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Verizon Adds $2 Charge For Paying Your Bill Online
An anonymous reader writes with this excerpt from geek.com (based on a report at Droid Life) that makes me consider quitting or at least suspending the very expensive service 3G data service I get from Verizon: "With 2012 about to start, it seems Verizon has decided paying your bill online or over the phone is
now worthy of an extra charge. So, from January 15, anyone choosing to pay their monthly bill using either method will incur a $2 charge. Verizon is classing the charge as a 'convenience fee' which translates into them deciding allowing you to pay either online or over the phone is a convenience. They also explain in the FAQ above that the fee allows them, 'to continue to support these bill payment options.' Really, Verizon? When did offering online payments or accepting phone calls from customers get so much more expensive?"
This is completely reverse to what companies in my country have started doing. For a long time companies have started pushing people to use internet billing, and if you still want paper bill then that costs extra (because it really does, with printing and mailing). Sending invoice or auto-billing via internet saves them a lot, so I'm not sure I understand why Verizon would want to do thi.. oh right, more $$$.
And give auto-pay customers a $2 discount?
Arent online payments actuallt cheaper for them?
They need a small team of highly paid people instead of thousands of people across the country to collect cheques from drop boxes and cash at stores.
If they have 1 person per store to collect cash, wouldnt they have to increase the no. by a lot to make up for the extra load created by this fee?
Sounds like it's time to pay the bill with a bag of pennies instead. If that's inconvenient for them, for $5 they can get a check instead.
Anonymous, sic'em!
not if someone avoids a late charge using them.
Wait, isn't Verizon a phone company? And would you likely be making the call on their own lines? Would it be free if you called using an AT&T phone? Sprint? T-Mobile? Is this what they would prefer?
Is it cheaper for them to accept a payment via mail or at the store? really? Ridiculous. This sounds like just a way to stop people using credit cards to pay, since direct debiting your checking account waives the fee.
of course it is cheaper for them, that has nothing to do with the fee. Paying online or over the phone is quicker, easier, and cheaper for the consumer, therefore more convenient. If Verizon can leverage that convenience as a premium service, then they will bill for it. There are plenty of colleges and utilities that do this same thing. Pisses me off, but at least with Verizon there is some chance of moving to another company ( in some locations) as opposed to my water bill, which I pretty much just have to suck it up.
These are the things that made AT&T swallowing T-mobile such a bad deal. More competition actually removes this kind of crap. Fewer companies makes collusion easier, and these fees will pop up everywhere.
The fee is waived if you pay by electronic check or auto pay. This only effects last minute payments.
I complained about how much my cell phone company ripped me off. I was told that I should have read the contract more carefully. Now I say that you shouldn't do business with these companies because they rip you off seven ways from Sunday. If you lie down with dogs, you get fleas.
All over Europe, you may have to pay a fee for not paying online, but nobody would charge you for making things cheaper for everybody.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Here they waive the late fee if you are late by a day or 2 occassionally
Due dates are 20-25 days after the bill date anyways so you have plenty of time.
Would be better in US I guess
The fee is waived for autopay.
The economy sucks, they want all their accounts on autopay so the phone bill gets taken out before other bills if the customer's money can't pay them all.
Beware of autopay. Once you bill is autopaid you have a lot less leverage in billing disputes.
Cash and cheques don't incur the same fees as online processing, which usually entail VISA/MC/AMEX/etc taking their 2% or more of the transaction in fees. In addition, they are Non Qualified transactions. This is because the card is not present, thus there is a higher likelihood that there could be a charge back, so the processing company charges an additional fee.
I think Verizon is idiotic for adding this surcharge that is so obviously a cash grab, but I would like to dispel the idea that the online transactions are inherently cheaper. They have staff at retail outlets for sales already, so the fixed costs for the rentals are already taken into account.
Some airlines are starting to do this (charge) with online check-ins. Maybe it is some form of ill advised job protection measure for Verizon letter openers/airline counter people.
Time to make them send me a paper bill again. Just because I can, which is no different than what they are doing with this charge.
Arguing with an engineer is like wrestling a pig in mud. Soon, you realize the pig is dirty, and he likes it.
Nissan, ADT, and a host of other companies...
however, only an ID10T would use a company's on-line billing system (most are a nightmare, with ADT being one of the worst)
normal, intelligent folks will use the 'BillPay' feature of one's bank, with no fees and no stamps involved
(USAA is tops in this regard)
Time to try another vendor - 'nuff said
I would think online payment would be less expensive; the solution then seems to be to organize a movement for everyone to pay online and make them regret this decision.
Personally, I use a pre-paid cell phone, and I would prefer to mail a check. I can go to my bank's website, and they'll print and mail the check for me. The real advantage is it is not my account listed, its one my bank maintains, so they know the approved payments and anything else gets blocked. When a problem occurs, its the bank's problem not mine so I don't have to worry about them next month deciding to try to automatically bill me like I do when I pay with a credit/debit card or check.
For amounts which stay the same, I can automate the procedures; for ones which vary (like cell phones because there's ALWAYS some additional charge), you just type in the amount when you get the bill. I usually have it scheduled to be paid a couple days after pay day, but I can still set the amount the night I get the bill making it easy to not forget. On pay day, I just go in and see which monthly bill's don't have a payment scheduled and follow-up with the company to see why I haven't gotten a bill and how much I owe.
It says in the full article that they won't charge $2 if you use an electronic check or autopay. These are probably handled entirely by bank computers. This means that they get your money perfectly on time, Hope you don't notice when your bills go up, and they don't need to pay to keep so many servers going.
The company is charging extra if customers use a service thats cheaper for the company
Doesnt this have a massive chance of backfiring by a large proportion of people actually walking into and clogging up stores to pay their bills in person?
Or are phone bills so high in US that $2 is an insignificant percentage?
From the artcle:
I would suggest not costing yourself more than $2 to avoid a $2 charge. Well unless you have a way to inconveniance Verizon and don't mind paying to do so of course.
The gist of this is to collect the money more *reliably*... If you set up auto-billpay (even if you choose to pay your bill some other way, which works fine in their system) you will not see this fee. They are doing this solely to encourage (nay, force) users to set up some sort of auto pay account so that they can have the assurance of getting their $165 per month for a family cell phone package... Like it or hate it, the fact is most users won't give a crap, either because they already chose the automatic option or they underestimate the ability for VZ to hide fees as line items that never get noticed, and just throw money at their cellphone bill each month anyway. Think of it this way, that $2 fee is only the equivalent of 8 full-rate text messages. And how long does it take you to rack up 8 text messages?
