Earlier this month, many Verizon prepaid customers with texting plans began receiving messages on their phones from the company, typically after completing a minutes refill:

“Starting on October 14th, 2011 when sending a picture or video message, you will be charged for each recipient for each message sent.”

Controversy ensued, as customers interpreted that message to mean Verizon was now only including plain text messages, not picture or video messages, in their texting plans.

But hang on a moment, says Verizon social media rep JoeL_VZW.  It doesn’t mean that at all.  Verizon was attempting to clarify how they charge for messages sent to multiple recipients.  Send it to one person, it counts as one message.  Two people, two messages… and so on.  Customers can still send picture and video messages without extra fees, assuming they have a texting plan with a sufficient allowance.

“If you sent one picture to two people it would count as two messages that would come out of your 250 bundle. You wouldn’t incur any extra picture messaging charges as long as you haven’t exceeded 250 text or pictures,” he says.

Unlimited customers are not impacted by the change at all, but those on texting plans with 250 message allowances might be, if they send a lot of text messages to multiple recipients.

Still, it was easy to interpret the message very differently, all thanks to not having sufficient space in a single text message to explain it better.