Friday, February 13, 2009

Verizon .002 cents



Here's the problem with the caller's argument: There is a difference between ".002 cents" and ".002 of a cent". The caller assumes that Verizon charged .002 of a cent. Verison actually charges .002 cents. The guy on the phone says "you're being charged 2/10 of a penny".

The base unit of currency in the United States is a dollar. Talking in terms of fractions of cents is somewhat absurd given that cents in-and-of-itself is already a fraction of dollars. ".75" cents does not mean .75 of a cent.

I think there is a wonderful little language theory discussion to be had of this.

28 comments:

Unknown said...

.x cents does equal .x of a cent. The word cent merely means 1/100th of a dollar.

so 75.0 cents equals 0.75 dollars. Dollar doesn't mean the same thing as 'cents' or 'of a cent'.

Unknown said...

Also in both cases .002 cents (of a cent) is not 2/10 of a penny. It is and will always be 2/1000 of a penny.

The dollar symbol on one end and the cent symbol on another are not interchangeable without moving the decimal as you do so.

2/10 of a penny can only be written as $0.002 or 0.2 cents (of a cent).

Unknown said...

Also note: I once again did not watch the video and am only commenting on what I read. I'll watch the video when I get home.

Roscoe said...

Second post basically nails the point, Kyle.

The issue was a dude who read

$.002

as

.002c

and read those to be interchangeble.

Roscoe said...

.. I take it back.. it appears.. the COMPANY misspoke, not the customer...

video cut out on me earlier.

I assumed it was just an angry caller who misunderstood his bill..

and .. oh.. it's MUCH better.

"I dunno, I'm not a mathematician"

_J_ said...

Is 2/10 of a penny .002 cents?

Unknown said...

No, not at all. 2/10 of a penny is 0.2 cents and 0.002 cents is 2/1000 of a penny.

_J_ said...

So you take it that when talking about cents one changes the base unit of currency. To speak of "75 cents" requires that a whole number be used and a statement of ".75 cents" would be 3/4 of a cent?

So $.10 means:
"10 cents"
"1/10 of a dollar"

Whereas .10 cents means:
1/10 of a cent
1/100 of a dollar

Unknown said...

Correct that is why we say cents instead of dollars at times. The terms aren't isnignificant. In no way should a different noun invalidate how numbers work.

Unknown said...

Ok, so after listening, yes the caller is absolutely right.

The issue is that of education and understanding how words work.

Unknown said...

This is what units of measure are about.

Mike Lewis said...

since i will be out of the country a bunch in the next few months i have been looking at cellphone fees for ATT

ATT quotes prices in fractions of a dollar

so, when i go to Turkey in April ATT will charge me $.0195/KB, to use my phone's data.

which i think comes out to about $5/MG. Thus i will not be using my magic internet phones data will in Turkey

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