Seems like the answer is pretty simple to me: Verizon customers should send them a check until they drop this policy. Note that I didn't say "drop your online payment option and send them a check." Simply send them a check, for a little bit too much, a week before your automatic billing date. They can sort out how to handle the expense of processing all of those checks, plus cancelling (or reversing, even better) the automatic payment for that cycle, deal with the trivial credit balances on the account, and generally be miserable. If they charge you automatically with the service fee, complain that the service was already paid for. If you and 10,000 of your closest friends do this, the policy will change in one month. If they refuse your alternate payment in any fashion, call your state attorney general, the BBB, enterprising consumer reporters, and the rest of the usual suspects.
Or just shrug and go along with it as most consumers do, which is why this is a smart move for Verizon. Wait until you get a "wire maintenance fee" for the charger on your cell phone.
Lucky you. Here in the US, I've heard of credit card companies would sit on payments in the incoming mail for a day or two just so they can call it late when they finally open it up. (Postmarks? Why should they care about that?)
#naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
I guess they don't want us to pay online then - so how do they want us to pay? Cheque? Cash?
Take Live Nation/Ticketmaster for example. They will charge a fee for online sales, specifically for "e-tickets" to cover money that they thought they'd be able to make up on shipping.
In this case though they really are most likely trying to make up money from the cost of keeping the website and payment processes working and secure. Not saying your normal bill doesn't cover it.. but someone has probably looked at their budget and realized that the My Account features don't directly generate revenue... so it's a cost.. and it's eating into the profit of the rest of the company. Not thinking that the features really are part of the package to begin with.
On the phone payment charge... I think they're justified in that.. it's a small charge (compared to others which want $10, $15, or more) and it does tie up the phone line.
My water supplier also charges an extra $2.50 "convenience fee" for paying online. This comes to about 10% of the total bill most months. It's a pain in the ass because the only other form of payment they accept is checks and I don't own a checkbook (I prefer to use credit cards for everything possible... yay cashback).
Hey, Slashdot! Read the actual article. Verizon is ONLY charging the fee if you use a one-time-payment method other than e-check. If you use e-check, the fee is waived. All they are doing is passing along the credit/debit card fees. If you are enrolled in auto-pay, the credit/debit card fee is waived!
Arent online payments actuallt cheaper for them?
They need a small team of highly paid people instead of thousands of people across the country to collect cheques from drop boxes and cash at stores.
If they have 1 person per store to collect cash, wouldnt they have to increase the no. by a lot to make up for the extra load created by this fee?
They may actually be passing down their online credit card processing fees.
When you set up an online shop to accept credit cards, you have to have an intermediary service that your back-end systems call to validate the credit card, ensure the card will accept your charge, and start the ball rolling on processing the charge. These services generally take 1-5% (based on which processor you use) per transaction. On a $100 monthly bill, that would come to $1-5 per month.
I'm certainly not defending them here; I think adding the charge NOW instead of when they first set up online payment is in bad taste. However, this does provide a plausible explanation.
If a dispute occurs they have your money and you have little recourse. With a credit card payments you can do a chargeback if they take too much. Using your bank's online bill pay gives you positive control, which means you decide how much to pay as opposed to Verizon deciding how much to take.
Never EVER give a creditor access to your bank account. This includes Paypal.
That's actually a fact. There was a lawsuit, federal investigation, etc... happened in California, I forgot the name of the bank. It was on 60min some time back.
Well, its much more difficult to get an unsecured credit card here
You wont get one unless you have a job. Even then they will give you one with a tiny credit limit till you make ontime payments for a while.
After all that they will still not give you a card with a limit more than 3-4 months of your salary
The state of NJ charges a $2 "convenience fee" to renew your vehicle registration online or the same fee per any transactions they allow online. They mail you a renewal form pre-filled out with a reference number and you can go to their site, type in the number, and it populates everything for you. Alternatively you fill in the missing lines on the form and bring it to the DMV. I'll spend the gas and time to go to the DMV, because I'm not paying an additional $2 tax to the State for something that saves them money, they tax the hell out of me already.
Regardless, in this VZ situation it seems the easiest option to avoid the fee, and postage, hassle of writing a check is use your banks bill pay feature if they offer one, or sign up with one of several free bill pay services. The end result is they send either a paper check in the mail for you or a electronic check, however that works, but the bill gets paid adn it would seem from Verizon's verbage that the "convenience fee" does not apply to those types of payments. Thus you avoid the fee and still pay the bill. If there's no way to avoid it without it being an inconvenience, cancel the service. Use another provider. On a related note, I hope this doesn't apply to FIOS or I'll be stuck switching to cable or DSL or maybe smoke signals. I won't tolerate nickel and diming through fees on services I use that SAVE a company money.
I have mine tied directly to my checking account and payments are done as ACH at no cost to me. Verizon also pushed me toward One Bill and then paperless billing to save the environment, and now they want to charge me $2.00 a month to do their job: I'm sorry, when I enter all the data and submit my bill every month *I AM DOING THE WORK FOR YOU!* It should not cost them a dime for me to submit my bill, directly to their systems, online.
As long as I've been paying online, they've charged a fee if you use your credit card. No fee if you pay from your checking account, and this hasn't changed.
This article illustrates why I don't regard Slashdot as a reliable news source.
No sig? Sigh...
Probably. Which is why it would be amusing to see what happened if people decided en masse to pay by paper and in person until Verizon's policy changes.
This is nothing, Sprint, while offering cheaper plans than Verizon still nickels and dimes you to death with a $4.99 a month fee if you don't sign up for auto-pay. They also have "Sprint Surcharges" on top of the taxes and other fees.
Ahhh, but paying online is also a convenience for Verizon as the data entry labor is all done by the customer and then processed by the same systems the internal people use whether you paid by phone or mail. It's horse shit! It's like that $5.00 charge the banks wanted to impose on Debit Card users, and the customer response should be the same (will be from me!).
approve of these charges.
Most bank accounts here in the states offer free billpay, which is as you describe. You don't go to the company's website to pay, you go to your bank's site and enter all the information.
No need for complicated routing information either, if you enter "NSTAR" it magically knows that you mean the sometimes electric, sometimes gas[1] utility and gets the right electronic routing information. If it doesn't get it right away, it somehow figures it out in a few days. For those very few companies that aren't online, the bank mails a check for free.
