Case 2 of how social media is leveling the playing field in the world of business, and giving the customer a bigger voice than ever before. For Case 1, click here.

#2 George Vaccaro VS. Verizon

George was travelling to Canada, so he called his cell phone carrier Verizon to ask what their roaming rates were for Canada (specifically for data charges). He was quoted .002 cents per kilobyte by Verizon. When he received his invoice, he realized that he had been charged .002 dollars per kilobyte (100 fold difference). When he called to clarify the situation, he ended up getting into “math education” with various Verizon representatives. Although the charge of $70 was not that significant, George’s main beef was how Verizon reps are quoting one figure, when their accounting system charges another. However, the Verizon reps that he was speaking with saw the numbers as the same thing.

He ended up taping one of his conversations and posting the audio up to You Tube (just search for Verizon math on You Tube and you will get there).

He also started a blog at http://verizonmath.blogspot.com/2006/12/verizon-doesnt-know-dollars-from-cents.html that documents his process. The response? The You Tube video that George created was viewed over 497,000 times at last count, and started a tidal wave of Verizon customers calling to dispute charges on their bills. George is now the “unofficial” voice of the Verizon customer, and Verizon has stated that it made a mistake (although it isn’t finished yet…)

Once again, I find it fascinating that one person can use technology to leverage their voice to get the message across to sometimes faceless corporations. Once the story caught on, and others chime in with the same message, the coporate entity has practically no choice but to address the issue.

If I stumble across any more of these, I will reference them on the site. In the meantime, if you have an experience that you would like to add by commenting below, feel free.