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Tech: Yahoo! News - Complaints Over Cell Phone Service Abound: “Consumers complain of frequently dropped calls, lousy customer service and exorbitant penalties for exiting a contract. Then there are the fees - Verizon Wireless plans to collectively charge customers more than $173 million a year in fees for number portability alone.

The complaints range from mundane to dramatic.

After Julie McMurry’s husband died last summer, Verizon Wireless told the Enumclaw, Wash. woman that she would have to pay an early termination fee on his cell phone contract. ‘I said, ‘This isn’t an arbitrary thing, I’d be glad to fax you a copy of the death certificate. The man’s dead.”

The Verizon rep said McMurry could either pay the fee or give the phone to another family member.

She called Carl Hilliard, president of the Wireless Consumers Alliance. “I just happened to be in a meeting with Verizon Wireless’s attorney and mentioned it to him,” Hilliard said. “It was reversed.”
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