There is even a facility where you can view your bill through the billpay interface. Right now, only one of the companies I regularly pay with billpay offers that, so I still work off paper bills. As more and more move to that feature, I will adapt my workflow to better capitalize on that.
[editorial mode]
I know you like to jump on the United States without looking, is this one of those times? Honestly, it is great that Europe has all those toys, but guess what, the United States does as well. I hate to burst your bubble, but we aren't sitting here writing out checks in perfect penmanship by candlelight. Would it be so much to ask you to at least stick to stories about the United States that are remotely true?
[editorial mode off]
[1] NSTAR furnishes electricity in my area, but in other parts of Massachusetts it furnishes just natural gas. In those areas where NSTAR furnishes one, National Grid does the other. Go figure.
Arent online payments actuallt cheaper for them?
Um, yeah ... don't apply for any jobs in marketing or management, ok? You're not cut out for it.
No sig today...
Comcast started this a couple years ago. With them your only free route is autopay, or pay in person at an office (required by law [at least in washington]).
Verizon doing this is probably stage one in a plan to encourage people to sign up for autopay so that they can then jack up prices without you noticing. That's what has happened with Comcast.
This has nothing to do with how much it costs verizon. Businesses do not charge you based on what their costs are. They charge you based on what you are willing to pay.
Quit arguing over whether or not the charge is justified. It doesn't HAVE to be justified. Either you're willing to pay it or you're not. Somewhere some verizon bean counters ran all the hard math that factors in their actual costs, in terms of providing the service, loss of business, handling angry phonecalls,bad press, etc, and figured this was a net-win, and so they did it. That's all there is to it. You're totally missing the point if you're trying to figure out why verizon is "justified" in making a change to their charges. If you're willing to pay for it, they're justified in charging for it. Nothing else matters in the business world.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
Telus charges an extra 2 bucks a month for having a paper bill, as opposed to paying online. Granted that makes some kind of sense, but still...
I really wish these companies would just be openly and honestly avaricious, and simply raise their rates. They're really not fooling anyone with their lame attempts at disguising their gouging, and they probably piss us off more with all the bullshit nonsense than they would if they just instituted a rate increase.
'The Economy' is a giant Ponzi scheme whose most pitiable suckers are the youngest among us and the yet-unborn.
It probably does have a chance of backfiring, but I am sure they know how locked in their customers are, and how unwilling others may be to move. The risk is likely outweighed by the profit, and the bad PR will be replaced shortly by another cell company being even more assholish.
I think they already charge a "service fee" at stores for paying there (i know other carriers do.) If so, then you are paying 2 bucks for the convenience of not paying a higher "service fee" :P
I am not saying it isnt horseshit, I am saying that they have no responsibility to share their own convenience ( at least from their perspective ). when they see a convenience for the customer , they charge for it. I like the idea in a comment around here that everyone should pay in person, with pennies. 8000 pennies per month per customer is going to break the brinks trucks hauling them to the banks. That would be justice for this move.
The fee does not apply to either ACH or AutoPay transactions. This leaves credit card payment as the only mechanism which does incur the fee. Verizon can't come out and say that the fee is because you're using a credit card, because the terms between credit card processors (e.g. MasterCard, VISA) and merchants (in this case, Verizon) specifically forbid altering the price if a credit card is used. When you pay a merchant with a credit card, the merchant only gets 97-99% of the price you pay with the card. 1-3% goes to the credit card company. Verizon can accept payment in any of three ways, but one of them costs Verizon more than the other two ways, and they consequently charge a fee. It's not exactly in-line with their costs, but considering what a monthly phone bill for a smart phone costs, it's not grossly far off, either.
"Give away the stone, let the oceans take and transmutate this cold and faded anchor." - Maynard James Keenan
Okay let's dissect this before Slashdot goes apeshit. Per the screenshot on the link:
"A $2 payment convenience fee applies to bill payments made by phone (IVR and rep-assisted) and online (My Verizon and My Verizon Mobile). The fee is waived for bill payments made by electronic check (also referred to as "ACH") and for all bill payments made on accounts that are enrolled in AutoPay with any payment method (credit/Debit/ACH or electronic check)."
Now before I go further, note that some payment options cost more for Verizon than others. Mostly it's due to credit card interchange fees, and not personnel and infrastructure as most people think. Credit card processors love to slam everyone, small and big companies alike, and verizon is trying to maintain margins. Yes they are also trying to discourage people from using certain services by "incentivizing" them to use ones that cost less. I'm not stating to defend this, merely trying to explain how things work.
Now then:
1) payments over the phone are considered "less secure" by credit card companies because there's a human involved. Despite all the huge "this site got haxx0red and lost 100k credit card numbers" stories, most credit card fraud is an inside job where humans get card numbers. They have humans handling multiple things in customer service and I'm sure they have made things efficient enough at this point that someone taking a payment over the phone is not going to hurt their bottom line. What does hurt their bottom line is that "less secure" transaction cost more money to Verizon, thus a $2 fee. It's verizon passing on costs.
2) Doing payments by ACH is basically wiring the money. This passes the cost from Verizon to the customer, because wiring money might cost money with the bank. It might not, but it depends on each bank. Verizon has no real extra cost here.
3) The sentence is convoluted but it seems there is a difference between making a one time payment via verizon's site, and being enrolled in autopay, which autocharges every month. This part I am not as familiar with, but it would seem locking your card number costs less than typing it in once. From Visa's standpoint this is counter intuitive because if a user pays once and presents you with a card and you throw away the number after the transaction is done, it's "more secure" than storing the card and paying it at any time. It's more likely to get stolen if it's stored. I can theorize here that they must be using two payment systems and the autopay system is cheaper all around in interchange fees simply due to volume.
Now I'm not defending this fee by any means, but I am explaining the thought process here. They are trying to incentivize people to use lower cost services due to interchange fees, regardless if it costs them a human being to do so. To me, it's not in a company's best interest to start charging their customers fees like this and they should eat costs as a part of doing business. There are probably better ways to incentivize people.
"All great wisdom is contained in .signature files"
Have you every disputed a fee with American Express? They are really good about it. Uncooperative vendors quickly start cooperating. I don't see any reason for concern.
You can't go pay your Verizon bill in person at a store, unless that store has an automated payment kiosk.
I autopay with my VISA. If I need to dispute, and VZW wants to argue, I call my bank, and they handle it. Done it before.
Just another ignorant American.
Did I miss Ticketmaster buying out Verizon or something? Or maybe companies just don't hire competent marketing/planning folks anymore...
