Verizon - New $30 Upgrade Fee - Remember the $2 Convenience Fee?

[Doppel]

Back when I was looking at apartments, I remember seeing a "new customer fee" for one of the utilities.

Sure, any business incurs these setup costs, but they just roll them up into their general costs of doing business. Itemizing it like that just makes it feel like they're being dicks about it.

"Oh goddammit, another person wants to give us money. What a pain in the ass."

I'm going up to someone and waving money in their face and telling them to take it.
"Here, take my $30!"
"Sorry, taking your money is going cost you more than that."

At work we once had a vendor try and actually bill us for account maintenance time which, believe it or not, included the time required to actually put together the invoices asking us for money. We declined to pay them these costs.

 

[WT]

I've been a longtime Vz customer as well, way back to '99 with a GTE account. It was a nice competitor to cable back then, altho 768k DL was not great, it was at least mine and not shared amongst others on my node.

After about 3 years, I was upgraded to 1.5, and things were very good. Another 2+ years and another download doubling, this time to 3MB !!! Wow, and at only $30/mo., it was much cheaper than the monopolistic Comcrap around me, which started at $42/mo.

Now, 7 years later, and still stuck on 3MB DL, I have Compcrap friends who are getting over 20MB DL speeds. Ya, they pay a good bit more (up to $44/mo. now). FIOS ?? What a joke .. it was promised back in '09 but we all knew better. I'm too far out by a few hundred feet to upgrade to 7MB, so even that remains a pipe dream for me.

 

[MWink]

$30 buys me 6 months of service with PlatinumTel. Granted it's not for everyone but prepaid services are getting to be much better deals in many cases.

As for Verizon, I've known they are slime since dealing with them over 10 years ago. I quickly learned you could not believe ANYTHING their corporate store employees said.

 

[Jeff7]

At work we once had a vendor try and actually bill us for account maintenance time which, believe it or not, included the time required to actually put together the invoices asking us for money. We declined to pay them these costs.

Or car dealerships and their "documentation fee," which they say is to pay for all the paperwork processing.
Uh huh. Ok.
So where's the lighting fee, and the parking lot fee, and the sewage fee, and the salesman commission fee, and the building lease fee, and everything else they have to pay for?

Just call it the "Because-we-want-more-money fee" and be done with it.

 

[SP33Demon]

Whatever it takes to up next quarter profits.

 

[jupiter57]

They're not hurting, they're being greedy...

Exploiting the wants of the people isn't new to this world.

ftfy

 

[SP33Demon]

I've been a longtime Vz customer as well, way back to '99 with a GTE account. It was a nice competitor to cable back then, altho 768k DL was not great, it was at least mine and not shared amongst others on my node.

After about 3 years, I was upgraded to 1.5, and things were very good. Another 2+ years and another download doubling, this time to 3MB !!! Wow, and at only $30/mo., it was much cheaper than the monopolistic Comcrap around me, which started at $42/mo.

Now, 7 years later, and still stuck on 3MB DL, I have Compcrap friends who are getting over 20MB DL speeds. Ya, they pay a good bit more (up to $44/mo. now). FIOS ?? What a joke .. it was promised back in '09 but we all knew better. I'm too far out by a few hundred feet to upgrade to 7MB, so even that remains a pipe dream for me.

FIOS is by far the best internet bang for your buck. Sucks you can't get it. I pay 55ish a month for 15MB/month FIOS and get 20+ easily. I was sick of my streaming getting interrupted during peak hours with cable (it dropped to 5MB which is unacceptable for HD streaming). FIOS is amazing compared to everything else.

 

[Pulsar]

Prepaid for the win.

I just jumped ship from Sprint. $170 a month for unlimited everything family on a smart phone? Bullshit.

Boost, also OWNED by Sprint, $55 a month unlimited everything, and if you pay without missing, every 6 months they drop it $5.

Virgin has the same pricing plan without the 'shrinkage' that makes it cheaper over time. Not to mention that Sprint STILL doesn't have 4G or anything close anywhere around me, and probably won't for a long long time.

Look here to see who runs on whose network.

http://cellphones.about.com/od/serviceplananalysis/a/prepaidwirelessnetworks.htm

 

[rh71]

I personally just got a Nexus less than 6 months ago so I'm still liking the convenience of internet practically anywhere, but the rest of my family doesn't need to be on my plan for this money. Already moved my mom off and onto a $100/year PagePlus plan (Verizon network). Can't beat that. 3 more lines to go after their contract terms are up.

