[math-fun] phone bills, dollars and cents
http://verizonmath.blogspot.com/ This is amazing. This guy has an unlimited data plan in the US and called to check on the roaming rates before going to Canada. The rep told him it was point zero zero two cents/KB, he asked for clarification that it was really 0.002 cents/KB and not 0.002 dollars/KB and the rep said yes, it is 0.002 cents/KB. Then he got the rep to write in the file that he was being quoted 0.002 cents/KB. He went to Canada, used 35000KB of traffic, and went back home to a bill of $70, not 70 cents. So he called Verizon customer service, tried to explain to the rep that he had been misquoted, and the rep couldn't get it. So he got bumped to a supervisor, and started recording the call. Both the supervisor, and then the floor manager simply cannot understand that 0.002 cents is not the same as 0.002 dollars. The floor manager even says "what do you mean .002 dollars?" the first time he tries to explain that the rate is actually $.002/KB. A sample (around 14:00 in the MP3): Guy: Do you recognize that there is a difference between one dollar and one cent? Verizon Floor Manager: Definitely. G. Do you recognize that there is a difference between half a dollar and half a cent? V. Definitely. G. Then do you therefore recognize that there is a difference between point zero zero two dollars and point zero zero two cents? V. No G. No? V. I mean there's no point zero zero two dollars. There's point zero zero two cents is what you're quoted and that I do show that you're paying for the kilobyte usage. I put a re-encoded copy of the MP3 at http://pdos.lcs.mit.edu/~rsc/verizon-math.mp3 since the one linked on his page is complicated to get at (10 clicks) and unnecessarily large. Russ
The fact is that a large proportion of the populace, even those who regularly use elementary arithmetic in their daily lives, regard it as a form of magic of which the object is solely to perform an incantation according to the traditional ritual as inherited from ones forefathers [in the course of which it will doubtless have been subjected to numerous accidental modifications]. Reason is helpless in the face of such forces. Traditional systems of currency, such as the former British pounds, shillings, pence, farthings, recognised that most people become confused by scale factors in excess of ten or so, assigning distinguishable denomination names to ameliorate the problem. For some bizarre reason the inventors of the decimal system retained cents alongside dollars (or whatever), sowing the seed for the kind of confusion related in the Verizon anecdote: if you're going to use decimal points, for crying out loud don't then go and muddy the water with redundant denominations! A related factor is that mathematically untrained operatives, lacking the requisite logical facility, are obliged to fall back on tentative pattern recognition --- this feature is very plain in the conversation recorded. Even specialists who might be expected to know better are not immune to this weakness: audio engineers regularly refer to "signal-to-noise ratio S/N", which they then proceed to calculate by dividing the signal power _into_ the noise! Fred Lunnon
With numerate people one could disambiguate $0.02 from ".02 cents" by asking how many mumbles one could get for a dollar (either 50 or 5000). But with typical confused innumerates like those Fred describes, it would be hopeless, and one wouldn't trust their answer anyway. We should pass a drastic law invoking the death penalty :o) for anyone who uses the "cents" denomination except, perhaps, in a face-to-face transaction. Fred lunnon wrote:
The fact is that a large proportion of the populace, even those who regularly use elementary arithmetic in their daily lives, regard it as a form of magic of which the object is solely to perform an incantation according to the traditional ritual as inherited from ones forefathers [in the course of which it will doubtless have been subjected to numerous accidental modifications]. Reason is helpless in the face of such forces.
Traditional systems of currency, such as the former British pounds, shillings, pence, farthings, recognised that most people become confused by scale factors in excess of ten or so, assigning distinguishable denomination names to ameliorate the problem. For some bizarre reason the inventors of the decimal system retained cents alongside dollars (or whatever), sowing the seed for the kind of confusion related in the Verizon anecdote: if you're going to use decimal points, for crying out loud don't then go and muddy the water with redundant denominations!
A related factor is that mathematically untrained operatives, lacking the requisite logical facility, are obliged to fall back on tentative pattern recognition --- this feature is very plain in the conversation recorded. Even specialists who might be expected to know better are not immune to this weakness: audio engineers regularly refer to "signal-to-noise ratio S/N", which they then proceed to calculate by dividing the signal power _into_ the noise!
Fred Lunnon
It seems entirely plausible to me that Verizon actually intended the rate to be 0.002 cents/kb, but it was entered in the billing computer incorrectly. 0.002c/kb would be in the same order of magnitude as the cost of voice calls, if they were billed by the bit instead of by the minute. This doesn't change the essence of the discussion about innumeracy and slippery use of units, but it would change the underlying premise from one of "your employees misinformed me" to "you overbilled me"
participants (4)
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Dave Dyer -
Fred lunnon -
Russ Cox -
Steve, stevebg