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Vonage Starts Charging 'Regulatory Recovery Fee'
slavitos writes "Vonage
sent an email announcing that starting with
'your next billing cycle, Vonage will begin to charge a Regulatory Recovery Fee of $1.50 per phone number. This is a fee that Vonage charges its customers to recover required costs of Federal and State Universal Service Funds as well as other related fees and surcharges. State and Federal agencies collect these fees from communications providers to fund public projects such as rural and library communications programs.' That could mean that Vonage is losing at least some ground in its battle against government VOIP regulations."
Wow, that's optimistic. The government regulates the size of toilet tanks. I think they can latch on to this too.
Curb CO2 emissions: Kill yourself today!
- Vonage gets sued to oblivion by phone companies
...
- People start using P2P VoIP phone applications en masse
- Phone companies start sending out subpoenas to ISPs to discover the real name/addresses of these evil phone call thieves.
- Phone companies sue 12 year old girl who was calling his grandfather and ask $15000 per stolen phone call
- Phone companies say VoIP technology is full of kiddie porn
Deja vu anybody ?
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
If telephone service used GNU/PhoneService, it would be robust, it would almost never crash, it would be very reliable and fast and you could use it with many different kinds of hardware.
On the other hand, the interface would be terrible, like people would have to remember long cryptic numbers in order to use it.
I don't need a signature.
I have to start charging a $1.50 check writing fee to offset my costs for paying my bill.
I am getting really sick of these copanies doing scumbag things like this... their fees that THEY are charged are a part of doing business. Just like the bullcrap "destination fees" when you buy a car. Dont pay them, if the dealer is going to let a $20,000.00 deal fall through over some stupid $150.00 fee they will shut up. just like if you get people to bitch about this lame $1.50 fee they will also stop.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
It's sad to see it go this way, but I guess it is fair. Last time I was reading my phone bill there was all sorts of charges such as the "Carrier Universal Service Charge" and the oh so classic "Universal Connectivity Fee" and of course the "Charge for Network Access" which for some reason they just can't call "renting our wire." It really does get confusing, at least Vonage will have a single line/single charge and you actually know what it's going towards.
Telcos are notorious for these charges, although most are legitimate the average joe-schmo wouldn't know what the hell his money was going towards.
An interesting story actually sprung up about these taxes, my buddy was getting a new cell phone and we were discussing the plan that he got and I'll never forget what he said. "Yeah well the plan is $34.99 a month of course they have the fuck you dickhead tax, and the rape you up the ass tax." I think that's how most of the general public feels towards these taxes. Perhaps they could use plain English to better explain these additional charges.