--- title: Whoops! Verizon Says Sorry for Customer's $2 Million Cellphone Bill description: A Verizon Wireless customer from Oregon checked his account balance over the phone and was astonished to learn it over $2 million. authors: - name: Brad Tuttle role: Senior Editor url: https://money.com/author/brad-tuttle/ bio: Brad Tuttle is a former senior editor at Money with over 10 years’ experience covering a vast number of personal finance topics, including careers, cars, travel, budgeting, investing, insurance, credit cards, consumer psychology, real estate, banking, and shopping and deals. education: Columbia University School of Journalism, MS at_money_since: 2014 articles: 366 covers: - Personal Finance - Banking - Business - Career Advice - Credit - Credit Cards - Economy and Politics - Education - Health and Wellness - Housing - Identity Theft - Insurance - Investing - Lifestyle - Loans - Mortgages - Pets - Professional Services - Retirement - Shopping - Taxes - Technology social: - https://twitter.com/bradrtuttle - https://linkedin.com/in/brad-tuttle-834b225 former_staff: true published: '2015-09-24T19:14:46.000Z' modified: '2024-04-16T06:56:34.000Z' section: Personal Finance tags: - billing - cellphones - Verizon word_count: 322 canonical: https://money.com/verizon-2-million-cellphone-bill/ type: Article source: structured-blocks --- > **Disclosure:** We research all brands listed and may earn a fee from our partners. Research and financial considerations may influence how brands are displayed. Not all brands are included. [Learn more](https://money.com/page/disclaimer/). ![Pedestrians walk past a Verizon Wireless store in San Francisco on April 15, 2015.](https://img.money.com/2015/09/150924_em_vzbill.jpg?crop=0px%2C21px%2C2100px%2C1181px&quality=85) Many cellphone customers have received bills that were higher than they'd anticipated, thanks to surprise taxes, fees, overages, and whatnot. But it's safe to say that no one's bill has been quite as unexpectedly high as that of Ken Slusher, a Verizon Wireless customer from Oregon recently confronted with the news that he owed a balance of over $2 million. As Slusher related this week to local TV station [KPTV](http://www.kptv.com/story/30093504/damascus-couple-trying-to-resolve-mistaken-2million-cell-phone-bill), he and his girlfriend purchased two phones last November, and they used Verizon service only for a month. The billing has been screwy from the beginning. They'd expected the initial bill to be around $120, but it wound up asking for $698, and showed an additional balance of $451. They cancelled the service and returned the phones, but recently Slusher started receiving notices from collection agencies demanding $2,000 and up. Slusher says he's talked to Verizon about the problem for months, and while the company admitted there had been some mistake, the issue was never resolved. He's been especially worried about the collection agencies because their claims could ruin the mortgage he is trying to get on a new home. Then, earlier this week, Slusher called Verizon's automated service line to check his balance, and this is what he heard: “Your total amount due is $2,156,593.64.” What happened? It's not entirely clear. Verizon [released a statement](http://www.oregonlive.com/business/index.ssf/2015/09/cell_phone_bill_tops_2_million.html) on Wednesday, acknowledging the obvious—that a mistake was made. A REALLY BIG mistake. "We have apologized to an Oregon customer for a programming error in an automated voice response system that caused him to receive an incorrect message that he owed $2 million on his bill," the company said. "We are correcting the error now and have resolved the issue to the customer's satisfaction." Let's hope Verizon is willing to cover the health care costs of the next customer who gets a million-dollar bill—and promptly has a heart attack. ***MORE:*** [The Best Cellphone Plans of 2015](https://money.com/best-cellphone-plans-2015/) ```json { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@graph": [ { "@type": "BreadcrumbList", "@id": "https://money.com/verizon-2-million-cellphone-bill/#breadcrumb", "itemListElement": [ { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 1, "name": "Home", "item": "https://money.com" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 2, "name": "Personal Finance", "item": "https://money.com/personal-finance/" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 3, "name": "Credit Card Debt", "item": "https://money.com/credit-card-debt/" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 4, "name": "Whoops! 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