Hello Mpier1,
I have a post "Cox Mobile Discount Deal is a Fraud in Conspiracy with Citizens Pay" that goes into some deal about this scam. I have spoken directly with the Citizens Bank and Cox Communications Corporate Offices regarding this fictitious loan program. When talking to Cox or Citizens about the loan they refer to the other side as being responsible. They set up the program so they can blame each other so neither party claims responsibility for this scam.
Cox and Citizens have created these fictitious lines of credit as a means of locking the service for 24 months. The loan balance represents the full amount of the phone including the discount and is supposed to be reduced somehow each month over 24 months. The first month's payment, no one can come up with a real explanation for it, is supposed to be refunded to you at the end of the 24 months.
The absurd reason for this method is that Cox's system is not capable of tracking these service lock periods. What makes this explanation absurd is that their phone, internet, and tv system is capable of tracking lock periods. Therefore, in reality Citizen's is performing accounting services for Cox by tracking the remaining discount, but in the form of a loan that the customers are responsible for and impacts your credit score.
The result of this fraud is that there is a loan in your name and on your credit report with the line of credit amount as available credit and the loan balance. This loan will have a negative impact on your credit score because not only is there a loan with an outstanding balance and monthly payment, but also the line of credit probably is for an amount greater than the loan balance. The unused balance of this line of credit will be reflected as available credit on your credit report. So, you should check your credit score a month after this fraud goes into effect.
I have also discovered that Cox reps in the stores were intentionally not informed of the details of the financing program. Obviously, they withheld the information otherwise nobody would sign up for this fraud.
My next set is going to be referring this fraud to elected officials and regulators in order to see that legislation is passed locally and nationally to ban this kind of fraudulent transactions.
Good luck.
Cox just resells Verizon service. Could be part of the reason they don't train their reps. Up to a little while, Social Media Team didn't even take cellular support issues. I suggest just going directly to the source. If you are looking for something cheaper, then go with a better reseller like Visable. IMO Cox is only good for Internet, and even then only if you don't have a fiber competitor.
Hello WiderMouthOpen,
I am not sure if you are related to Cox or not, I can tell you after having probably about 10 hours of conversations with Cox and Citizens Pay Customer Service Supervisors and representatives from both Cox and Citizens Bank's Corporate Offices, each aspect of this fraud is purely intentional. During my conversations, I have offered multiple legit methods of structuring the promotion that accomplishes their goal of locking the customer for 24 months without screwing the customer. But they are not interested in doing the right thing.
Unlike all other providers with a lock and penalty to change providers before the end of the lock period, Cox has made the conscious decision to hold their customers credit rating hostage permanently by creating a fictitious line of credit. This fictitious loan is in the amount of the entire purchase price of the phone(s), not just the customer's portion. Therefore, the customer has guaranteed Cox's portion of the purchase price. If Cox does not make their payment (which is a story for another day) or is late the customer is still responsible.
At the end of the day, Cox and Citizens have conspired to create a promotion that creates no liability for Cox and places all the risk of potential damage on their customers. Cox is one of the few companies I have interacted with that has such little regard for its customers. You can say write what you feel about Cox, but I have been dealing with them and Citizens directly since Thanksgiving weekend trying to resolve this issue, and frankly they don't care about doing the right thing for their customers.
In regard to being just a reseller of Verizon service, they don't understand how Verizon's services work. I was in Cabo for four days at New Years and my phone did not work for the four days because when I signed up for the travel plans it was setup wrong. While in Cabo, I could not even call Cox to fix it. I had to create a chat with customer service while sitting in my room since there was WIFI. After spending and hour chatting with customer service, their fix again was not set up correctly, so I still not have phone service without WIFI.
