Verizon Internet Taking Advantage Of The Emergency Broadband Benefit Program
There’s a new program available that can help you save money on your internet bill each month. The Emergency Broadband Benefit is designed so that up to $50 can be deducted from your bill, making it a little easier to pay your utilities while keeping the necessary services in your home that you need.
Unfortunately, there are some internet providers like MetroNet that are taking advantage of the program and the customers who rely on internet services.
The program offers billions of dollars that customers can use to decrease their internet bills until it runs out of money.
This is a voluntary program for providers as companies aren’t mandated to participate. If a provider chooses to take part in the program, it can dictate a few rules of its own that customers have to abide by in order to get the discount. This is where some companies are taking advantage of customers in order to get more money from the program.
The Prime Suspect:
At the top of the list of providers who have taken advantage of the program is Verizon. Customers have to call a phone number provided by Verizon in order to complete an application instead of going through the Emergency Benefit Broadband website.
When customers contact Verizon, they are told that they have to upgrade the plan that they have in order to obtain the benefit as the company can’t offer the benefit for older plans. This is not true as the benefit is supposed to be used for all broadband services.
Even though companies can require this, it’s not something that the benefit program promotes or agrees with as it means that some customers might not see a decrease in what they pay at all.
New Plans:
Some customers have been told that they would need to enroll in the Fios plan that Verizon has established before a deduction in the amount of the bill can be made.
However, the new plan is more expensive, which means that customers would still be paying the same amount that they paid for the old plan once the $50 deduction is applied to the bill. Once the program runs out of money, customers won’t have the $50 deduction to fall back on and will have a higher bill to pay each month.
Some customers feel that the new plan is a way for Verizon and some other providers to get people to add more services to the plan that they have or to think that they are getting a deal if they sign up for a plan simply because they hear that they are getting a deduction.
Once customers really look at the new plan that Verizon offers, many of them don’t want to take the bait. They have decided to keep the plan that they already have and pay the current monthly rate instead of paying more money.
For some customers, the final price that they would have to pay would depend on the television package that they select or the internet package they select with some packages having a price tag of close to $100 a month.
Some customers have been told that they would need to pay more equipment fees as well if they decide to go with the new plan that Verizon offers. For many customers, they are caught in the middle of a program that is supposed to offer benefits for families and a company that only wants to make more money.
