Verizon offering customers $20 credits after hourslong outage impacted thousands
- - Verizon offering customers $20 credits after hourslong outage impacted thousands
BILL HUTCHINSON, AARON KATERSKY and TAYLOR DUNNJanuary 16, 2026 at 2:17 AM
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Following a major service outage that left thousands of Verizon customers without the ability to call or text for hours on Wednesday, the nation's largest wireless carrier announced it will give affected customers a $20 credit "to provide some relief."
"Yesterday, we did not meet the standard of excellence our customers expect and that we expect ourselves," Verizon said in a statement Thursday morning.
The company said most affected customers can accept the credit by logging into the myVerizon app, and that business customers will be contacted directly by the company.
Smith Collection/gado/Gado via Getty Images - PHOTO: Sign with logo for Verizon, San Francisco, California, November 20, 2025.
"This credit isn't meant to make up for what happened. No credit really can. But it's a way of acknowledging our customers' time and showing that this matters to us," Verizon said.
Verizon resolved the outage issue on Wednesday night after customers experienced disruptions in service for hours.
"The outage has been resolved. If customers are still having an issue, we encourage them to restart their devices to reconnect to the network," a company spokesperson said in a statement to ABC News on Wednesday night.
Earlier, Verizon said it was prepared to "work through the night" to restore service.
The company has not said what caused the major outage.
On Thursday, Verizon advised customers still experiencing issues to restart their devices to reconnect to the network.
Downdetector, a site that tracks outages, said Verizon customers began noticing interrupted service around noon Eastern time on Wednesday.
Many Verizon customers said on social media that their phones showed "SOS" in place of network bars.
According to Downdetector, at least 178,284 Verizon customers were affected at one point.
The highest concentration of reports of Verizon problems, according to Downdetector, was in New York City, Atlanta, Charlotte and Houston.
By 3:30 p.m. Eastern time, the number of Verizon customers affected by the outage was down to less than 60,000, according to Downdetector.
In a social media post shortly after 4 p.m. ET, Verizon said a team "is on on the ground actively working to fix today’s service issue that is impacting some customers."
New York Emergency Management (NYCEM) officials said the outage was affecting some users calling 911.
"Verizon is working to solve the issue," NYCEM said in a statement. "If you have an emergency and cannot connect using your Verizon Wireless device, please call using a device from another carrier, a landline, or go to a police precinct or fire station to report the emergency. In the meantime, you can check the website or social media account of your cellphone carrier for updates."
Multiple law enforcement agencies have spent hours looking into the possibility that the Verizon outage could be the result of a cyberattack. But as of now, multiple law enforcement sources told ABC News the belief is the outage is a technical issue and not the result of a cyberattack or some other nefarious act.
The federal government’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency is referring questions to Verizon.
ABC News' Elizabeth Schulze contributed to this report.
Editor's note: The story was to correct the attribution on the number of outages.
Source: “AOL Money”
