Verizon Wireless has had quite the month. Their “most reliable” 4G LTE network went down again yesterday, marking the third time Verizon’s data network has been unavailable in December. The Galaxy Nexus was delayed multiple times, as was the DROID 4. And today’s news doesn’t do much to instill a sense of confidence in Verizon’s customers for 2012.
According to Droid-Life, Verizon will roll out a new fee on January 15th where Verizon will charge some customers an additional $2, just for paying your bill. With this new fee structure, Verizon will charge customers $2 when they take advantage of Verizon’s pay by phone service or non-automatic e-pay service. The fee will not apply to customers who are enrolled in Verizon’s auto bill pay program, or those who either pay their bills in store, via an electronic check, online through your bank’s website, or physically mail a check to Verizon’s remit address via USPS.
With the highest plan prices in the country, you would think the costs of paying bills would already be factored into the plans, and that Verizon wouldn’t need to shoot themselves in the foot by charging customers a fee just to pay their bills. With all the hullabaloo surrounding their “most reliable 4G network,” here’s hoping that Verizon uses the additional revenue to improve their network up-time, and not just to rule your wallet.
Source: Droid-Life
Anthony loves all things technology, from hardware to apps and games. You can connect with him via Google+ or Twitter by clicking one of the fancy doo-dads above. Tagged#bill pay#bill pay convenience fee#convenience fee#january 15 2012#Verizon#verizon $2 convenience fee#verizon convenience fee#verizon LTE#verizon lte outage 108 Comments Join the discussion!Sort by DateRating Just plain ridiculous
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Greg BulmashGuest 18 hours ago Thumb upThumb down -12Not really ridiculous. They’re only charging it on 2 out of about 7 payment options, usually used by those who make late or last-minute payments. People on automated payment plans or who mail in a check don’t incur the fee.
They’re using the fee to try to encourage people to use preferred payment methods. It’s a time honored tradition in business. Think of it this way… they’re raising everyone’s bills by $2 a month, but giving the people who use preferred payment methods a $2 discount.
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36levelm 18 hours ago Thumb upThumb down +2You honestly believe they are trying to “encourage people to use preferred payment methods?” What the hell is a preferred payment method? I always thought any payment method was preferred (perhaps why I’m not in business). Soon Verizon will only accept checks written out to “The Ruler of Air” and those that refuse will suffer outages, over priced services, long term contracts and massive bloatware. Oh wait — they already do.
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65LukeT32 16 hours ago Thumb upThumb down -3Almost every bill I pay from credit cards, electric bill, car payment, etc charges me to make a payment over the phone…. I don’t see why verizon is getting jumped all over for it.
ReplyBecause the other carriers don’t.
RonGuest 5 hours ago Thumb upThumb down 0Because verizon has to pay an online merchent account transaction fee. It is probably only around 1%, but a lot of people top $300 bills now. So 1% of 300 is $3. but verizon dosn’t accrue this fee with e-transfer or check. So by making 4 mil people pay their own fee they save $12 mill. You just have to follow the $$. always follow the $$.
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14Neil Calvin 18 hours ago Thumb upThumb down +4So are you a *paid* shill for Verizon or is this volunteer work?
Reply“They’re using the fee to try to encourage people to use preferred payment methods. It’s a time honored tradition in business.”
Then reward the people who are doing what you want. Don’t punish the ones who aren’t. Examples: my car insurance, my car loan, and my student loan all give me a *discounted* rate for enrolling in auto pay.
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42aranea 15 hours ago Thumb upThumb down 0I agree like some grocery stores in San Diego take 50 cents off when you bring your own bags instead of charging people 50 cents more when they don’t. Customers who care to bring their bags are happy customers who don’t don’t feel penalized. Win win!
Reply PaxGuest 9 hours ago Thumb upThumb down 0You are so stupid.
Reply RossGuest 21 hours ago Thumb upThumb down -24Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
Honestly this isn’t all that bad. Better for them to find ways to make up their margins that offer plenty of other free alternatives for customers (i.e. anything but calling to pay bills) than mandatory across-the-board charges. Verizon already dumps the most money into their network – and they have for years – so I don’t really mind paying a little extra.