I don't know why this has to be mentioned every time, but Verizon and Verizon Wireless are separate companies. Who are we talking about here? It says Verizon, but then starts talking about 3G data service, which is obviously a VZW product.
The only options left are 1000/$10 and unlimited/$20. That pushed me over the top and I signed up for Google Voice. Free texts and free voice mail transcription to email. Both services V charges for.
My response: So what?
Every company is trying to grab more money. Why don't you mail a check if you're not happy paying $2?
Citizens Bank actually charges $2/mo to get a paper statement, per account. I have multiple accounts with them. Net result? I pay $2 to have a statement mailed for _one_ of my accounts, and they dramatically reduce their paper consumption.
This is not the same thing, but how you gonna try and tell me that it's less expensive to employ Phone Drones to take your call (wait, they can take payments with a robot...) or enough programmers to keep the website functioning (a programmer isn't cheaper than a phone operator, are we? ...at least I hope not)
I am sure that this is not an example of Verizon trying to give extra business to the postal service, this is just another way that they can get you used to coming in to their store once a month to buy their overpriced accessories and make sure you get a chance to look at the latest over-sized tin can and string that they have to offer.
Restating the obvious since nineteen aught five.
Without paying the ETF? I realize it's probably a better question for The Consumerist, but I figured I would ask.
For those who seek perfection there can be no rest on this side of the grave.
Maybe they'll charge $3 to pay with a check. That way, the $2 is a bargain.
It is illegal in some U.S. States to charge more for a product or service if the buyer is using a credit card. Also, it is a violation of the merchant agreement with Visa, MasterCard, and American Express. This policy at Verizon is essentially a surcharge for payment via credit card. If one uses cash (cheque by mail, or ACH bank transfer), then there is no fee.
If one pays with credit card, then there is a "convenience fee" (surcharge). I suppose that their legal department could argue that they provide the Auto-Pay option for credit-card users to avoid the surcharge, but it remains debatable.
It certainly is not customer friendly. A more friendly way to cover their credit-card fees is to make the higher rate the standard price, and provide a discount for cash payments (cheques and ACH).
Really, Verizon? When did offering online payments or accepting phone calls from customers get so much more expensive?
When they learned that putting warm bodies in call center seats requires paying them?
Ironically the payment envelope they send your bill with says on the stamp spot, Want to save money on a stamp? pay online at verizonwireless.com
"... for the consumer." Ah, too late mate. You are fodder for Moloch.
If I were Verizon's millions of customers, I'd mail every bill to Verizon, and see how long it would take for them to drop this "convenience" fee because processing a paper bill, processing & lag time on a check would be more expensive than doing it electronically. Thanks to regulators, allowing AT&T & Verizon to gobble up the competition, this is what you get with a duopoly.
Actually there is a fiscal reason that doesn't have anything to do with profit directly, but the cost of regulatory compliance. I work for a small electric utility that takes online credit card payments and payments via phone. If people understood how much it costs us in time and equipment to maintain regulatory compliance for PCI/DSS alone they might stop asking some of these questions. We spend hundreds of person hours a year to maintain our ability to provide this service to our customers. We have to perform regular internal audits. We have to perform vulnerability assessments and mitigation specifically related to PCI compliance that we would not otherwise have to mitigate. We have to pay for external audits. We have to maintain, audit, track, systems that are there specifically so that we are PCI compliant. Systems that duplicate other perfectly acceptable and functional systems but those systems don't meet certain criteria that make them 'compliant'. Failure to maintain the correct paperwork, audits, assessments, equipment, and documentation for all of the above (yes we have a paper trail to document our paperwork) can result in fines or loss of our ability to accept payments via online or phone. We only have about 40,000 customers but we dedicate close to $100,000 year in hours, and this doesn't include additional firewalls and network infrastructure capital and maintenance costs.
These regulatory burdens apply to ANY entity that accepts credit cards or e-check via phone or online. So whether you see the figure as a line item or not, you are paying for it.
While there are no US federal laws dictating that a business can refuse the payment in pennies, private business are still allowed to specify which forms of payment they will accept. Thus if you go into the Verizon store and try to pay an $80 bill with pennies, the Verizon store can refuse to accept it and ask that you pay in another form.
If anything, the costs for accepting phone calls and online payments has decreased in price, and with that decreased price comes higher bandwidth capabilities, so there really isn't any other justification for this other than they want to be able to make up for those giant christmas bonuses they give out or be able to refuel their private jets. Typical of most companies nowadays.
"I hope you know how very lucky you are to know me, because I am so incredibly incredible."
In the US at least, companies are required to remit a statement at least 10 days prior to the billing date so you have a chance to review your statement for AutoPay (at least the versions of AutoPay that directly debit your account via ACH). If a company debits you for more than you have agreed to you, you have recourse with your financial institution to dispute the charge. Although this is a gross simplification, the financial institution has to refund the disputed funds within 10 days.
I guess what it comes down to is...how often do you think you'll have a problem with a bill vs the energy it takes to dispute one when you do? I find that the convenience of having my bills come out automagically so I don't have to worry about late payments more than outweighs the occasional disupute (which I have not ever to date have had to exercise in over 20 years of having my bills on AutoPay).
Two things -
Verizon or Verizon Wireless? They're not the same company.
My business has a T1 and 15 phone lines with Verizon. We are charged an extra $19 per month to get a paper bill.
According to the screen shot: "The fee is waved for bill payments made by electronic check and for all bill payments made on accounts that are enrolled in AutoPay with any payment method."
Just wait until they start adding on an extra fee for accepting payment of the first extra fee.
Then come another extra fee for accepting payment off the first extra fee's extra fee.
Then comes another...
The fee is waved for those enrolled in AutoPay with any payment method. Basically they are charging you a fee if they have to mail you the bill. If your not enrolled in AutoPay your getting all the same mail as the person who pays by check.
They can sort out how to handle the expense of processing all of those checks, plus cancelling (or reversing, even better) the automatic payment for that cycle, deal with the trivial credit balances on the account, and generally be miserable.
Lol...you think having a credit balance is going to be some inconvenience that they are going to have to figure out how to deal with? Their system is already designed to handle this...it will just credit you on your next statement(s) and you will be billed less in the future. Even if you send them another check when your bill is already 100% paid due to credit balances, they will just do the same thing. They'll be more than happy to hold onto you money for you.
