Update: Woman Wins Cell Phone Fight For Domestic Violence Victims,
By: Caroline Tucker
Updated: October 12, 2012
Now to an update on the story News 8 told you about in September.
A local woman started a fight to get Verizon Wireless to change its policy to help domestic violence victims.
That woman is now claiming victory.
Cindy Butterworth's online petition at change.org received more than 194-thousand supporters.
It all started after her sister became a victim of domestic abuse.
It took several weeks of fighting to get the company to waive a cancellation fee to stop service on the shared line the sister shared with her abuser.
Butterworth said victims shouldn't have to fight and petitioned Verizon for a company-wide specific policy.
Verizon said it has a policy in place special circumstances but said it did not do the right thing at the time.
But now, News 8 has learned the company is improving its current policies and adding extra training for customer service representatives.
A Verizon spokesperson said the company is not creating a new policy but updating it's current one and providing extra training for customer service representatives.
"Verizon sent one of their executives, Elva Lima, to me via a phone call and [she] told me they had revisited their policy and it wasn't strong enough and they did need to make changes and hoping that I would help them in that dialogue," said Cindy Butterworth.
Buttworth says she is ecstatic that the company listened and plans to continue to work with her.
Butterworth says she will continue to work with Verizon to help shape future domestic violence policies and programs.
Butterworth is also supporting another woman's fight online at change.org to get Sprint to also change its rules as well.