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94YMS123 20 hours ago Thumb upThumb down +7They should charge less to encourage less waste of paper, and don’t they need to pay people to process the physical bills? – its cheaper for them to have e billing, this is completely ridiculous
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92Nate B. 19 hours ago Thumb upThumb down -1This has to be the worst comment ever. Agreeing with this is ludacris
Reply Greg BulmashGuest 19 hours ago Thumb upThumb down +9No, Nate. Christopher Brian Bridges is Ludacris. Agreeing with this is ludicrous.
Reply paxGuest 9 hours ago Thumb upThumb down -3You are so stupid too.
ReplyGreed?
ReplyAgreed!
ReplyReally Verizon?
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74B2L 21 hours ago Thumb upThumb down +4This honestly doesn’t surprise me. Verizon has great coverage, and service. But they sure do love strapping one on and raping their customers.
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93pekosROB 21 hours ago Thumb upThumb down -11So either Verizon is a female or a male with a small penis that wouldn’t hurt?
Sorry, I shouldn’t make jokes about that… but I suppose if you’re personifying an inanimate thing like a company it would be hermaphroditic and would need a penis for said rapage. lol
Reply GuestGuest 19 hours ago Thumb upThumb down -11Troll.
Reply 93pekosROB 17 hours ago Thumb upThumb down +2Troll? are you kidding me? I was just making a joke since someone else was making a joke… about rape. How could a troll on a site even get to 93?
ReplyIf they can get this shared data thing going, i’d sign up anyways. Plus, who doesn’t do autopay?
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90Shadowlore 19 hours ago Thumb upThumb down +10Auto-pay is something that is awesome.. in theory. However, in reality it’s giving a company unmitigated access to your bank account, and trusting them to not take out more than they’re due.
Back in ’93, my parents had autopay setup with Globe Life insurance. Globe decided to do a ‘re-evaluation’ of their policy fee, and tripled their monthly charge.
Want to guess how this panned out? They wound up taking out the new charge putting my parents account (luckily it was a ‘bill pay’ checking account only) which then had a chain effect of bouncing every draft and check from there on out…
That little trick cost my parents over $2k in overdraft fees..
If that example isn’t enough for you, let me give you a more recent one.. The company I work for has autopay with our AT&T contract. Recently we had an employee lose his usb cell modem, and he didn’t realize it was gone until he went to grab it again. (10 days later) In the meantime, someone used it to rack up almost $6k in charges, and AT&T pulled that amount from the account. It’s taken us 6 months to get reimbursed for that.
Now, I have to ask.. do you just have a couple thousand laying around that you can do without?? Most people don’t.
ReplyThis is exactly why I do online bill payment with non-automatic withdrawals. My folks got hit with more than *50* MCI (remember them?) bills one month, and I’ve been overcharged automatically before.
The worst? I’m the treasurer for our condo association, and our water bill (typically a couple hundred a month) came in high due to a misread.
How high? Over $20,000 too high.
It took 18 months to straighten this out and get the bill fixed, including multiple calls to the alderman’s office and a few thousand in attorney fees. Imagine if this had been automatically pulled out of our accounts.
ReplyI keep an eye on my bank account, and have never had a problem with auto-pay. Mortgage, Tmo, utilities, internet…. no problems. Your examples definitely are crappy situations, but for me, there have been no problems.
My other point, about the rumored shared data plan, would be a HUGE reason for me to switch to Verizon. I blow through my 5gigs with Tmo, but my wife uses around a gig a month. If we had a reasonable shared plan, i would save quite a bit of money.
Replyand to answer your question, of course I don’t have a spare couple thousand. What I do have, is a checking account that is linked to all my bills. And that account doesn’t overdraft, and doesn’t have extra money in it. So if i got hit with some sort of fluke mis-bill, it wouldn’t go through.
I see your point though, auto pay isn’t for everyone.
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0TheGoodLife 9 hours ago Thumb upThumb down 0dis-like auto pay. I pay every bill online except my water bill, water company charges a convenience fee for paying any electronic way so I have to go IN and pay with cash or check, what a freakin’ inconvenience
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3nrorm 21 hours ago Thumb upThumb down +3no that seems fair—-afteral, they have to process your payment. WOW! Worse than Bank of America
Reply 93pekosROB 21 hours ago Thumb upThumb down +5Wow this sounds like crap. I do automatic e-payment but it still bothers me.
