Verizon To Charge $2 To Pay Your Bill

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Someone needs to explain to me the difference between paying online and automatic online payments? Both are paid online, so why the $2 convenience fee? A quick way to get Verizon to rethink this fee? Switch to a carrier that doesn't charge customers for actually paying their bills. :rolleyes:

Verizon Wireless, the country's largest cellphone company, is introducing a $2 fee for every payment subscribers make over the phone or online with their credit cards. The company says this "convenience fee" will be introduced Jan. 15.
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My VZW bill goes to my bank, then paid from there. Did they learn nothing from the BoA debacle?
 
Wow. Just wow! I know a lot of company's charge you to pay your bill over the phone, but that is almost justifiable since they had to pay a human to help you, but its still ass to charge someone for GIVING YOU MONEY!

But this is too far!!! To charge people for online credit card processing? Thats bull. It cost's PENNIES to handle online transactions, and thats why most companies push for it. Its cheep! Its like a profit of 1000%! Just like charging for txt messages, this is just a money grab. Im all for companies making money, but there really should be a limit to pure greed.

Thank gawd im with TMO and it didnt get gobbled up by AT&T!!!
 
I don't get it. Seriously, a "paying your bill online" fee?

Eat dick, Verizon.
 
Hell, my water and electrical bills are paid online and they both charge fees. This is total bullshit. Companies are getting ridiculous with this stuff.
 
Alot of companies do this. Especially utility companies. No big deal I use billpay most of the time anyways.
 
The fees are somewhat legit. If your bill is $50 and you pay them cash or check $50 they get all of that $50.

Where is if you pay $50 with a credit or debit card they net about $45 or so. Because they're charged a transaction fee and then also a percentage of the transaction amount.
 
hmmm.. let's think on this.

Computerized processing through phone or internet entered credit card data - cheaper, more convenient for customers, but carries with it fees of 2% from CC company and risk of CC fraud. Requires investment in computer infrastructure. Cheaper in the long run, but more expensive to set up.

Check processing through mail - more the 3 times more expensive in day to day expenses, manual labor from human staff, danger of stolen or lost checks, mistypes, incorrect processing, and employees snagging checking account numbers and committing check fraud. Cheaper to set up (just give that 18 year old scissors and an outdated computer) but more expensive in the long run.

The way many business graduates think: sure it's more convenient for the customers, and the setup costs pay off in less than three years. We even have everything already set up. Customers are stupid though, so I bet we can get them to pay "convenience fees" just to keep it easier on them. We'll make a BANK on it!

The way customers actually think: What?? Why? This is a ripoff! I'm moving companies/ not using that service anymore.

Results: more expense for processing physical checks from the mail and losing customers to competitors. (Oh, yeah, not very many competitors, so that effect will be smaller than usual.) In the end, they wind up with more expenses and lost revenue. In essence: losing money.

Many people in management positions like this are not to terribly bright. they think they're geniuses, but really they're just too stupid to really tell how stupid they are. They only manage to keep their jobs because they're friends with certain people, hold some sort of business knowledge that isn't known to others, or have some blackmail info on management. I'm guessing the latter in this case. This is just too stupid of a move to warrant the person being intelligent enough to have the other two advantages.
 
Time Warner has been doing this for god knows how long. And its 5 dollars for over the phone CC payments..

Nothing new, and not really a big deal.
 
Misleading headline and summary. FTA - this is for one-time payments. If you're like me, and already have your bills set on recurring payments with your credit card or bank account, you aren't affected, so it isn't quite as bad as it may seem.

Still a dick move by Verizon though. No doubt AT&T and Sprint will follow suit.
 
nsx241 said:
Misleading headline and summary. FTA - this is for one-time payments. If you're like me, and already have your bills set on recurring payments with your credit card or bank account, you aren't affected, so it isn't quite as bad as it may seem.

Still a dick move by Verizon though. No doubt AT&T and Sprint will follow suit.
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I agree but once i read into it a little more is not as bad as it sounds. You can still make check payments online and its free.
 
I can understand over the phone, because you have to pay a person to be on the other end of that phone. But online with all of the automation is a bit of a stretch.
 
WOW, this pisses me off. I have been with them for years. I may switch. What other companies that are good?
 
qbanb8582 said:
The fees are somewhat legit. If your bill is $50 and you pay them cash or check $50 they get all of that $50.

Where is if you pay $50 with a credit or debit card they net about $45 or so. Because they're charged a transaction fee and then also a percentage of the transaction amount.
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Legit my ass. I already fork over a shitload of money per month to Verizon for FIOS and two Android smartphones. They don't need anymore from me.

First it's bloatware on your phone that you can't remove. Then we get locked bootloaders, so we can't do what we want with OUR hardware. Then we get enormously shitty tiered data plans. Now this horseshit fee.

