Let me get this straight, Verizon wants to charge me $2 for paying my bill?

[rcpratt]

I understand that people are upset at the principle of it, but is it really so hard to pay through your bank.

 

[Thump553]

Wondering out loud if this will be considered a change in terms justifying early termination of contracts without their onerous penalties.

 

[Bateluer]

The real question is, despite all the bitching about it, will anyone change carriers over this?

 

[BoomerD]

My mortgage company charges $5 for online payments, $10 for phone payments.

Comcast charged $5.99 (IIRC) for phone payments

My electric company doesn't offer on-line payments...except through Western Union...and the payer pays the western union fee.

 

[Engineer]

This made the Today Show this morning with a huge customer outrage. I suspect this will backfire on Verizon and they will back down. Time will tell.

 

[Engineer]

Wondering out loud if this will be considered a change in terms justifying early termination of contracts without their onerous penalties.

Not sure about that buy maybe here...

http://slickdeals.net/f/3760240-Ver...et-out-of-your-contract-without-paying-an-ETF

 

[coldmeat]

Don't you already pay to pay pretty much everywhere? Just because it's not a separate fee doesn't mean that the CC charge isn't added onto the price.

 

[spidey07]

Every ulitilty I have does this and likely yours as well. Outrage not found.

 

[fjmeat]

Use your bank's online bill pay. All you need is your verizon account and the amount you want to pay. Do this once a month rather than logging in to verizon.com and paying on their website.

 

[Engineer]

Every ulitilty I have does this and likely yours as well. Outrage not found.

Just use your bank's online bill pay or set up "auto pay" with them and they all drop the fee (my insurance company does not but that's because I pay it monthly instead of lump sum. I might have to switch to lump sum soon as the benefit of keeping the extra money doesn't make enough to overcome the fees).


edit: they just dropped the fee per CNBC.

 

[darkxshade]

on cnn now too

 

[Bateluer]

Its been cancelled.

http://www.droid-life.com/2011/12/30/breaking-verizon-cancels-2-convenience-fee/

 

[manly]

This made the Today Show this morning with a huge customer outrage. I suspect this will backfire on Verizon and they will back down. Time will tell.

I just clicked on a Fox Business link about the FCC dipping into this fracas, but the headline was changed to say Verizon Wireless is backing off this new fee. No confirmation yet though.

Apparently VZ Wireless didn't learn anything from the BofA $5 fiasco. I know this is a little different because they wanted to pass a hidden cost onto customers who incur it. But they should've anticipated better that it's really not worth the firestorm over at best an extra $24/year from select customers only.

 

[spidey07]

Great. Now Verizon will just raise priced for all instead of the deadbeats paying.

 

[rcpratt]

Well that was boring.

 

[nageov3t]

far be it for me to defend Verizon, I switched to Sprint because of how expensive they are, but how many people really pay via credit card manually every month?

 

[Engineer]

Great. Now Verizon will just raise priced for all instead of the deadbeats paying.

Great, now you can choose another carrier. As soon as they raise the price, you can get out of your contract (if you have one) and move on. Simple as that.

 

[manly]

Great. Now Verizon will just raise priced for all instead of the deadbeats paying.

subscribers who pay on time are deadbeats now?

far be it for me to defend Verizon, I switched to Sprint because of how expensive they are, but how many people really pay via credit card manually every month?

A lot of people like to get 1% cash back on their credit cards; some are not wholly comfortable with an ACH push from a bank account.

I know I generally try to maximize CC cash back, except for smaller transactions at local businesses.

 

[Wordplay]

far be it for me to defend Verizon, I switched to Sprint because of how expensive they are, but how many people really pay via credit card manually every month?

I do. I'm not exactly well off just yet, still going to school, so if something random comes up I won't have the cash to pay it on a specific date every time.

 

[DrPizza]

Quite honestly, I really wish it was legal for *everyone* to directly pass on the exact same fee to their customers as they are assessed by the credit card companies. When companies have a 5-10% profit margin, you do realize that the credit card company charging them 2% eats up as much as 40% of their profits? The result is that prices increase to offset that amount. I'm sure some people are thinking, "yeah, but they raise the price less than 2%" - they're not thinking, "well, we'll break even on credit card people and profit from the non-credit card people" what they're thinking is "we need to make a profit on all of them."

 

[crownjules]

Quite honestly, I really wish it was legal for *everyone* to directly pass on the exact same fee to their customers as they are assessed by the credit card companies. When companies have a 5-10% profit margin, you do realize that the credit card company charging them 2% eats up as much as 40% of their profits? The result is that prices increase to offset that amount. I'm sure some people are thinking, "yeah, but they raise the price less than 2%" - they're not thinking, "well, we'll break even on credit card people and profit from the non-credit card people" what they're thinking is "we need to make a profit on all of them."

Except this theory doesn't make sense when you consider they weren't enacting this fee on all CC transactions. Just the one time payments done by CC. If it were a matter of them recouping their CC merchant fees then wouldn't it make sense they apply the $2 fee to all those who pay by CC, regardless of whether they do it month-by-month or set it up as an automatic payment?

 

[djnsmith7]

This is unofficial, but I was on the phone with a CSR & an internal email came through indicating this new fee program has been cancelled & will not be implemented afterall.

Expect an official announcement from Verizon shortly.

 

[DrPizza]

Except this theory doesn't make sense when you consider they weren't enacting this fee on all CC transactions. Just the one time payments done by CC. If it were a matter of them recouping their CC merchant fees then wouldn't it make sense they apply the $2 fee to all those who pay by CC, regardless of whether they do it month-by-month or set it up as an automatic payment?

And your post doesn't make sense in that it ignores that they very well may have special arrangements with the CC company whereby their fee is reduced for people who set up automatic payment by CC. I'm sure they're charged a fee in either case, but perhaps with auto pay, the fee is significantly less?

 

[DrPizza]

This is unofficial, but I was on the phone with a CSR & an internal email came through indicating this new fee program has been cancelled & will not be implemented afterall.

Expect an official announcement from Verizon shortly.

Announcement: (you were beaten)
http://forums.anandtech.com/showpost.php?p=32782172&postcount=37

 

[spidey07]

Except this theory doesn't make sense when you consider they weren't enacting this fee on all CC transactions. Just the one time payments done by CC. If it were a matter of them recouping their CC merchant fees then wouldn't it make sense they apply the $2 fee to all those who pay by CC, regardless of whether they do it month-by-month or set it up as an automatic payment?

Business is based on anticipated income/revenue and expense. A typical customers income was already predicted/calculated based on all other factors. When doing the one-time it's an unexpected cost to Verizon and as such they should recover that cost.

It is not unusual at all to charge a fee for a one-time cc payment, many/most utilities already do. It's quite normal and it's funny that people are thinking this is somehow not normal. Call up your power or water company and see what the fee is to pay your bill with a cc for that month. There is likely anywhere between a 5 and 10 dollar fee to process the one-time payment via cc.