Instead, Verizon should punish those that DON’T pay rather than those that are trying to pay whenever they can. If I was one of the affected customers and was not under contract and Verizon was the best carrier in my area, then… HELLO pre-paid!
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85redraider133 18 hours ago Thumb upThumb down +2Agree, this fee should be added on to those who do not pay or pay late.
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9nctrns 21 hours ago Thumb upThumb down -2As a guy from Europe, I’m stunned. Anyway, I think that setting up bill payments at your bank is always the best option.
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97Futureboy 19 hours ago Thumb upThumb down -2Agreed – as long as you are in control of your payments rather than authorizing the payee to withdraw from your account. Don’t ever allow other companies to automatically pull money from your account.
ReplyIf I try to make a car payment via phone or even online I get tagged with a $5 fee by the bank. So to me $2 doesn’t sound like a bad thing, especially when it’s only for people who actually talk to a person on the phone from the sounds of it. If the service reps can’t be helping people with legitimate problems because you don’t want to figure out an online payment or maker a trip to a bill pay kiosk, why not make you pay for their inconvenience? At least their not charging for all calls to a service center like others.
Reply themanwithsauceGuest 21 hours ago Thumb upThumb down +1The difference is your bank probably sends money to another bank via that wire transfer and banks charge money to other banks when doing bank to bank banking…..I think. But basically since they’re financial institutions (I’m assuming your car payments go to a bank or loan company) handling a very large debt in the thousands of dollars I think to them that couple of bucks is insurance that in case someone figures out how to glitch their systems they can recover. At least, thats what makes sense to me.
In verizon’s case, they just hate it when the customer is right.
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94Sean the Electrofreak 21 hours ago Thumb upThumb down +1Sprint, as long as you keep unlimited data and don’t pull stunts like the one described in this article, you will have me for a customer for years to come.
Reply themanwithsauceGuest 21 hours ago Thumb upThumb down +4So they have spotty 4G quality now, a lineup full of orphan phones (they’re still pushing the LG revolution which will probably NOT get any more updates despite being a 4G flagship), more expensive phones, and now they want to charge for making it easier on them? Not a problem, I’m going back to checks :P. Course, they could save money by eliminating that department by offering an online pay discount buuuuuuuut that makes too much sense.
Reply 85redraider133 5 hours ago Thumb upThumb down 0Orphan phones? What other carrier has a better holiday lineup?(iphone,razr,rezound, nexus) are all high end phones.
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6SanzaBlancoAkA2C 21 hours ago Thumb upThumb down 0How convenient of them…smh. So glad I went the unlocked route for my Galaxy Nexus.
ReplyI thought bankers were the only ones playing these games. Now it’s the wireless carriers too? Soon everybody will be nickle and dimed to death with fees.
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98BetterWithRoot 21 hours ago Thumb upThumb down +1Since the service has been down three days this month, that’s 10% of the days…I want 10% off my bill.
Reply JD3Guest 21 hours ago Thumb upThumb down -12Man you can really tell this writer does not like verizon. Artical was full of negative opinions. Ohwell just like azzholes everybody has one of their own!!!
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84Lane Montgomery 20 hours ago Thumb upThumb down +9Customer:
What?
Verizon:
Can you hear me now?
Customer:
Yes.
Verizon:
Go f*** yourself.
RajGuest 20 hours ago Thumb upThumb down -4I think the reason behind this is to get people to sign up for automatic payments. People who don’t use automatic payments are probably credit risks and people who have a hard time paying their bills. I had a student friend who did this with sprint, his cost of living was sucked because he was a student, so he’d pay his cell bill whenever he could.
Because you know, if you don’t have a smartphone, you’re not cool. Who cares if you can’t afford it.
Reply pitacrispsGuest 20 hours ago Thumb upThumb down +5I take offense to such a blanket statement like that. I haven’t signed up for reoccuring payments, and im definitely not a credit risk. Some people are anal about how they handle their bills and like to see the bill paid every month by themselves instead automatically by a computer. Verizon should be thanking my @ss for paying my bill on time very month for the past eight years. But instead they reward me with a sub par 4g network.
ReplyAgreed. Make mine 12 years of service and contracts. I dont auto pay so that i can call and fuss if its not what i expect. And beleive me, it happens. It takes longer for them to refund.
