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December 30, 2011 in Business
Verizon to charge for some payments
NEW YORK – Verizon Wireless, the country’s largest cellphone company, said Thursday that it will start charging $2 for every payment subscribers make over the phone or online with their credit cards.
The company said this “convenience fee” will be introduced Jan. 15.
Other carriers have tried to get subscribers to move to automatic payments through other means. AT&T Inc. offers a $10 gift card for those who set up AutoPay. Sprint Nextel Corp. charges subscribers who have caps on the fees they can rack up each month. Those people are charged $5 monthly unless they set up automatic payments.
It’s not uncommon for utilities, universities and even state tax departments to charge convenience fees for online payments.
Each credit-card payment comes with fees that the companies can avoid by getting electronic checks instead. Automatic payments mean less trouble for companies in going after late payments.
Verizon Communications Inc., the landline phone company that owns most of Verizon Wireless, tried last year to introduce a $3.50 fee for people who paid their bill for FiOS TV or Internet service month-to-month by credit card. It backed off after complaints.
Verizon Wireless serves 91 million phones and other devices on accounts that pay the company directly, and more who pay indirectly through other companies.
© Copyright 2011 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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jimvw2 on December 30 at 8:09 a.m.
These jackasses should be happy people pay at all given the crappy service and consistent billing errors (strangely, always in their favor).
The FTC should step in and say no. Customers should vote with their feet. I will only pay AFTER I’ve had a chance to review my bill and determine if it’s accurate. Autopay means they get your money regardless, then you have to fight with them to get it back if they’ve made a mistake. I’ve already been there with Verizon.
This is one reason I left Verizon and paid the early cancellation fee. They were constantly making errors in my billings, always in their favor. Calls to resolve the over-billings always turned in to struggles to get the online representative to quit trying to sell me new services with the over-billed amount credit instead of just fixing the error and crediting my account.
Sad to see they are still the same greedy creeps as ever.
Nugget on December 30 at 9:29 a.m.
I have been with Verizon since the early ‘90’s (because of my job I had a cell phone before they became popular. You know, one of the brick phones). Anyway, I’ve NEVER had a billing problem with them & if I had any other problems they have been fix immediately.
I have nothing bad to say about them. Great service!
EthicsinLE on December 30 at 12:50 p.m.
Just another example of greed and trying to pry every dollar from your hand. A $2 “convenience” fee. It is more convenient and efficient for Verizon to have people pay their bills on line, no envelopes and paper checks to open and process. I’ll go back to mailing them a check, it’s just more work for them. Ridiculous.
Teseract on December 30 at 2:10 p.m.
They’ve reversed themselves already. I guess when the FCC gets involved and you get a petition with 60,000 signatures in 2 days on it, and your customer service reps get flooded with hate e-mails and phone calls, you change your mind.
I’ve been on Verizon since July. Of all the months since then only 2 months of my bills have been accurate… they always manage to overbill me, “forget” to take out my corporate discount, etc.
It’s gotten to the point that I dread looking at my monthly bill because it’s almost always shocking, then I end up spending my entire lunch hour on the phone debating with a “customer service” representative over why they billed this way or that way.
I made the error of adding a second line for my kid… and got a bill for $292 right after Christmas in return. It took a half dozen e-mails to my employer’s corporate rep, followed by playing phone tag, followed by the rep having to tell me to call customer service, then a 25 minute phone conversation just to fix the issue.
Next time I think I’m going to send them a bill for my time!