What's next? A fee to turn LTE back on the next time they trip over the power cable? I don't see Verizon apologizing to all the LTE users in the form of a credit to their accounts for the THREE outages this month.

On Twitter I just saw the best way to pay your bill to avoid the fee. Go to the Verizon store to pay directly in nothing but coins. I honestly may have to do that next week when I pay my bill.
 
any way for a company to make money and justify itself, they are going to it.

lots of companies are doing this, its catching on.

is it fair? eh 10 years from now your going to walk into a restaurant go to use the bath room, only to find a credit card swipe and coin deposit to pay to use the sink/toliet/paper. For the places who have stand in bathroom helpers their tip will be added to your check.

ok slightly off topic, and a bit extreme, but its the general trend of things. I personally want to look into clean air business, gonna cost ya to breathe soon.
 
mullet said:
WOW, this pisses me off. I have been with them for years. I may switch. What other companies that are good?
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Well, considering Verizon reset my contract time after a call to customer service and charged me an early cancellation fee, I'm not too fond of them. However, they are better than AT&T, in up front price, extra fees they sneak in, and customer service. AT&T is just barely behind Comcast for customer service. I'd have to recommend Sprint or T-mobile. I find Sprint has slightly better 3G and 4G performance, but lower customer service levels. Both are about equal on prices, depending on what you get.
 
ebduncan said:
any way for a company to make money and justify itself, they are going to it.

lots of companies are doing this, its catching on.

is it fair? eh 10 years from now your going to walk into a restaurant go to use the bath room, only to find a credit card swipe and coin deposit to pay to use the sink/toliet/paper. For the places who have stand in bathroom helpers their tip will be added to your check.

ok slightly off topic, and a bit extreme, but its the general trend of things. I personally want to look into clean air business, gonna cost ya to breathe soon.
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Not really. they'll lose money over this, both because of having to deal with more checks coming in the mail and lost customers. It's pretty much just a stupid move.

You are right about many companies doing similar things, and they're paying for it too. The companies will smarten up when they realize it's not working, fire or demote the idiots that thought it up, and bring in some smarter people.

I'm just waiting for someone to get it through their heads that this is a perfect time to remove the incompetent people and replace them with competent ones who are currently out of work and can be had for cheap. It should be the idiots out of work right now, and the hard working people being hired. The problem is that there are too many incompetents in management positions right now.
 
vsboxerboy said:
Just have everyone pay in pennies at a VZW store
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The problem with this is you're making the person working there have a bad day when their day is already bad just because they work for VZW.

Now, if you got the person who came up with this stupid idea to count the pennies, then great.
 
What a bonehead move. I can understand most of their motivation is probably moving people to automatic bank payments which are cheaper to process and help reduce late payments, but still charging customers to pay you via their payment of choice is asinine.
 
qbanb8582 said:
The fees are somewhat legit. If your bill is $50 and you pay them cash or check $50 they get all of that $50.

Where is if you pay $50 with a credit or debit card they net about $45 or so. Because they're charged a transaction fee and then also a percentage of the transaction amount.
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This is NOT true at all. Every deposit a company makes a company pays for with their bank. Verizon is paying a fee regardless of the transaction type. The stupidity is they pay MORE for that piece of paper being pulled from an envelope and accounted for.

Oh well. I'll go become someone else's customer then. Verizon Wireless charges for visual voicemail to the Android as well.
 
MikeTrike said:
I can understand over the phone, because you have to pay a person to be on the other end of that phone. But online with all of the automation is a bit of a stretch.
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Because the servers and applications used to run the billing system are free?


I'm just playing devils advocate :p
 
Does not matter what direction you turn your behind these days.

Surrounded by broomsticks you are.
 
ebduncan said:
10 years from now your going to walk into a restaurant go to use the bath room, only to find a credit card swipe and coin deposit to pay to use the sink/toliet/paper. For the places who have stand in bathroom helpers their tip will be added to your check.
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Gas stations in Germany have had pay toilets for a few decades now!! It really sucks when you run into the bathroom to take a dump and don't have any coins for the stall!! :eek:
 
Steve said:
Someone needs to explain to me the difference between paying online and automatic online payments?
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Nearly every online payment system wants me to go paperless, or auto pay. Constantly reminding me, and insisting that I do this. To the point where every time I log in they want me to enroll, or remind me later. There is no option to never remind me again.

So why do it? Why push this down our throats?

#1 It's much cheaper for them. If you go auto pay, then they don't need to mail you statements anymore. Only if requested. Mailing this stuff costs them millions.

#2 The security to know that they'll always get the payment. They don't want to go through the trouble to pull teeth to get their payments.

#3 Easier to add charges to your bill without you knowing.

So why shouldn't you go auto pay?

#1 Statements and bills are useful records. Went to the DMV for my license and the person praised me that I was lucky to still get a bill. You need it for proof of identification.

