Customers impacted by Verizon outage to get $20 credit: How to redeem

Verizon customers who were affected by a widespread outage Wednesday afternoon will receive a $20 credit on their accounts, but it won’t automatically show up unless it’s redeemed. 

The outage lasted for several hours and impacted hundreds of thousands of Verizon customers. 

What caused the Verizon outage?

What we know:

Verizon users reported problems with cell service Wednesday afternoon, according to the DownDetector website. Half of users were self-reporting issues with mobile signal. Other users were reporting issues with WiFi and broadband internet.

During the outage, iPhone and Android users reported seeing SOS or "SOS only" in the status bar, which means the device isn't connected to a network, but users can still make emergency calls.

There were also T-Mobile and AT&T outages reported, but T-Mobile said that was due to T-Mobile customers trying to contact Verizon users who didn’t have service. 

What we don't know:

Verizon still hasn’t said exactly what caused the outage, only that it was a "software issue and we are conducting a full review of what happened."

Verizon $20 credit

What you can do:

Verizon customers who were impacted by the outage will receive a $20 account credit. It can be redeemed by logging into the myVerizon app to accept. Business customers will be contacted directly about their credits.

What they're saying:

"This credit isn’t meant to make up for what happened," Verizon said in a statement. "No credit really can. But it’s a way of acknowledging our customers' time and showing that this matters to us."

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If customers are still having problems, Verizon says they should restart their devices to reconnect to the network. 

"We are sorry for what our customers experienced and will continue to work hard day and night to provide the outstanding network and service that people expect from Verizon," Verizon said.