In the 90s Bell South charged us to go to their office and pay a bill. Pretty sure they also charged you if you paid by check (processing), by phone, hell, they probably had a charge if you paid them by direct deposit and Western Union.
This is just how they operate. You only get so many customers and share holders get antsy because of that, so you invent new charges.
This is also why they publicly balk at the idea of new taxes, but don't shed a tear when they get to tack on two new charges with that tax (gotta charge them for collecting the tax and charge them for handing it over). It is all a game.
Eventually Verizon wants to implement a $10 privilege payment fee. If you wish to pay your Verizon bill on-line, electronic or via post you will have to pay for that privilege, obviously if you don't pay you have to pay a penalty. So in addition to the actual bill you will always be paying either a privilege or penalty fee. Now if you pay late you will have to also pay a privilege fee for paying the penalty fee.
Use your credit union's free online BillPay service to send them a check instead. You win with an online only transaction. Make sure your account# is in the memo field. They lose because they have to process a paper check (this is really better for them huh? So be it).
Paperwork takes much more processing, and costs them a significant amount of money. If every verizon customer started paying by snail mail, they may revize this scam policy.
Also, consider changing carrier.
I'm pretty sure that a lot of people who hate credit rent. There have been a few comments to past stories about how owning a home makes it harder to follow the jobs.
Yes, but the issue is. Verizon knows once you get on autopay, you are going to stop watching the bill. The 10 days will pass and the money will be gone, and you will be left with no options.
For me, autopay worked great until payroll was messed up and I was accidentally deleted instead of the person that was supposed to be terminated. Payday came with no direct deposit followed by all those wonderful autopays triggering. When the dust settled I was in the hole for over twice what I paid out. So there is no autopay in my life anymore except for my mortgage and my auto insurance, two things that I must have to function.
Voting them all out of office, now that's change I can believe in.
The alternative is to use your own bank's electronic bill paying service. It's usually not as shiny as the biller's, but it has the advantages of allowing you to control when and how much money is taken out of your account, letting you monitor spending from your own bank's website, and facilitates record-keeping if you need to dispute a bill. And, if you have a good bank (or, even better, a credit union), it's free.
This unbiased moderation brought to you by the Porcine Aviation Group!
I used to work in the payment card industry, McD was one of our clients, and I was told that they paid on the order of a few cents or maybe a dozen at most per trx. Might be higher for card not present, not sure.
etc.
Utility companies usually don't actually collect bills from the boxes, or from the mail. A contracted bank actually collects and processes the bills for the merchant. The service is called "Lock Box". The same sorters that process the banks checks can be used to process the utility payments. The cost is quite a bit cheaper than credit cards. Which makes you wonder why credit cards cost so much to begin with.
Good advice.
I'm interested in hearing more on buffering PayPal from your bank account, as right now PayPal basically is my buffer.
This is about credit card interchange and transaction fees, which have recently gone up as a result of congressional price controls on debit card (but not credit card) fees and other regulations that closed a few avenues banks used to have for making money. Another cause is the rise of 'rewards' cards over the last decade -- if you get 1-2% back on your transactions, whether via 'points' or cash back, almost all of that is coming from the merchants who pay these fees and not your credit card bank. Predictably, they raised rates on other things to try and make up the difference. Transaction fees on credit cards have skyrocketed over the last 5-6 years, especially for Internet 'card not present' transactions. I handle ecommerce for a non-profit that does about 1.5 mil a year through us, and only after a lot of haggling were we able to get something like 2.29% + 21 cents per charge, which on your average Verizon wireless bill is right around or even over $2. Some places will hit you for closer to 3%, though a company as big as Verizon undoubtedly has a lower rate.
These fees don't apply to ACH/bank transfers, so Verizon wants you to use those. If my business accepted credit cards for payment, we'd probably want to do the same thing, but Verizon is a big bad phone company and so it's easy to pile on them. I'm glad I'm an AT&T customer in this case (since they don't have anything like this ... yet).
The story is being spun a bit as 'Verizon wants you to mail in a check and why are they charging me to do their work for them.' Verizon doesn't want you to mail in a check. Verizon wants you to pay from your bank account, as tons of people do in Europe. It's a perk for me to be able to pay most of my bills - business and personal - via credit card (which I pay off every month) because I get 1-2% back and because the credit card companies will go to bat for me if there is a problem with a charge, whereas once an ACH is complete there is not an easy mechanism to reverse it. Right now, AT&T is paying about $4/month (of my $150 bill) for me to have those perks. Since AT&T is a huge company and most of its customers are 'the little guy,' you could argue that we're entitled to those perks and AT&T should pay for it - to which my response (were I AT&T) would be that we have no problem paying something for it, but rates are now high enough that it's worth considering the big PR hit of adding a fee like this.
Most of us wouldn't switch carriers over a $2/mo fee. Most of us would set up the automatic bank transfer and grumble about it, and Verizon knows that.
Here in France direct transfer is actually safer in that respect than CC, because chargebacks are even easier to obtain (IIRC a mere phone call as opposed to written complaint, and a longer grace period). This is mostly because creditor-issued transfers have stringent specs, it's open only to established businesses (utilities mainly), and if they don't respect the charter (i.e. delay in chargebacks, abnormally large amounts ...) their authorization can be pulled in a matter of days.
New York State General Business Law Section 518: Credit card surcharge prohibited.
No seller in any sales transaction may impose a surcharge on a holder who elects to use a credit card in lieu of payment by cash, check, or similar means.
Any seller who violates the provisions of this section shall be guilty of a misdemeanor punishable by a fine not to exceed five hundred dollars or a term of imprisonment up to one year, or both.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
The annoying thing is they also have in-person fees of usually the same amount. So you pay an extra fee no matter how you buy the ticket.
Points on my credit card (i.e. free money/miles/ etc)
Those points are smoke in mirrors. Credit card companies get the money to give you perks in part because they charge businesses a couple percent for credit card transactions. In turn, the businesses charge the customers -- either directly like Verizon or indirectly by raising rates. I'd gladly move to a system with lower credit card charges and without perks (debit cards kind of fit the bill).
The credit card companies don't want merchants to add a surcharge for credit card payment. Calling it a "convenience fee" and then "waiving" it for ACH payment is a way for merchants to circumvent these contractual restrictions, much as some gas stations give a discount on gas purchased with a gift card (and gift cards must be paid for with cash or EBT card).
The fee is being charged for _credit card_ (and other indirect) forms of payment online. If you authorize a onetime payment from your checking account (ACH) the fee is waived, and you don't incur the worst risks of automated bill pay. Yes, they have your bank account number, but you've only authorized a one-time transaction, so they can be fought if they try to take additional payments out.
