[Xoom General] androidlurker:
I truly hope this appeal comes across to other members on this board as sincere and reasonable; for the record I am in my mid-30s; I am a veteran of the United States Marine Corps, having served honorably in times far safer and far less treacherus than my Marine brothers serve today; I have an undegraduate degree from UCLA, and a law degree from Chapman University School of Law. I am very fortunate to call myself employed, having graduated in the middle of the worst economy and job market that this country has seen in multiple generations. After nearly a year of fruitless searches for a job, indeed ANY job, I landed a career with a historic, admired financial services company as a fiduciary for client assets. I am disclosing this not for any reason aside from my need to communicate, as clearly as possible, that I am not here to fling poo, rant and rave about a minor error, or throw a temper tantrum in a public forum. I am not perfect, but I do believe I am rational and reasonable, and I hope to rationally and reasonably communicate this problem in order to facilitate some method of combating it.

This evening, I spent a number of hours attempting to fix a major billing error made by Verizon wireless. This is not the first call I have made since purchasing my Xoom, and the promises made by Verizon employees on previous phone calls and store visits were apparently nothing more than stall tactics. This billing error is directly related to my Xoom, which my girlfrend purchased for me for my birthday, the 26th of February. We are not wealthy, but she saved for some time to buy what she knew I wanted but did not expect. Even with the early adopter issues I and many of you have experienced, I still thoroughly enjoy my Xoom and know that I will continue to enjoy it as much, and likely more so, than I have enjoyed the moto Droid 1 that has capitalized my inner geek's attention for the past year.

In my capacity at my job, I have personally invested in, and compelled clients and coworkers to invest in, the companies that I believed would prosper as Android grew in popularity. My knowledge and experience with high performance desktop rigs and mobile devices allowed me to understand, in mid 2010, the potential value of companies like ARM Holdings, nVidia, and Atmel, when their stock values hovered at near all-time lows. And I was correct in predicting the changes in the consumer technology landscape - what I failed to take into consideration was just how deep into the grey areas of law and morality the major channel of android devices, Verizon Wirelss, would venture in order to give it a market advantage over its competitors.

I have been a happy customer of Verizon, and have had virtually zero complaints since becoming an Android user in early 2010. In fact I have been instrumental in converting a fairly large number of friends and coworkers into Android users on Verizon's network, something I would not have done if I thought for a second that my recommendation would lead to the kind of issues I am beginning to see with customers similarly situated to me.

Without explaining the details of my current complaints against Verizon, understand that I have very little faith that Verizon is going to address my complaints with any sort of good faith or fair dealings. After my repeated attempts to reverse the questionable actions of Verizon employees relating to my account, it appears as though Verizon is engaged in a series of de minimus infractions against a customer base lacking any bargaining power and damaged in amounts small enough to pass quietly over the heads of those tasked with protecting consumers from such activities.

If you bought a Xoom at full retail and declined any data plans, you will likely discover that you are being billed for the data plan you declined to use. If you already discovered this and think you have already fixed the "error" by contacting verizon, you will likely see that your call to verizon was completely ignored. If you contact verizon to ask why verizon has repeatedly ignored your desire to be free of any data plans, you will likely be treated like a child and misled to believe that purchasing a Xoom requires that you pay for a month-to-month data plan. Never mind that we know this to be untrue, because it is clear that verizon intends to collect as much revenue as it can during a product launch mired in confusing, contradictory and misleading terms.

Banking on the inability of an individual consumer to withstand delay tactics and phone shuffling from ineffective customer rep to ineffective customer rep, verizon is hoping that only a fraction of the erroneus and fraudulent charges will be fought hard enough to warrant reversal. For every $10 million that verizon will overcharge xoom buyers, if only 10% of defrauded customers fight the good fight and see theirncharges reversed, Verizon will see a $9 million windfall. Thisnis not a new tactic in business, just one I did not expect Verizon to take.

We do have some leverage, we just need to figure out how to utilize it. I presumr this is a good enough forum to seek out other not willing to take a $300 shaft from verizon, especially after paying $800 for a luxury like a xoom.

Any thoughts? Ideas? How can we become a squeaky enough wheel such that we're made right and others are not subject to deceitful tactics with little or no recourse?