[xhorntail]

I'm on Sprint, dunno how Verizon's customer support is, but this is how Sprint went for me.

I noticed I was getting extra charges on my line, but was well within my usage. I figured it was tethering, since I'd exceeded 3gb that month.

I called in, said something to the effect of "Hey, how ya doin? I have a charge on my bill, and I'm not sure what it's for.." the rep said it was for data usage, so then I was pretty sure it was from being caught tethering. I went on to say "Oh, I thought my plan included unlimited data, I don't understand.." and the rep asked how I managed 3gb on my phone alone, I just played dumb and asked if that's alot, then told him my emails fully download rather than cap out at the first few kb, and and asked if that could cause it. He pretty much said "Probably not, but it's possible. You do have unlimited internet on your plan though sir, so I am going to go ahead and credit you for the extra balance." I then asked if I was going to have to call in every month, and here's the best part, he said "No sir! I will make sure that this traffic clears on your account in the future."

That was it. Never got any extra charges since. And for those who might question my ethics, all of it is true. My email's DO fully download, and due to my job, they have alot of attachments. It isn't irregular for me to exceed a gig in email a month, so it likely would have been an issue either way.

Important part is that they never blamed me, accused me, or anything, and they can make it so it doesn't happen anymore. My plan doesn't show PAM on it, so I'm pretty sure they use a bandwidth cap to determine if you tether or not, and he just raised or killed the bandwidth limit.

Anyway, just saying that it doesn't hurt to call and play dumb, even if you're not playing dumb, I wouldn't imagine they'd do anything more than charge you for PAM if they found out for sure.