By 
Breaking news from the Wall Street Journal who is reporting that Verizon Wireless has offically reversed its plans to charge customers a $2 convenience to pay bills online. This news comes right after the FCC announced they would be investigating the matter. Verizon Wireless CEO Dan Mead said in an official statement,
“At Verizon, we take great care to listen to our customers. Based on their input, we believe the best path forward is to encourage customers to take advantage of the best and most efficient options, eliminating the need to institute the fee at this time.”
We faught the law and the law…. lost? This is great for thier customers ( I was going to be unaffected because of autopay) but I am very happy the fee wont be charged.
Actually, the law won; That’s why the FCC was getting involved. It wasn’t because of us, the consumer. It was because of the FCC.
+1
only because the FCC was getting involved and they need the FCC to approve their spectrum buy first. that’s more important then the $2 fee
Great news for consumers. First the At&t/T-Mobile acquisition falling apart and now this.
It’s only $2 bucks, but it’s the principle of the whole thing. It’s outrageous they are charging for convenience much like Bank of America’s $5 fee for debit cards.
Hopefully we can continue this trend for 2012 anytime something like this rears it’s ugly head again.
After Bank of America, it’s Verizon’s turn to reverse a decision to charge extra fees on their loyal costumers… I hope all other ‘big companies’ are taking note. We won’t let you win anymore.
dont blame bank of america on that one blame walmart
Unfortunately, I don’t think that Verizon was at all thinking about their customers with the reversal of this fee. It was when the FCC threatened to jump in that VZ suddenly stopped the upcoming “convenience” fee. They did it to protect themselves, not in advocacy of their loyal customers.
+1 for Anchorman photo on the homepage
We haven’t won anything…They will just raise the bill $2 somewhere else
EXACTAMUNDO!
This is too funny.
Developing… what?
Official statement from Verizon Wireless. Post has now…. developed.
What was Verizon thinking when they came to that idea?
It feels nice to see all of this “power to the customer” stuff actually working for once. First the big banks cave in, now Verizon
I’m sure this was more about the FCC, than customer feedback.
Exactly. They werent listening ti the customers. They were listening to the fcc.
Its still the good ol fuck the customer big red, but im glad this eas overturned.
Maybe the FCC needs to look into all carriers stupid fees
Agreed. Like charging $20-30/mo for unlimited texting. A simple 160 byte transmission. For comparison. 1 minute of calling uses about 1-2 KB / sec, or basically ~60,000 – 120,000 bytes… which equates to 375 texts per minute of calling at the least.
I’m ready to just be charged for a set amount of data that includes calling, sms, and internet… but I don’t really see that happening any time soon either.
There is always wifi calling.
The worst part about their plan to charge a $2 convenience isn’t even the fee itself… it’s the TIMING. Which idiotic exec at Verizon decided it would be a good idea to impose a ridiculous fee after three hefty outages in their network?
Glad the decision’s been reversed.
I dont know which is worse Verizon trying to charge a fee or big government policing how companies do business. Companies create jobs and they dont have to do so iif the US government is constantly policing them.
These payment methods COST Verizon and yes it is the cost of doing business however companies shouldn’t be expected to eat all the costs. If your cell phone bill is $100 Verizon is paying roughly $3 per transaction in processing fees.
Funny thing is at the SLIGHTEST government interference in our personal lives consumers go ballistic yet most consumers dont have a problem with big government policing businesses.
It’s also funny how the corporate apologist come out of the woodwork talking about “free enterprise”. Here’s a newsflash for you; the free enterprise/free market doesn’t exist. The system has been rigged and the players have been bought. You’re simply one of the suckers who have bought into it and now you don’t know anything except what you’re been told. Now you’re confused. You’ll come around sooner or later.
I happen to agree with the FCC thing, and I doubt they had any power to do anything, more then investigate. People get all caught up in government interference in such things, and ignore when they do things that will impair personal freedoms, but enough on that.
I honestly think the bad press more then anything the FCC would or could do stopped this. Accounts receivable has always been an expense that has been calculated into the product sold. This added fee is a recent adventure in many industries. I understand the pay by phone fee, and in many cases if you bitch enough they as well as others will waive it. Depending on circumstances. I’m also sure there is a cost involved in processing checks as well, as well as time for them to clear. (Time is money).
i guess now i’ll go back to paperless :)
Actually between this BS with the fees and the 3 major data outages this month Big Red has taken a beating in the press recently.
Good, they deserve it.
Funny thing is that the $2 fee would have made them lose money in the end based on people switching carriers and potential customers looking elsewhere. Things like this DO drive customers away.
Am I the only one who saw at the end of the statement the CEO said “at this time”? meaning that he’ll be sure to screw us VZW customers sometime in the future??? perhaps after the spectrum purchase O_o…..Taking bets now!!!
All verizon has to do is add the fee into a new plan then boom no one will ever know
Verizon’s net income doubled this year to $1.3 Billion. And they want to charge a $2 “convenience fee”? If this isn’t greed I don’t know what is.
I did not know that the FCC uses verizon as their carrier, i wander why they listened to their customers feedback, hahaha.
What do they mean by listening to the customers? What did they thing the customer was going to say. Oh another 2.00 fee. Thats great. I don’t pay enough now. I would love to pay more. Geez.
Figured this would happen with all the major news outlets reporting on this and the social networks going nuts. As I am writing this World News Now on ABC is talking about “power of the people.” I would like to believe this is a win for the consumer vs the huge corporate world, but I am sure they will get creative to get that extra revenue they want somehow.
they needed “customer input” to figure this out?
No, it was the FCC’s input. The “customer input” had nothing to do with this reversal. Don’t let yourself be fooled by their creative PR.
I tried to add more channels to my Comcast cable package a few years ago, and they told me there would be a $3 “change fee”.
“So… you’re going to try to bill $3 me for the pleasure of giving you more money every month?”
“Uhhh…. well… this is something that we have to charge-”
“Waive that fee, or I won’t upgrade, and I’ll immediately start looking at competitors.”
“Ok, that fee will be waived.”
Anyway, I cancelled cable shortly after that anyway. Total scam.
Unfortunately, I don’t think that Verizon was at all thinking about their customers with the reversal of this fee. It was when the FCC threatened to jump in that VZ suddenly stopped the upcoming “convenience” fee. They did it to protect themselves, not in advocacy of their loyal customers.
Its a god thing they listen to their subscribers. But watch out for the hidden fees now!
We apologise for the leaked memo. The parties responsible have been sacked.
Again we apologise for the confirmation of the previously denounced memo. The parties responsible for sacking the previous parties have also been sacked.
That is so stupid to charge us for that.
That’s good ‘cuz I really didn’t feel like writing a check!