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2hitraj47 20 hours ago Thumb upThumb down -1I apologize for the blanket statement, but that’s how companies think. They target the majority. I personally know I can afford my service, hence why I sign up for automatic payments. I do check my bill itself to make sure the amount is correct though, and I can understand where you’re coming from – the first time I signed up for automatic payments it paid the bill like 2 days before it was due!
Reply 97Futureboy 19 hours ago Thumb upThumb down +1I highly doubt it has anything to do with targeting any group of people – credit risk or not. It’s all about cost. THAT’S how companies think. Maintaining a call center with a toll free number is very expensive. The personnel costs and telephony costs are very high. With so many other avenues for a customer to pay a bill, it makes sense to try to encourage customers to switch to one of the less costly avenues to pay a bill. As noted in the comments above, there are people who prefer using the pay-by-phone method. So, instead of eliminating the call centers entirely, or increasing fees for all users to cover that cost, they are simply keeping it as an option but are passing the cost of running it on to the consumers that actually use it.
Reply 85redraider133 5 hours ago Thumb upThumb down 0Just because you dont use auto pay does not make you a credit risk. I do not use auto pay and am have been with verizon for years and have never missed a payment. Way to generalize. Smh
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2enoch161 20 hours ago Thumb upThumb down +1How is paying 2 extra dollars going to help their service?
Replymultiply that by the millions of verizon customers that will pay the $2
ReplyIt’ll allow them to buy more cheese to dangle from sticks and keep the mice running on their LTE wheels.
Reply pitacrispsGuest 20 hours ago Thumb upThumb down +3first energy, our electric company around here, does the same thing with fees if you pay by phone. so i just don’t utilize that pay method. I understand why the fee exists but Verizon already tacks on a ton of Fees! You’d think they would accounted for this.
Id like to Know, Verizon was this months most unreliable network, so how long will customers continue to pay premium prices for horrible data reception on 4g Devices? Verizon has refunded me my data plan fee already in November, but im not sure how many more months i can take. I’ve been having severe data issues since September, and i know im not alone.
All I am saying to myself is only two years, only two years. Hopefully T-mobile get their act right by then and the next Nexus phone comes to them. Fucken verizon, ridiculous!!
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97ben dover 20 hours ago Thumb upThumb down +1If they start this, I’m going to call and offer to move the 4 lines with galaxy nexii that we just moved from sprint away from verizon if they can’t take off the $2 charge.
Of course I’m not going to leave my gnex but it’s worth a shot! :)
Reply Mark C.Guest 20 hours ago Thumb upThumb down +2Would this give Verizon subscribers a chance to leave their contracts with no ETF?
Reply 90Shadowlore 19 hours ago Thumb upThumb down 0No, unless your contract specifically states that it’s a free option to pay online. I’m willing to bet that is NOT there… it might say something along the lines of being able to pay free, which you can still do in stores, but nothing about online.
ReplyIn *most* cases, secondary fee changes don’t give you that opportunity, though it’s worth checking out your specific contract to be sure since they change frequently. The *intent* of the ability to break contracts without penalty due to billing changes is if they upped the rate of your primary line items (e.g., your plan rate or your data and/or text package(s)), not the secondary “convenience” or “regulatory” fees.
Reply guardianaliGuest 20 hours ago Thumb upThumb down -1It has nothing to do with Verizon paying the phone people or nickel and diming us. They are doing what any company does..pay an increase in their expenses to the customers. The real culprit is the CREDIT CARD companies. Notice the fee is when you are paying via credit card via phone or website.
Its the same reason when you go to gas stations now and there are two signs..the cash price and the credit card price which is typically 10 cents more expensive. Its the cover the cost of the credit card transaction that the CC companies charge the retailer.
if you dont like this, dont bitch at Verizon..bitch at the CC companies. Verizon has like 200 million subcribers. Even a small feww from CC companies adds up for them when you multiply it by enough of those people.
2hitraj47 20 hours ago Thumb upThumb down +2I’ve never noticed a different price at gas stations for using credit card over cash. I’ve also never seen any other website charge you extra for using a credit card.
Only small businesses charge you an extra fee for credit card processing. The bigger companies can handle it.
Reply 90Shadowlore 19 hours ago Thumb upThumb down 0You’re exactly correct, and in most cases, passing along the fee is against their ToS with the CC company.
