A CT woman received a monstrous phone bill from Verizon Wireless, for cell phone charges amounting to a whopping $42,000.

Once in a while, a shocking story makes the news, detailing how some unfortunate consumer had the surprise of facing an enormous bill from some carrier. Cases of "bill shock," as this is commonly referred to, have significantly dropped in recent years as regulating authorities have forced major wireless providers to issue billing alerts to their customers.

Nevertheless, bill shock is not a thing of the past just yet, and a CT woman learned that the hard way. According to a WTNH report, the woman let a friend use her phone number, as long as he paid the bills. Apparently, the friend in question made and received a lot of calls from around the world, and at some point stopped paying the phone bill.

The woman now faces a monstrous phone bill of $42,000 and claims she was not the one to make those cell phone charges. While this is shocking enough on its own, it gets even more interesting. The woman should have received at least some billing alert or notification from Verizon Wireless, but that never happened because the friend who was allegedly using her phone number had convinced Verizon that he was her husband.

"Text alerts of the skyrocketing bill were never sent to her phone, Jane says. It appears that this ex-friend convinced Verizon that he was her husband and he should be the one managing the account," WTNH explains.

Considering that this claim was false and the two were not married, it's intriguing how Verizon agreed to let him manage the account based on nothing more than his word. The man reportedly claimed to have the same last name as the woman, although not even that was true, and proceeded to change where the billing alerts should be sent to. In other words, Verizon took this man's word for it and let him take control of the woman's account, and she never even received a warning, a notification, or an alert.

Allowing someone to use your phone number or any account in your name, in good faith that they'll pay the charges, is always a risky move, but it doesn't sound like Verizon handled things properly either.

When the woman contacted Verizon to explain her situation and sort out this whole bill fiasco, the carrier told her that she either had to pay the bill in full, i.e. $42,000, or have the friend check into a Verizon office and officially put the bill in his name, taking her name off it.

The carrier eventually agreed to a deal with the woman, although it will still cost her a pretty penny. Instead of the $42,000 bill in full, the woman is now liable for $4,200, and she can pay it off within two years.

Verizon, for its part, told WTNH that it repeatedly reminded the woman that she could remove anyone from her account, at any time. The carrier made no comment, however, regarding why she never received any billing alerts.