginia Beach resident Heather Mullis.
Mullis told News 3 if she had not noticed the extreme spike in her family’s data usage plan, she was on her way to using over 60 gigabytes of data in just one month.
Virginia Beach resident Heather Mullis talks to News 3's Merris Badcock about an unexplained spike in data usage.
Mullis says she has no idea why there was a sudden spike in her family’s data usage on Verizon, but she says Verizon did not know why it was happening either.
Mullis started receiving text messages from Verizon over the weekend, warning her of overusing her data plan. So she checked her account.
“That is when I discovered the, ‘Oh my goodness, my boyfriend has used 17 gigs of data in less than 24 hours,’” Mullis told News 3.
Typically, the phone uses less than one gig of data a month, according to the couple’s phone bills.
Verizon say one phone line on Mullis' family plan went from using less than one gig per month, to over 17 gigs in 24 hours.
Mullis, who has worked for both Sprint/Nextel and AT&T, spent over five and a half hours on the phone with Verizon to try to get the issue resolved.
“Long story short, through that entire time, their big solution was, ‘Oh, we can just always up your data plan,’” Mullis said. “I told them that is not a solution.”
The Tumblr app was thought to be the culprit, but even after deleting it, the phone number continued to blow through data surpassing 30 gigs on the family plan in just a few days.
“I’m going to have to get on the phone with Verizon again. Their solution will be, ‘Oh, lets just up your data plan.’ How much are you going to up it now? I’m already at 30,” said Mullis.
Recently, the FCC opened an investigation into Verizon after seeing a spike of their own: customers complaining of high bills because of unexplained data overages.
Verizon is comping the difference of Mullis’s bill for now, but Mullis told News 3 she is tired of being blamed by Verizon for something she did not do.
“I just want an explanation,” she said. “I should not have to pay for your error.”
