I just heard about this yesterday. Verizon will be charging their customers a "conveinence fee" for paying their bill online:
This is from the Los Angeles Times News Paper:
Verizon Wireless' new $2 "payment convenience fee" for online credit and debit payments is sparking a consumer backlash and a some scrutiny from the Federal Communications Commission.
Since the fee was announced Thursday, customers of the nation's largest wireless carrier have complained about the charge on Twitter, in Facebook groups and pages and Google+ too. The $2 charge is set to go into effect starting Jan. 15 for Verizon users not enrolled in automatic bill pay options who pay their bills online with a credit or debit card.
On Friday morning, the FCC said in a statement that, "On behalf of American consumers, we're concerned about Verizon's actions and are looking into the matter."
Molly Katchpole, a Washington activist and Verizon subscriber, started a petition at the online activism site Change.org calling for Verizon to scrap the $2 fee.
The Change.org petition, launched late Thursday, is a tactic Katchpole used earlier this year when Bank of America attempted to institute a similar $5 fee for those who use its debit cards for purchases.
The Bank of America fee promoted a national outcry and eventually the bank abandoned the fee before it could go into effect.
Time magazine identified Katchpole's petition as one of the many instrumental actions that defeated the Bank of America fee and the activist is hoping to have similar success this time around with Verizon. As of the middle of the day on Friday, the petition had more than 37,000 signatures.
"Verizon just announced a new $2 fee for paying your bills online. Really. Even though paying via internet is fully automated," Katchpole's petition reads. "It's not just about the money (though if you're like me, you don't have extra cash to be sending to a giant phone company in order to pay your own bills.) It's that Verizon thinks it can do anything to its customers, and that we're powerless to stop it. (Spoiler alert: We're not.)"
Verizon, which has more than 90 million customers, said it was introducing the fee to help make up for the frees credit card companies take when they process payments.
In 2010, Verizon Communications, Verizon Wireless' parent company, reported a profit of $10.2 billion, down from $11.6 billion in 2009. Last quarter, Verizon doubled its profit from a year earlier to $1.38 billion.
Ok..... Now my 2 cents on this....
1. When Verizon went online for conducting most of their business like ordering phones, doing ESN swaps, setting up plans etc, they said you can have instant savings on buying phones online, because going into the store and buying a phone the discount WAS NOT instant and you would get a rebate that you would need to send in. I never got this as verizon is verizon, so then close the retail stores if you want people to save money. Why bother having them if they can't provide the SAME TYPE OF SERVICE!!!!
2. When I sent my bill in via the mail, every now and then Verizon would send me a flyer saying pay online its much easier and save the envelope and stamp...
3. When you go and buy a phone and establish new service, the sales person say's we are going to wave the activation fee.... Now I don't know about you, but I have never paid an activation fee. For what?!?!?! I dial *### and do it myself anyway. I use to install phones back in the 80's and 90's. There was an install and programming fee but an activation fee...Never WTF?????
4. Insurance..... Buy any phone other then an iPhone and your insurance is $4.99 a month, replacement fee $50. Buy and iPhone and its $8.32 a month, replacement fee $150 Is there fair???? Hmmmmmm
5. Now tonight I have heard that Verizon May not charge this fee, why because the Feds are getting involved and customers are bitchin???? What did they caught being greedy? I mean come on this is ridiculus...
What if I start calling verizon when the 3g signal is so poor that I loose my connection to the internet. Or call them and make them pull a service ticket when I drop a call somewhere and demand credit for the lost call. Or maybe I should complain when I dont get my emails or text messages when they should have come through. Or what about their unknowlegible reps at the stores, that don't know anything at all and they sit around and play games on their phones instead of helping customers.
This is from the Los Angeles Times News Paper:
Verizon Wireless' new $2 "payment convenience fee" for online credit and debit payments is sparking a consumer backlash and a some scrutiny from the Federal Communications Commission.
Since the fee was announced Thursday, customers of the nation's largest wireless carrier have complained about the charge on Twitter, in Facebook groups and pages and Google+ too. The $2 charge is set to go into effect starting Jan. 15 for Verizon users not enrolled in automatic bill pay options who pay their bills online with a credit or debit card.
On Friday morning, the FCC said in a statement that, "On behalf of American consumers, we're concerned about Verizon's actions and are looking into the matter."
Molly Katchpole, a Washington activist and Verizon subscriber, started a petition at the online activism site Change.org calling for Verizon to scrap the $2 fee.
The Change.org petition, launched late Thursday, is a tactic Katchpole used earlier this year when Bank of America attempted to institute a similar $5 fee for those who use its debit cards for purchases.
The Bank of America fee promoted a national outcry and eventually the bank abandoned the fee before it could go into effect.
Time magazine identified Katchpole's petition as one of the many instrumental actions that defeated the Bank of America fee and the activist is hoping to have similar success this time around with Verizon. As of the middle of the day on Friday, the petition had more than 37,000 signatures.
"Verizon just announced a new $2 fee for paying your bills online. Really. Even though paying via internet is fully automated," Katchpole's petition reads. "It's not just about the money (though if you're like me, you don't have extra cash to be sending to a giant phone company in order to pay your own bills.) It's that Verizon thinks it can do anything to its customers, and that we're powerless to stop it. (Spoiler alert: We're not.)"
Verizon, which has more than 90 million customers, said it was introducing the fee to help make up for the frees credit card companies take when they process payments.
In 2010, Verizon Communications, Verizon Wireless' parent company, reported a profit of $10.2 billion, down from $11.6 billion in 2009. Last quarter, Verizon doubled its profit from a year earlier to $1.38 billion.
Ok..... Now my 2 cents on this....
1. When Verizon went online for conducting most of their business like ordering phones, doing ESN swaps, setting up plans etc, they said you can have instant savings on buying phones online, because going into the store and buying a phone the discount WAS NOT instant and you would get a rebate that you would need to send in. I never got this as verizon is verizon, so then close the retail stores if you want people to save money. Why bother having them if they can't provide the SAME TYPE OF SERVICE!!!!
2. When I sent my bill in via the mail, every now and then Verizon would send me a flyer saying pay online its much easier and save the envelope and stamp...
3. When you go and buy a phone and establish new service, the sales person say's we are going to wave the activation fee.... Now I don't know about you, but I have never paid an activation fee. For what?!?!?! I dial *### and do it myself anyway. I use to install phones back in the 80's and 90's. There was an install and programming fee but an activation fee...Never WTF?????
4. Insurance..... Buy any phone other then an iPhone and your insurance is $4.99 a month, replacement fee $50. Buy and iPhone and its $8.32 a month, replacement fee $150 Is there fair???? Hmmmmmm
5. Now tonight I have heard that Verizon May not charge this fee, why because the Feds are getting involved and customers are bitchin???? What did they caught being greedy? I mean come on this is ridiculus...
What if I start calling verizon when the 3g signal is so poor that I loose my connection to the internet. Or call them and make them pull a service ticket when I drop a call somewhere and demand credit for the lost call. Or maybe I should complain when I dont get my emails or text messages when they should have come through. Or what about their unknowlegible reps at the stores, that don't know anything at all and they sit around and play games on their phones instead of helping customers.