#2 Companies tend to overcharge you. Nothing like finding this out, and then having to deal with a bill that you auto paid. Just cause you got a bill, doesn't mean you have to pay for it. This gives you leverage when disputing a bill.

#3 Better to pay when you want. If you got two weeks to pay a bill, then why pay immediately? Sometimes money can be tied up with other things, and I generally like to take my time.
 
As stated by others....credit card companies charge transaction fees and a percentage of the total. American Express being the highest, visa snd MC being almost equal. I understand the move and don't blame them. learn to use your online bill pay or send a check; problem solved.
 
My wife used to have a Best Buy card, and one time it was due in a day or two and she forgot about it. So she got online to pay it and they told her in order for her to avoid the late fee she would have to pay $20 to have the payment expidited. We were like WTF, its a digital payment and the due date isn't for a couple days. So she called and got a rep on the phone and basicly it comes down to this... Whatever crediter BB uses holds all payments for 3 days in order to try and get you for a late charge, and even if you make a digital transaction where they have their money that instant they will not post it to your account even the next day unless you pay them the $20. To make a long story short she just paid it off and told them to get fuck'ed and we don't ever buy stuff there anymore. If I need something I don't have money for I can use Bill Me Later with Newegg or something.
 
Ashbringer said:
So why shouldn't you go auto pay?
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#4 is that sometimes billing errors occur. There have been cases where people signed up for auto-pay had an extra 0 added to their bill by accident. That caused their bank account to empty and checks to bounce incurring a huge range of fees from other payees, not to mention the strain of not having access to cash to get food!
 
"Convenience" fee? Yea, right. Another way to alienate your customers.

With all the anti-greed protests and crap going on, you'd think they'd do the opposite and lower the fees, not add more.
 
hpglow said:
My wife used to have a Best Buy card, and one time it was due in a day or two and she forgot about it. So she got online to pay it and they told her in order for her to avoid the late fee she would have to pay $20 to have the payment expidited. We were like WTF, its a digital payment and the due date isn't for a couple days. So she called and got a rep on the phone and basicly it comes down to this... Whatever crediter BB uses holds all payments for 3 days in order to try and get you for a late charge, and even if you make a digital transaction where they have their money that instant they will not post it to your account even the next day unless you pay them the $20. To make a long story short she just paid it off and told them to get fuck'ed and we don't ever buy stuff there anymore. If I need something I don't have money for I can use Bill Me Later with Newegg or something.
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I had a problem with BestBuy credit card as well. I bought a refrigerator from them in the summer, and offered me a credit card, with 0% interest for 1 year. I was like sure, sign me up.

Started paying this bill online, and was wondering why the bill wasn't getting smaller. They were charging me protection fees, and other bullcrap fees. Also, there was a 25% interest fee, which there shouldn't have been. So I just payed it off.

I don't even know why I ever shop at BestBuy. I must be a masochist.
 
I'm going to call next week and threaten to leave if they don't exempt me. See if it works.

I'll report back.
 
qbanb8582 said:
The fees are somewhat legit. If your bill is $50 and you pay them cash or check $50 they get all of that $50.

Where is if you pay $50 with a credit or debit card they net about $45 or so. Because they're charged a transaction fee and then also a percentage of the transaction amount.
Click to expand...

This is a load of feces. This is simply the cost if doing business. I remember years ago being a Verizon subscriber and putting up with their nickle and dime garbage. They literally locked their phones so you could only play songs you bought from Vcast. I remember having to "hack" the internal memory through a special cable that would allow me to force music files on it in a special format. It was insane that a phone I OWNED was locked like that. Imagine buying a car and only being able to play music from the songs you buy from dealer.
 
Recently we've seen the effects of consumer outrage from GoDaddy and Bank of America. I wonder if Verizon customers will follow suit.
 
Seems like every Mobile company is screwing you in some way. I get charged $5 extra each month on Sprint for an "Account Spending Limit". I am charged this because I didn't sign up for monthly automatic bill payment. (I like to see what I'm being charged before paying it, and I like to not be as detached from what I spend monthly).

I think the "Account spending limit" was supposed to be for people with bad credit, (because people with bad credit can't possibly click a check-box for recurring payment :rolleyes:) but I have perfect credit (never missed paying any bill in my life, a bit ocd).

Once I noticed that I was being charged the $5 a month I contacted customer service trying to get the charge dropped, they were inflexible to say the least. I decided my next step was to see if the Better business bureau could help, reported it online and figured it was more than long shot that anything would happen.

Surprisingly they contacted them, I recieved a call back from Sprint to explain the charge was created because people who don't sign up for auto pay (aka more likely to read the bill) called and complained about the bills being wrong more often and they needed to offset the cost. :) (Still getting charged, I was just happy to waste a little of that customer service bank of theirs in the end)

TD;DR : Sprint sucks too, all mobile companies are awful. :D
 
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