This is simultaneously frustrating and hilarious:
Verizon Cant’ Count (Youtube)
Verizon Still Can’t Count (Youtube)
The VerizonMath blog

The issue here is a very simple one of UNITS. Remember in your science classes (probably chemistry?) where you were told to keep your units? Here’s the situation:

1. Verizon quotes a price of 0.002 CENTS per kilobyte
2. Man goes to Canada and uses approximately 33,000 kilobytes.
3. Man receives bill for approximately $70.00

Do you see the problem?

1. 0.002 CENTS = $0.00002
2. 33,000 x 0.002 CENTS = 66 CENTS
or, in dollars: 33,000 x $0.00002 = $0.66

Verizon kept arguing that: 33,000 x 0.002 CENTS = 66.00 DOLLARS.

The issue here is clear: The result came up with the format xx.xx which causes the people to immediately think “oh! dollars!” and forget that the original equation is in CENTS. Verizon’s ACTUAL rate is $0.002, but the operators were quoting it as CENTS. Why would the operators do this? Probably because people subconsciously associate anything after the decimal point as being cents.

Tell your friends. Link to these pages. The more people that link to it the higher it’s google ranking!

Categories: Geekery, Humor, Rants