diff --git a/hbase-server/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/mapreduce/replication/VerifyReplication.java b/hbase-server/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/mapreduce/replication/VerifyReplication.java
index eed0fa7bbf0..a7b38ff68a1 100644
--- a/hbase-server/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/mapreduce/replication/VerifyReplication.java
+++ b/hbase-server/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/mapreduce/replication/VerifyReplication.java
@@ -392,6 +392,10 @@ public class VerifyReplication extends Configured implements Tool {
           continue;
         }
 
+        if (cmd.startsWith("--")) {
+          printUsage("Invalid argument '" + cmd + "'");
+        }
+
         if (i == args.length-2) {
           peerId = cmd;
         }
@@ -427,7 +431,7 @@ public class VerifyReplication extends Configured implements Tool {
       System.err.println("ERROR: " + errorMsg);
     }
     System.err.println("Usage: verifyrep [--starttime=X]" +
-        " [--stoptime=Y] [--families=A] [--row-prefixes=B] <peerid> <tablename>");
+        " [--endtime=Y] [--families=A] [--row-prefixes=B] <peerid> <tablename>");
     System.err.println();
     System.err.println("Options:");
     System.err.println(" starttime    beginning of the time range");
diff --git a/src/main/asciidoc/_chapters/ops_mgt.adoc b/src/main/asciidoc/_chapters/ops_mgt.adoc
index fc91a18b3c8..0d9222f3cf2 100644
--- a/src/main/asciidoc/_chapters/ops_mgt.adoc
+++ b/src/main/asciidoc/_chapters/ops_mgt.adoc
@@ -1358,7 +1358,7 @@ The `VerifyReplication` MapReduce job, which is included in HBase, performs a sy
 +
 [source,bash]
 ----
-$ HADOOP_CLASSPATH=`${HBASE_HOME}/bin/hbase classpath` "${HADOOP_HOME}/bin/hadoop" jar "${HBASE_HOME}/hbase-server-VERSION.jar" verifyrep --starttime=<timestamp> --stoptime=<timestamp> --families=<myFam> <ID> <tableName>
+$ HADOOP_CLASSPATH=`${HBASE_HOME}/bin/hbase classpath` "${HADOOP_HOME}/bin/hadoop" jar "${HBASE_HOME}/hbase-server-VERSION.jar" verifyrep --starttime=<timestamp> --endtime=<timestamp> --families=<myFam> <ID> <tableName>
 ----
 +
 The `VerifyReplication` command prints out `GOODROWS` and `BADROWS` counters to indicate rows that did and did not replicate correctly.