On the other hand, this is a good argument for using a bill-pay service from your bank instead. At least until _they_ start charging a buck or two for each transaction.
We are the 198 proof..
The only reason the USPS is near bankruptcy is because it has to deposit the pensions of mailmen who haven't been born yet, just to give the Congress something else to borrow against.
Back when I had Verizon for home POTS I paid a monthly fee for touch tone dialing capability having my number "unlisted and unpublished" and a bunch of other things. And they wonder why so many people left as soon as VOIP came along.
If you have everything bundled into Verizon like the one pay or whatever they call it, TV, internet, phone, cell phones etc.. They got you by the balls and as this was calculated out in some business meeting. What, are you going to get rid of all those Verizon services and your contract for $2 a month charge? They think you won't. They also know that this does not have to be a fee that gets advertised so when you comparison shop, you won't see it until the first bill comes.
Interestingly, earlier this week, my car insurance company, GEICO, emailed me to tell me that I could log into their site to pay my bill electronically and print out my insurance card.
I emailed them back asking that would be my motivation? I would be doing them a favor, since doing payments the old fashioned way is more of an expense for them. If they want me to do them a favor, they should sweeten the deal.
They told me that since I always pay my bill in full, instead of using an installment plan, that I hadn't noticed that people who pay by paper pay a processing fee whereas installment payers who go by electronic means do not.
IMO, that makes sense for everyone. The organizations that charge people a fee to do things electronically over paper have it backwards.
I thought the max that any bank was allowed to charge was 24 cents under the new law?
As I understand it, the new law applies to the EBT network used by ATM cards that requires a PIN (called "debit" by cashiers), not the more expensive Visa, MasterCard, Discover, or especially American Express network that requires a signature (called "credit" by cashiers). A "debit card" has the codes for both networks. Online merchants can't use the EBT network, but they can use the ACH network (routing/account number), and most accounts that have an EBT card connected to them can be used with ACH.
The 10 days will pass and the money will be gone, and you will be left with no options.
"No options"? Hardly. Back in the days before electronic autopays were common, I had to get my money back twice from utility companies I had already sent checks to. (The circumstances were weird, and one of them was when I was young and stupid and paid a bill not realizing I didn't have recourse.) It took a couple reports to the BBB and the state utilities commissions that governed these businesses, and I not only got my money back, but also an actual person calling to apologize.
Disputing bills after you've paid them is harder, but with utility companies, there is generally a state agency who will get the work done for you and get your money back.
For me, autopay worked great until payroll was messed up and I was accidentally deleted instead of the person that was supposed to be terminated. Payday came with no direct deposit followed by all those wonderful autopays triggering.
Which is why the few autopayments I have set up must send an email in advance to my primary email account that I read everyday. Yes, it increases the traffic in my inbox slightly, but I never move those messages from my box without reviewing the bills and the amounts.
I get the convenience of autopay, but money never goes out of my account without an explicit reminder in advance.
I'm not sure how you blame autopay for your mishaps. If you knew your paycheck was screwed up, you should have canceled the autopays the moment you found out. If you didn't know your paycheck was screwed up, you probably would have written checks which would have racked up overdraft fees and whatnot anyway.
How is autopay at fault here?
Ever try to pay a parking ticket or some other municipal fee online? They will charge you a "convenience fee". My guess is because they have to pay the credit card companies something.
My guess is that will eventually change when an older generation dies off or gets online. An efficiency expert will notice that they are employing staff to handle paper based payments........for very few payments. At that point they will encourage people to pay electronically. Probably by charging a fee for paper based payments.......the way my car insurance company does.
I thought the fees went down recently with the new cap on credit card transaction fees set by congress. It is a money grab plain and simple. They need to keep over paying executives. We sure know the money is going to the droids that you get on the phone or behind the booths.
Credit cards have float, rewards and protections. It is their bait. They are designed to encourage bad habits of overspending. The credit card companies greatest wish is that you by simple human nature that you trap yourself into maintaining a monthly balance.
You are better off not paying the fee and paying by check, because that check will be a receipt, which you can use when Verizon eventually screws up your account. I left them years ago because every two months I had to straighten out some mess with them.
Your best bet is to vote with your feet and let Verizon know why.
People doing the same stopped Bank Of American from charging ATM fees.
Verizon customers like to be overcharged, else they would not be Verizon customers. The company's business model is "Screw our customers every chance we get". That has been talked about here as long as there has been a Verizon. I remember discussions about trivial games on Verizon phones that didn't actually connect to anything while the game was being played, but the customer was still charged airtime for every minute that he (or his child) played the game. Verizon is the one who settled with the FCC for 25 million for "mystery fees" (a drop in the bucket in contrast to what they stole with those fees). They want buttons on the phone that can he easily accidentally hit so that they can charge a several dollar fee each time to inform you that you don't have that feature! If anyone cared about being cheated by a cell phone company then they would not be a Verizon customer.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
gotta love this stuff ....
... if music be fruit of love, play on
Verizon can suck the big one. I normally get a 17% discount due to who I work for. Verizon is withholding 3% of that discount because I will not go paperless billing.
I am done with Verizon today.
The only debts I have are my mortgage and car loan. Very few people have tens of thousands of dollars to buy a car with cash, much less the hundreds of thousands of dollars houses run. Even with these loans I make thirteen "monthly" payments per year instead of the standard twelve. It's amazing how much I'll save in interest over the lives of the loans.
As for paying for everything with a credit card then paying the balance in full, I can see your point. Using your debit card as a credit card affords you more protection against fraudulent charges than if you provide your PIN. However, using an actual credit card like this only makes sense in two situations: your card provides rewards (miles, cash back, etc) or you are trying to improve your credit score.
Business can charge what the traffic will bear without competition. More proof T-mobile merger was a bad idea. Verizon would have to lower there prices to meet the cost if they didn't have their lobbyist in Washington doing Verizon's bidding rather than the people's business. Our current bankruptcy laws were bought and paid for by the banking industry. They thought they had our balls in a vise so they could lend willy nilly. See how well that turned out.
I get tired of hearing that this is the way that business works. Businesses are human constructs that are permitted by society. Society chooses what constitutes a business. We establish limits on acceptable business behavior just like we do with other people. If businesses are not serving society, society should rid itself of that business. It is not only society's right it is its duty.
