Verizon Math Fail: When it Comes to Social Media, Bad Reputations Never Really Goes Away

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lCJ3Oz5JVKs&hl=en&fs=1]

Verizon Customer Service: Viral Video of the Day (February 5th)

Today, the FAIL Blog website posted a humorous recording between a Verizon customer and a customer service representatives over a billing issue. As of the the time of this writing (only 8:39 PM of the day of the post), there are over 1,000 comments on the FAIL Blog post, 469k views of the video on YouTube and over 3,900 mentions on other blogs and other websites. And oh, if you type “verizon customer service” on Google, the top 10 search results have two webpages pointing to the video.

The Video is Actually Over Two Years Old

The viral video on Verizon’s customer service has been spreading on the Internet, but rarely is it mentioned when this recording occurred. Indeed, if you see multiple blogs citing this Verizon video you would think the customer service recording was very recent.

George Vaccaro, the man on the Verizon customer service call, actually recorded the call in December 2006!

Lesson for PR, Customer Service and Community Managers: Not only does bad news spread fast, it can have a second or third life spreading around the Internet.


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4 responses to “Verizon Math Fail: When it Comes to Social Media, Bad Reputations Never Really Goes Away”

  1. Cirrus Avatar
    Cirrus

    There are two different rates. Version just didn’t get it.

    $0.002 of dollor and 0.002 of a cent are two differnt numbers!!! if I where charged $0.002 of a dollor for 10 kilibite the amount charges should be .002 which is 2 Cents. if I where charged 0.002 cents (which is less than one penny) than I would be charged .00002 which is a 5th of a penny.

  2. abc Avatar
    abc

    $0.00002 is not a 5th of a penny. If the rate was 0.002 cents per kb, then in dollar terms, it would be $0.00002 per kb. Then, for 10 kbs, it would be $0.0002, which is 2% of a penny ($0.00002 X 10). 5th of a penny would be $0.002, or 20% of a penny.

  3. def Avatar
    def

    You either meant one fiftieth of a penny, which is 2%, or you meant to write $0.002. I suspect that $0.00002 was a simple typo and you meant to write $0.0002, and you misread $0.0002 as $0.002. In turn, I suspect there were two separate things going on.

  4. […] Evidence. It doesn’t take much to get a bad customer service experience posted on FAILBlog, where it can hang around for weeks, months or years. The physical evidence is now in the form of […]

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