Verizon Rep Threatens To Blow Up Man’s House Over Unpaid Bill

[The Straight Story]

Verizon Rep Threatens To Blow Up Man’s House Over Unpaid Bill
Las Cruces man claims unfair debt collections forced him to move



Al Burrows of Las Cruces, New Mexico, sued Verizon Wireless in Santa Fe's 1st Judicial District Court on April 20, claiming violations of state and federal debt collections laws, as well as "negligent infliction of emotional distress"--for which he wants the telecom giant to pay punitive damages. As of May 25, Verizon had yet to respond to a summons.

According to the lawsuit, last year Verizon bill collectors were making calls "too numerous to count" to Burrows over a relative's unpaid cell phone bill.

When he hung up on one of these calls, the Verizon rep called him back, and grew "vulgar" and "abusive" in an attempt "harass and intimidate" Burrows.

"In particular, representative stated that she knew where resided and said 'I am gonna blow your mother fucking house up.'"

The endless collection calls caused Burrows to change his address, the lawsuit claims.

http://www.sfreporter.com/santafe/blog-37-verizon-rep-threatens-to-blow-up-manrss-house-over.html

[proud2BlibKansan]

1. Interesting comment following that story:

Is this a professional journalistic report? It doesn't read like it. Too many details are lacking and the writing needs proofing. Must have been a quick deadline. The report all comes from the plaintiff, and the story is irrational. If any of this story is true, the VZW rep will be fired tomorrow because they record all their phone calls.

[Hannah Bell]

2. i think proofreading was outsourced long ago. doesn't seem to be a professional standard

any longer -- i catch typos/spelling errors in papers, magazines & books fairly regularly these days.

don't know about this story -- just saying, you can find typos even in mainline journalism these days.

[reggie the dog]

3. I use mainstream articles with my ESL students

and we find errors quite frequently

[Hannah Bell]

4. yep, i think the proofreading department = spellcheck.

it really did used to be a professional standard. you could read the equivalent of the encyclopedia britannica & not find an error.

weird how things change so fast.

but that's capitalism: all that is solid melts into air.

[Jim Sagle]

5. It's called Caller ID. Check into it.

[ejpoeta]

6. this sounds like something a 3rd party debt collector would do.

a business like verizon would sell the debt for pennies on the dollar to a 3rd party collector and write it off. 3rd party collector would call and harrass the person.... and they would harrass family who are under no obligation to pay someone else's debt unless they signed the contract or something. If the debt collector was violating FDCPA then an individual could take them to federal court, but verizon would not be responsible for collecting practices of a 3rd party debt collector.