We had a couple small family owned gas stations recently that had their Visa and MC CC payment system revoked due to that shady practice.
Fact is, most of the larger companies get away with no fees to do the transactions, because in exchange for passing up the fee, they’re guaranteeing VISA/MC a certain yearly $$$ received from them. In exchange, the company waives those transaction fees and gets a clause put into the contracts if the company doesn’t do $XX of payment to that company, they get dinged a contractual amount that is worth more than the transaction fees would be as well.
ReplyIn my area, even the bigger gas stations (noticeably, Chevron) have started offering 10 cents cheaper per gallon if you pay with cash or their gas card. Debit or credit is unchanged – but note that it’s all in the marketing: you can continue paying like most people do and pay the same that you always have. OR you can pay with cash or their gas card (which is ultimately what they want you to do, I assume) and receive a 10 cent discount per gallon every time. They are REWARDING the behavior they want, not PUNISHING the behavior they don’t.
Reply haterontherocksGuest 20 hours ago Thumb upThumb down 0im guessing their doing this to add more money into verizon checking account. Since recently they went on a shopping spree on spectrum and they want to go on more sprees.
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74GeauxLSU 20 hours ago Thumb upThumb down 0The reality is that this is one of the few ways they can raise the rates for some people. There are probably some people out there that still have a $20 a month plan from 12 years ago.
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80thekaz 20 hours ago Thumb upThumb down 0So, wait. when they save “electronic check” are they saying I won’t have to pay if I go to my bank to “push” a payment to them, but if I go to VZW.com and have them “pull” the money from my linked checking account, they will charge me?
That just seems crazy to me…
Reply 90Shadowlore 19 hours ago Thumb upThumb down +2No.. an electronic check is an ACH no matter who initiates it. What they’re probably trying to do, is cut out the VISA/MC Debit cards that are linked to accounts that people pay through.
What this does for Verizon, is no more fees from VISA/MC/DISC/AMEX… AND it also removes 1 possible block the customer has against Verizon.
For example, did you know if you believe your service wasn’t adequate enough, there is protection in your CC for that? If you purchase something with any major credit card, and that item/service isn’t to what you believe is the contractual obligation, often all you have to do is call the credit card company, and they’ll issue a chargeback to the company you purchased the items/goods from.
With an ACH, most banks don’t have coverage for that sort of transaction. So if you pay VZW, that money is theirs (barring litigation/arbitration), and there’s very little you can do to get it back.
Removes fees on VZW, gives them more $$$ for letting you use that service, and removes a huge possible negative cash-flow in the process. They win no matter what route you take.
Oh, and btw, anyone that thinks VZW is being charged that $2 per transaction by a CC Company is grossly naive. (They’re probably paying closer to $1 per 10,000 transactions or something akin to that)
Reply 80thekaz 18 hours ago Thumb upThumb down -1that’s good to know. thanks for clarifying!
ReplyThe option to pay via my verizon app isnt listed. Thats how i pay. Would that be considered via phone via web or neither? And WHAT THE HELL VERIZON? Seriously!?
Reply UserGuest 1 hour ago Thumb upThumb down 0Most likely paying through the MyVerizon app is considered paying via website.
ReplyTime to write a similar Bank of America petition…http://www.change.org/petitions/tell-bank-of-america-no-5-debit-card-fees
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13Leon Hitchens 19 hours ago Thumb upThumb down -1I am glad I am with Sprint, I don’t have huge network downtime or have to pay for my bill. They are becoming greddy just like AT&T.
Reply TammyGuest 18 hours ago Thumb upThumb down +2Which carrier is showing “huge network downtime”????
An extremely rare, few hours per *YEAR* isn’t “huge”.
Reply 85redraider133 5 hours ago Thumb upThumb down 0So you like paying that $10 premium for their “4g” that 90% of the customers dont even have?
Reply 92Nate B. 19 hours ago Thumb upThumb down 0This is beyond crazy. What goes through their minds when they make up these raw and stealing ideas. This should be illegal. Being charged to pay something. This world is going down. I just switched to Verizon to. Not everyone will pay right on time. Some pay a day or two late, so autopay is dumb for a way out. I hope something appeals this.
ReplyThis stinks. I shot off an email to vzw letting them know that after 10 years this may push me off the edge. With companies like Simple mobile,page plus and Republic Wireless close to being ready for prime time vzw should be looking for ways not to offend customers.