Im pretty sure that "Can you hear me now?" is about to be followed with, "I'm calling to transfer my number to another service."
Life is a Game. Play to Win.
I know it seems like it should be cheaper for Verizon to accept electronic payments, but I once worked for the company that ran their web application servers. Verizon has outsourced that job. The convenience fee likely goes to the outsourced company.
My water bill incurs a $2.95 "convenience fee" as well, and that goes to Western Union. They run the website and transfer the money. For that, they get the $2.95 per customer per payment.
The company is happy because they don't have to process the payments, run the app servers, or pay for the service. The provider is happy because they get all this money for $0 marginal cost. The customers get the shaft and don't complain loudly enough.
I had a utility that charged for online payments. They have a third party processing those transactions and everyone likely decided to pass the cost directly onto the consumer. The best part is that it's probably handled in India so they're enjoying a nice profit. Hell, even if it's all based in the States it's probably a good profit they enjoy. How much can it possibly cost to handle a payment electronically?
This all reminds me of the "convenience" fee ticket sellers charge when you buy tickets online. I've been told some even charge on online ordering fee on top of that. What a scam.
It's only a matter of time before you're charged for literally everything, even using a public restroom.
Well this is convenient. I just finished wrapping $200 or so worth of pennies and was going to take them to my credit union to deposit in my account. I think I'll hold on to them now and go to the nearby Verizon store the next 3 months and pay my bill in pennies, unwrapped and put in a giant ziploc bag of course. If they complain I'll be sure to let them know I'd gladly use paper money for a $2 convenience fee.
A partial analogy in the UK: if you choose to pay all your BT (ex-monopoly 'British Telecom') charges on time by bank transfer, you must pay an extra fee to their collection agency. You can only avoid this by giving instructions to your bank to pay them whatever they ask for (and BTW, they ask later than you would have paid on first billing date).
Thankfully, i pay my bills via personal check. Now if only the 4G network will work. Stupid outage. Maybe I should switch to Sprint, "The NOW Network".
Yet another reason I'm happy with PagePlus http://www.pagepluscellular.com/ ! Mobile Virtual Network Operators FTW!
10,000x $0.01 checks incoming (in one envelope of course)!
Fuck Verizon.
That is all.
Guess they'll get my $94 in pennies or nickels next month... no way in hell I'm giving a company direct access to my bank account. Done it before (different companies), then the double (or more) charges happen (had it happen from more than one company), you call dispute, they don't want to come off of the money so they say they'll count it as next months payment, then blam they charge you again anyway. Nope.
See, what I plan to do is make my payments in person at a store every month if this goes through - in quarters. Every month. Sure, they will charge me a fee - and that will be paid. In quarters. In person. To a customer service representative they have to pay. Every month.
Not only are online and phone payments cheaper for them...by driving customers back into the mail-a-cheque method, there is more chances for people to pay late and therefore accrue HIGHER fees.
Kind of like adding a red-light camera to an intersection and adjusting the yellow to 2 seconds to drive up revenue.
It's sneaky, underhanded, and (sarcasm) proof that all regulations must be eliminated so that corporations will do the right thing out of the goodness of their heart. (/sarcasm)
Quarters? You being too generous... you have to give it to them in a MIX of quarters and nickel. Give it only in one coin type and some one there may quickly realize they just have to weight them to know how much you are giving them.
I'm not sure if this applies or not, but it might be worth investigating... you might now be able to close your Verizon account without incurring the (normally ginormous) cancellation fee, as this could represent an unauthorized change in the terms of your agreement with Verizon.
This has been done in years past based on changing fees for SMS and other rate changes. *It might be a stretch, as it is a fee for specific methods of payment vs a fee for a service provided, but you be able to make it work.
Hope this provides food for thought.
Tis I: Me.
No, no, you CAN give Paypal access to a bank account. Just make sure it is one you setup for Paypal only. Cost is minimal as most banks still have a no-fee or small fee bank account that you don't have to keep a large balance in. Just deposit 6 months worth of bank fees in the account and make sure you sweep all money from eBay, Paypal, etc. off the Paypal only account and into your REAL bank account on a daily/weekly basis.
That way, Paypal can eat a dick if they decide to hijack that bank account. Just close it down and start a new one. If the bank asks what the hell is going on, explain to them that if Paypal was regulated like a bank is then you would not have to use multiple accounts to keep Paypal from trying to screw you over. I dislike the big corp mentality as much as anyone, but if enough banks complain about Paypal then maybe something will get done.
Dream as if you'll live forever.
Live as if you'll die tomorrow.
~Anonymous~
Make money from late fees and human processing errors OR make money from "convenience" fees. Funny how they all wanted it electronic for years so they would save themselves money and now they are charging YOU for saving them money.
Not much choice when they all suck.
The FCC bandwidth should be government run like the roads and they get some sort of timeshare over it; at least we can have some real competition and much higher bandwidth (broader frequency range available instead of selling off small frequency monopolies.)
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
If the electrons hadn't unionized, they wouldn't be able to force poor Verizon to pay them a living wage...
Check your premises.
What is the incentive to go paperless it saves them money no postage, no printing the bill, no stationary needed and less employees needed. This is like a convenience fee they are double dipping on the service they are already making money on. Even if you payed with a credit card on line they are still saving money. They are saving money and making more.
http://www.thetechnologygeek.org
Then, just after the bill's due date, go online again and disable the recurrent payment.
Repeat next month. This will get the message across loud and clear.
Carefully draw up a check on an old gym sock and mail it to them.
Alternative: Pay in dollars, each $1 folded into some interesting orgami.
Then the 'profit-maximization expert' comes in and tells him to screw it, lets charge a fee for nearly everybody, but have some incredibly obsolete and inconvenient fee-free mechanism only for PR purposes.
Who gets the big fat bonus?
I've been using online banks for the much better interest rates.
I've considered switching to an Internet bank. But I occasionally receive cash and checks from friends and relatives. If I switch from a local bank to an Internet bank, how will I deposit those? The local banks' ATMs don't take deposits for other banks. Or did you mean keep a local bank account just for ATM deposits and keep a couple thousand in the account at the local bank to avoid a monthly service fee?
Wrong. If you send them a check, they have access to your checking account, whether that check is from your personal checkbook or through the bank's electronic checking system. Everything they need for an ACH transaction is available on your personal check. Most online bill payments made through your bank go through ACH; they match up the payee and mailing address, checking if the payee accepts electronic transactions. Also, many vendors will take your paper check, photocopy it, destroy it and initialize an ACH transaction.
