Oregon man hit with $2 million cellphone bill

Slusher and his girlfriend say they’ve been going back and forth for months with customer service representatives who agree there’s been a mistake.

Slusher says he’s talked to customer service agents on the phone and in person, and they’ve promised to clear it up.

But it may not happen because of what Verizon Wireless claims they owe. It is a service that he and his girlfriend had for one month last November, until they started getting unusual statements.

While humorous, it’s also a serious situation because he and his girlfriend are in the process of buying a new house, and with collection agencies on his case about the Verizon bill, Shuler told a local affiliate his mortgage company will not sign off on the loan. Their first bill should have been for around $120, but instead it was $698 with a previously-owed balance of $451.

Verizon said it is correcting an error that caused an Oregon man to nearly lose his home over a $2 million cellphone bill.

While FOX 12 was with him, Slusher called Verizon Wireless’ automated phone line to check his account balance, where a voice recording said “Your total amount due is $2,156,593.64”.

“If I don’t get this straightened out in the next 24 hours, I can nearly guarantee I’ll lose this house”, he said.

“The number of errors and the comedy of which they happened is astounding to me”, he told Fox 12. That is, until they received notices from multiple collection agencies demanding up to $2000 each.

The next bill (pictured) asked for only $9. Ken says Verizon has admitted that it’s all a mistake but they still haven’t made it right.

“If we can get some sort of response from Verizon in any way, shape, or form, an apology would be nice”, Slusher said.

By Wednesday a company spokesperson reported that they had apologized to Slusher and “have resolved the issue to his satisfaction”.