Reply DaveGuest 19 hours ago Thumb upThumb down +1To me this sounds like Sprint’s mandatory $5 service charge if you don’t sign up for auto bill pay and your on their spending limit program. Of course, the spending limit program is for people with crappy credit, so that $5 charge kind of makes sense.
ReplyThis sucks i regularly pay my bill right through verizons app now they want to charge me 2 dollars. If i send them a check how much will they pay the mail room worker ro open the mail then send the check to the proper dept. then have someone deposit it into there account. This seems stupid.
ReplyIt’s good that auto pay will be free of charge, but cell phone bills are one thing that I prefer to pay manually, personally. Sure there are processing fees associated with online transactions, but they should be smaller than those of processing mailed payments. If anything, payments by mail should incur a fee… Then their less internet-savvy customers would be miffed…. And that’s the kind of outrage we need to see positive changes in the mobile carrier oligopoly.
Reply 14HogFan77 18 hours ago Thumb upThumb down 0This is on par with Bank of (not)America charging $5 to access money! Does this affect those of us who use the App (aka bloatware) MyVerizon to pay their bill?
Reply CarolGuest 18 hours ago Thumb upThumb down -2> [Verizon] With the highest plan prices in the country,
Huh?
Each time I compare AT&T and Verizon, all the plans are 95%-100% identical in pricing.
Of course, you’d have to be out of your mind to pay ANYONE for text messaging.
(It’s available totally free with a small free app.)
Any 2gb data plan is BILLIONS of bits more than I could ever hope to use.
Totally unlimited wi-fi give anyone far more even than that.
I haven’t used up all 450/mo of my voice minutes in YEARS.
(And that’s without any home phone.)
I have a feeling that there will be a lot of backlash on this like BOA had with their fee. I bet it gets reversed.
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75Slith 18 hours ago Thumb upThumb down +2Is it so crazy that I literally think about moving to have other carrier options than Verizon?
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82Billy 18 hours ago Thumb upThumb down +4I have never liked charging customers to pay a bill. I consider processing payments the cost of business.
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86oddball 18 hours ago Thumb upThumb down 0While I can understand that verizon has to make money making paying our bill more costly or removing basic services like next day replacement of broken phones is just a way to increase customer dissatisfaction. Some things are already factored into the extra money we pay as Verizon customers this is one and I bet this will result in more bills going unpaid longer as people say why should ipay you to pay my bill
Reply Lux143Guest 18 hours ago Thumb upThumb down 0HOW IS THIS S*IT LEGAL!!! HOW DO YOU CHARGE PEOPLE FOR BEING RESPONSIBLE!!! GAWD I HAAAATTTEEEE CORPORATIONS!!!!
Reply 86oddball 18 hours ago Thumb upThumb down 0Or as more people do things like this just to prove points
http://xkcd.com/verizon/
Maybe Verizon will realize that basic customer service is basic
I cannot figure out how they came to find $2 an acceptable charge. It seems like they will make money by charging people for giving them money…
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6Michael Catley 17 hours ago Thumb upThumb down 0Awesome, a bill to pay the bill. /s
ReplyIts not that bad when sprint is about to raise their prices by taking away discounts next year. After they take away the discount it will be between $2-5 a month extra. I think all these companies are gonna try to keep charging little fees here and there till someone complains enough to stop them.
Reply Gr8RayGuest 17 hours ago Thumb upThumb down 0I think we should give them what they want, and everyone start sending in checks and paper money (or even coins). They’d easily spend more than the merchant fees for a CC payment on processing every customer’s payment manually.
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95zyphbear 17 hours ago Thumb upThumb down +1Wow, really Verizon? After already upping the fee for “Advanced Devices” to $350, now this too? (which of course, even after 2 years, SHOULD leave $110, no logic there).
There is no reason why they are doing this, but just like ATM fees, so many of us will just pay it because we don’t feel comfortable just letting them auto debit our accounts when they have made enough screw ups in bills. Which means an average person in their 2 year contract span, will spend an EXTRA $48 just to pay the bill.
I can sort of understand if the fee was only charged to talk to a rep instead of doing it automated (since they have to be paid), but why online when that should be a standard service option. And if they are doing it because of return fees or chargebacks, put the fee on the account it was attached to WHEN it gets charged back or returned item.
