US Telco Support > Frontier Communications > [FiOS] Conversion Billing Adjustment

[FiOS] Conversion Billing Adjustment

From my printed bill:

Thanks!

Mine was $4.99 and they said it was because Verizon had different dates for phone and internet/tv. We never saw it because it was on 1 bill. Frontier just now got them in sync. At least that was what I was told.

Makes sense, I suppose.

No. It does not make any sense. I called and they said, "let me check if that is a valid charge." Gladly, I did not have to argue. They came back and said "there have been a couple of these." A couple? A couple hundred thousand maybe.

Mine was $7.99. Called this morning and explained my March-April Bills were very similar to the ones before and their explanation about billing gaps during that period did not make sense. The CSR removed the charge from the bill. Worth giving them a call, the CSR (from Texas) was very courteous.

reply to Cyberian75

Re: [FiOS] Conversion Billing Adjustment

If I understand it correctly, Frontier didn't bill us for those 6 days each month after the conversion.

reply to alvinmoneypi
It's more of a change to the billing cycle date. For example, if you were previously billed for service in a cycle of say, Feb 2nd through March 1st. That would be one month. It took 6 days for the bill to be generated, so you'd get sent a bill on Feb 8th for that period of Feb 2nd to March 1st. Now they switch billing systems where the bill is generated on the same day. Instead of shifting the printing date backward, they shifted the billing cycle forward. So now your next bill is for the cycle between March 8th to April 7th, and the bill gets sent to you on March 8th. You got billed the same amount (because it's still for a full month of service), but notice what happened here. You didn't get billed for March 2nd through March 7th because of the shift. That is the "gap" to align the old cycle to the new cycle.

The happens any time you change billing cycle dates for any type of recurring payment. For example, when I changed my due date on my auto loan, they tacked this extra gap amount on to the end of my auto loan (so I ended up with a 61st payment at the end of $xx instead of only 60 payments $xxx). Other companies bill it up front where you'd pay that $xx amount as an extra charge. Depends on the company and billing system in use.
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Transparency Disclosure and Disclaimer: I am a Frontier employee posting in my own personal capacity. The opinions and positions expressed are my own and do not necessarily reflect those of Frontier.

Ben, Thanks for the lucid response.
Yes, this is what it now looks like they appeared to be doing. However, I've never seen these charges assessed to a "bill' - they are usually in the closing at the time the purchase agreement is signed. Now I'm not 'up to date' on what companies are permitted legally to do, but I'd expect they can do a whole lot more than when we had a modicum of regulation left. But when I purchased my car in 2009 and some 20 years ago my house, both contracts stipulated in them the date payment was due and the date late fees and possible further action would apply. This is what I'm saying, I believe it used to be illegal for companies to unilaterally change their billing cycle like this to collect more money in advance - that's why you have them stipulated in contracts of more consequential property, so neither party could take unfair advantage. But regardless of what is permitted now, your explanation is a far better one than my CSR or her supervisor were able to give me on my call, and I thank you.
As I said earlier, they just kept saying that I had already received "free days of service". When in fact, all they should have said was something to the effect of _ "we are billing later in the month, your bill is now due on the 8th versus the 1st and for those extra days this charge is applied." Anyway, this is what you appeared to say, correct?

Correct.

And if you work the math out of money over time, I don't think they did this intentionally and ended up with any money in advance, because they caught this gap period after it had already passed. What probably happened is auditing noticed a sudden 15-20% drop in booked revenue when the totals for the conversion month came in, freaked out, and started off in search of an accounting error. What they found instead was a billing cycle error and had to come back after to bill the customers to get their books straight again. Based off of how corporate cash flow is generally booked and managed (e.g., investing the revenue float and borrowing off short term bonds for expense), and even though you were asked to pay a few dollars more later, Frontier likely took an overall loss on this mistake. That few dollars each customer wasn't booked in the proper time and thus not in Frontier's hand to invest during the month or two it took them to find and bill for the mistake. Even thought you paid it to the company at the end, Frontier still lost out on the use of that money. That means lost interest on the AR/revenue float, and/or extra interest paid on short-term bonds covering AP/expense. Not to mention a spike in churn from all the customers confused by the sudden odd charge. All-around bad news for the company.
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Transparency Disclosure and Disclaimer: I am a Frontier employee posting in my own personal capacity. The opinions and positions expressed are my own and do not necessarily reflect those of Frontier.

Ben,
In my case it wasn't months, it was years - I've been a Frontier customer since this area was sold to them by Verizon. In fact, I didn't elect to go with Frontier at all - At the completion of the sale I simply began receiving bills from Frontier instead of Verizon. The bills remained the same for a period of time, maybe as long as a year or more. Then last August they added the HSI charge without notice - in other states this generated law suits.

When I contacted them regarding this latest charge they seemed to keep pointing at the time in March or April when they "simplified" the billing (you know, when my 18 digit account number became a 17 digit number including my phone number, and they added a PIN number they require when they talk about your bill). I mean if they waited that long to reconcile the discrepancy from the takeover some years ago, It's clear, I think, that they cannot manage their own affairs let alone those of others.
I'm thinking this is something they lately came up with to briefly increase revenue in effect, since they bill in advance of the service, they are having me pay for more days in advance. I've paid them all the agreed price of the particular services and on time, so I don't owe them interest or anything. I see what you're saying , "they probably lost money" but it's not my fault or obligation to make up their shortfall, and pushing my service time out a little further a few days this month is not going to preserve them for very long nor repeating this in the future will not be tolerated very long by anyone.
Since they took over this area I've had more connectivity issues and service outages than I ever had with Verizon, service time they told me I cannot recover.
Ben, I'd respect them more if they just simply notified me they were increasing rates instead of these stealth adjustments and mystery charges it's more dignified.

reply to Cyberian75
Just got my billing adjustment. $7.40. And a month or two ago I lost my $10 credit which I had since I joined with Verizon years ago. Loved it when it was Verizon, hating it now with Frontier billing and Frontier DNS hijacking.

reply to Ben J
I just called billing and simply stated (truthfully) that my bill has been the same before and after the conversion for each month. The rep put me on hold and went back through my account and verified that was the case. She then credited my account for the $6.83 shown on my bill. I wonder what was the algorithm used to calculate the "adjustment". Obviously it wasn't very robust...

reply to Cyberian75
I was hit with it too.

Looks like Frontier is trying to generate some extra revenue.

But I'm not going to bother to complain. To be honest, I'd consider the internet service I get from them a bargain at twice the price.

reply to Cyberian75
I phoned on this yesterday and was told it was for a lapse of a few days of billing from their converted billing to the first to last day of the month. But I save my statements and had all statements back to 2010; there was no lapse in billing as all statements showed the billing period to be the first to last day of month. But the service rep said it didn't matter because they are not allowed to adjust this charge anyway! They also signed me up for paperless billing without my knowledge; so I missed a bill and was charged a late fee. It feels like a shakedown to me.