 

[vi edit]

Yep, been with verizon for close to 15 years here too. Will be dropping them next Feb when my contract is up. Going MTM with either Page Plus, Virgin Mobile or Straight Talk. Will move my wife off once her contract is up too. Tired of paying $130 a month and that's with a 20% employer discount.

 

[ioni]

Back when I was looking at apartments, I remember seeing a "new customer fee" for one of the utilities.

Sure, any business incurs these setup costs, but they just roll them up into their general costs of doing business. Itemizing it like that just makes it feel like they're being dicks about it.

"Oh goddammit, another person wants to give us money. What a pain in the ass."

I'm going up to someone and waving money in their face and telling them to take it.
"Here, take my $30!"
"Sorry, taking your money is going cost you more than that."

It's not just a new customer fee. It's a new residence fee. My gas utility charges some outrageous "new account" fee even when just moving from one residence to another.

 

[AmdEmAll]

So glad I left Verizon and all of the crazy fees and high cost. Now with Virgin Mobile for $45 a month..

 

[zerogear]

kind of like how at&t just puts you on month to month broadband without telling you at a higher rate once your contract ends, you know..for your convenience...

They change your data plan?

 

[zerogear]

It was $18 and they all upped it to $30.

People are starting to bark a little more on the $30.

Americans like Fees so they keep raising them.

People need to tell the provoliders with their wallets. Sign up with things like straighttalk, ting, virgin mobile and other prepaid monthlys.

 

[leper84]

Or car dealerships and their "documentation fee," which they say is to pay for all the paperwork processing.
Uh huh. Ok.
So where's the lighting fee, and the parking lot fee, and the sewage fee, and the salesman commission fee, and the building lease fee, and everything else they have to pay for?

Just call it the "Because-we-want-more-money fee" and be done with it.

Off topic but knowing the market values of trade and what you're buying, only argue out the door price with a dealer. They can add all the fees they want then, they just have to discount the car more.

 

[tboo]

I love my Straight Talk

 

[Triumph]

People need to tell the provoliders with their wallets. Sign up with things like straighttalk, ting, virgin mobile and other prepaid monthlys.

except that they all use the verizon/at&t networks so if verizon doesn't like customers jumping ship, they'll just stick it to the customers through their contracts with the prepaid suppliers.

i've been meaning to switch to page plus for a while, but i'm really not paying much since i don't have a data plan and I have a 15% discount with verizon, and another $10 discount for having all of my bills bundled together.

 

[Freshgeardude]

it was annoying when I pre-ordered my Galaxy S3 for 250 that they added this 30 to the price, but i had the NE2 -100 discount, so my 32gb blue galaxy s3 was only 190

 

[SithSolo1]

Verizon was the last major company to add this fee and most of us have known about it for months. Depending on how good your negotiation skills are you might be able to get them to drop it the first time. I've read a few places where people had success doing that.

All that said, I have no special love for Verizon. As of late are slow to get phones and have higher prices for the phones they do have.

 

[mafia]

At least Verizon has best coverage and service

 

[AznAnarchy99]

Since by the time I have my upgrade, they will probably take away my unlimited internet if I use it. Ill probably be paying full retail price for my Verizon phones :/

 

[0roo0roo]

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/...ovie-the-continued-success-of-phone-cramming/
worse..

 

[Saint Nick]

I'm actually going to cancel my Verizon service soon and go back to having a land line. I hate giving Verizon money now. I love having a cell phone, but I do not like the way carriers do business.

 

[basslover1]

At least Verizon has best coverage and service

That's area dependent. Around me, they're service is horrible. Extremely weak signal, which leads to horrible battery life, and pathetic data speeds, which means it takes forever to do anything. It literally took me 20 minutes yesterday to send a GV text because the area I was in (decently populated 50k+) had such bad signal it wouldn't send.

I can't wait to jump ship.

 

[ImpulsE69]

That's area dependent. Around me, they're service is horrible. Extremely weak signal, which leads to horrible battery life, and pathetic data speeds, which means it takes forever to do anything. It literally took me 20 minutes yesterday to send a GV text because the area I was in (decently populated 50k+) had such bad signal it wouldn't send.

I can't wait to jump ship.

LMAO you realize that problem exists moreso with other carriers right? I'm not a huge fan of Verizon's (or any other cell phone carriers) practices, but I would agree their coverage far exceeds many others. I live in the boonies and have no issues with service and I've tried 3-4 other carriers with nothing but bad luck.

Sadly, cell phones are becoming one of those things you just get used to having and deal with the BS. At least you can switch carriers, but you are still using the other guys towers etc.