What is with companies trying to nickel and dime everyone nowadays?
Really don’t get why every blog in the sphere is clamoring over this today. My utility companies have been doing this for years, which is why I’m enrolled in auto-debit including Verizon. Yeah, it sucks, but there are at least five ways to get around this. Really, we should be more pissed about LTE going down 3 times in one month without any real explanation or automatic compensation. Moving along!
Reply irishrallyGuest 16 hours ago Thumb upThumb down +1Yeah, worked really well for Bank of America.
ReplyThis is ridiculous! Why would Verizon be charging people MORE if they already sell the most expensive phones and have the most expensive bills?
ReplyThis makes even less sense now that banks pay for more of the credit card transaction fees while merchants (like Verizion) pay less, due to recent legislation.
ReplyI hope that republic wireless makes it. I hope that the major cell phone companies get some more competition. I’m so glad the at&t/t-mobile merger didn’t go through, otherwise we’d start to see even more “fees”.
Reply SheepGuest 14 hours ago Thumb upThumb down +1Just to make it simple, if Verizon ONLY had 2 million customers, that’s 4 million dollars
Verizon states that they have 70 + million customers. do the math people.
IronManCCGuest 14 hours ago Thumb upThumb down 0Though I don’t see all of the specifics in this article, it wouldn’t surprise me at all if this only applies to CREDIT CARD transactions, which is a pretty common practice nowadays. Many times, it’s a Service Fee imposed by the bank and/or transaction authority, not by the business at all. I deal with this kind of stuff at work…..
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97damambt 13 hours ago Thumb upThumb down +1I hope VERIZON doesnt carry out with this fee. Didnt they see what happened to NETFLIX after they started coming up on fees and prices?
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96Nathan D. 13 hours ago Thumb upThumb down 0well that sucks, can’t believe they are actually thinking about doing this, no offense but I would hate to be a Verizion costumer.
ReplyI hope Verizon puts the money go good use, like beefing up their LTE network.
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66Samar 12 hours ago Thumb upThumb down 0In that case, they should also be rewarding their customers who suffered their network outgae, not once but twice. That’s only fair…or Is it Not !!
Reply Jay GouldGuest 11 hours ago Thumb upThumb down 0Verizon’s $2 convenience fee has all the potential of backfiring on the scale of BofA’s ill-conceived $5 debit card fee.
“Convenience fee” happens to be a technical term used in our industry (see (a href=”http://blog.unibulmerchantservices.com/everything-you-need-to-know-about-credit-card-convenience-fees”>http://blog.unibulmerchantservices.com/everything-you-need-to-know-about-credit-card-convenience-fees), which designates a surcharge that merchants offering an “alternate” payment channel (e.g. mail, telephone and e-commerce) are allowed to add to the transaction amount to offset the payment processing cost. This is why Verizon will not be charging the fee for bank card payments made in person.
So, even though payment card industry rules define it rather fuzzily, Verizon’s $2 charge is technically legal. But that doesn’t mean that the carrier’s decision is smart. On the contrary, it is a real dumb move. Processing fees are a cost of doing business and should not be passed on to consumers. If you don’t want to accept credit and debit cards, you don’t have to, but if you decide to be doing it, you should be willing to pay for it. It is really that simple.
Reply AlternNocturnGuest 11 hours ago Thumb upThumb down 0With all the crap that’s been going on with Verizon, I think I’ll hold out on the Galaxy Nexus until it comes out on another network.
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4danielmkim 9 hours ago Thumb upThumb down 0WTH! They charge us for voicemail, now they will charge us for paying our bill.
VZW is also going to change their upgrade policy so that you’d have to wait through 20 months of a two-year contract before being eligible for a hardware update — seven months longer than was the previous policy.
But that’s not all, VZW has shrunk the return window from 30 days to 14 days — from a month to two weeks.
What’s next! Will they charging us for every button pushed on the phone!
Reply 85redraider133 5 hours ago Thumb upThumb down 0Its always been 20 months except for the main line.
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69donger 4 hours ago Thumb upThumb down 0it’s like their plans/ prices aren’t enough.
Reply beats headphonesGuest 4 hours ago Thumb upThumb down 0I really do not truly have much to say in response, I only wanted to comment to reply great work!
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