To add to this $2 charge...to pay my bill...Verizon has greatly over-billed me, yet again, this month. I checked the data monitor, provided by Verizon, hours before my month was to reset. It showed that I had used 10.89GB or 10.899GB, less than three hours prior to reset. As the monthly reset passed, the monitor still showed the same information.
Today, I checked my bill, and Verizon is charging me $40, over the normal $80(which, in and of itself is a rip off) for extra data usage($10 per 1GB; again, a rip off). Since I am still in a "3G"-only area, I am confused how I could use over 2GB extra(I figure the counter might have rolled over 11GB, so I was ready for $20 in extra charges) in such a short time, especially when I had my device off for 1.5, or more, hours, prior to the month resetting.
This is my only choice for "broadband" at home. No land line provide will offer internet access to my home. Even though there are a lot of people on my street, and even though I live in a metro-Atlanta area county, no provider is willing to upgrade our telephone or cable network to host internet access out here. So, I am stuck with Verizon Wireless.
I believe I will be canceling my service, and switching to Millenicom. I can get 20GB of "3G" service(Verizon reseller) for $20 less than I am paying directly to Verizon. I can also get 20GB of "3G/4G" service, for the same amount, if I sign up now. It makes no sense, but whatever. I am done with Verizon, AT&T, and the rest of these assholes.
When the company that has direct access to your bank account screws you over (and they will), you are screwed proper. Even if you manage to get the problem solved, you will pay in terms of time, effort, and hassle. If they refuse to cooperate, your only hope for the future is voiding the card and getting a new one.
When the company that only has access to your credit card account screws you over, you call the credit card company and file a chargeback. It's still time, effort, and hassle, but you are not screwed proper as you would be with a debit or check card.
You bring up a good point - nix the pure quarters plan, substitute the quarters, dimes, nickels plan. Mix in a few foreign currencies in there for fun, and it can be a scavenger hunt every month of the year - the gift to bored employees that keeps giving the entire year long.
If you have a dispute and wanted to hold your fee for leverage (this is dumb and doesn't work like you think it does)
Please stop spreading this dangerous FUD. Chargebacks and other such tools are a very important tool to have, and I see plenty of cases where they need to be used more, not less.
To everyone else who is reading: I have nearly a decade of experience with chargebacks, as both the merchant and the consumer. Easily over 100 chargebacks. jandrese's implication that chagebacks are dumb and don't work is completely and utterly wrong.
Here is how it "works:"
1. Consumer has a dispute with a merchant.
2. Merchant denies any sort of relief.
3. Consumer tells credit card company "I am not paying you $x because merchant did bad stuff."
4. Credit card company replies to consumer "aww Mr. Consumer, we 3 you, we got this one for you"
5. Credit card company tells the merchant "yo, consumer didn't pay me $x, now my problem is your problem, P.S. I am assessing you a $40 fee for the chargeback, xoxo"
6. Merchant tries to fight the chargeback. Loses.
That's it. If you really want to run wild with the possibilities:
1. Merchant may no longer do business with you. Okay? Take your business elsewhere then
2. Very rarely, the merchant might sue in small claims court. This is rare because often times the money amounts involved aren't worth the hassle and expense. Every time I have seen it happen though, the merchant always loses. Yes, 100% of the time.
I'm with Cricket Wireless and they charge $3 if you pay your bill in person at a Cricket store or at a reseller that accepts payments, but it's free to pay online.
Cricket will also allow you to do a bridge pay (half now, half in 7 days) if you're short of cash, but you can't do that online, only in person, so you're paying an extra $6 for being short of money.
I'm wondering if Verizon charges an additional fee to pay in person at one of their stores.
They should be giving us a discount for paying online, it's much easier for them to process.
Twinstiq, game news
Please stop with the Eurodickwaving. Chargebacks in the United States can be easily done for any reason within 60 days of notification (or 8 weeks).
I am sure Europe is great, but 90% of the comparisons offered by the Europeans in these comments are *wrong.* If anything, some of our banking practices/consumer protections are better (8 weeks versus 6 weeks, for instance), some of yours are better, and some are identical.
Wrong. If you send them a check, they have access to your checking account, whether that check is from your personal checkbook or through the bank's electronic checking system. Everything they need for an ACH transaction is available on your personal check. Most online bill payments made through your bank go through ACH; they match up the payee and mailing address, checking if the payee accepts electronic transactions. Also, many vendors will take your paper check, photocopy it, destroy it and initialize an ACH transaction.
Except authorization. The check is authorization for a specific amount. If they try to claim your check for $50 as authorization to repeatedly empty your bank account, they will run afoul of very real laws. There are boatloads of laws and cases relating to the use of checks for transactions and giving someone a check does not give them unfettered access to your account.
If you want a vision of the future, imagine a youtube comments section scrolling - forever.
Time to start paying my bill -$2.
According to the FAQ put out by Verizon (found on a post at DroidLife), there are a myriad of ways to avoid the fee, including paying online via ACH checking. What it looks like to this anonymous coward is Verizon responding to a change in its merchant agreement. Otherwise, one would expect that all online transactions would be similarly penalized. If this is in fact a response to a fee increase from the credit card companies (although I adminittedly don't know where it would come from, paying at a kiosk using credit/debit also avoids the fee), I for one would rather they at least give me a way to avoid it.
Doesn't this new "fee" give you the opportunity to opt out of your contract without an early termination fee (ETF)?
Dear customer, Due to a lack of fees when paying online, We feel compelled
to institute the "You pay for other peoples billing expenses fee (snailmail)"
Yep, and I surmise it's because they don't want to stop giving you credit (everything would stop, then)...and when someone goes bankrupt, it's hard to justify giving them credit. If bankruptee repays something, they'll likely have some modicum of a credit score, and they can still get credit. Last I heard around here, they called it "a proposal"...but it's the same thing.
Anyone can change to another operator. This is competition and open market.
The problem is that there are only a few with the power to change something, and they are working in a cartelized way... as it happens these days. Operators get the information to work in a cartel way from market researches. They get all they need to operate fixing prices and offer, and protect themselves. The margins are absurd and operators are making a lot of money.
Unfortunately, dumb consumers who got satisfied with the miracle of telecom, don't understand and don't have enough power to fight. Thing about it: There is no free phone. This is a cartel like way to deceive it's customers, like many other things. I hope other technologies like White Space "Super WIFI" can give the consumers some power to battle. Also, there should be organizations working as Internet providers, idenpendently.
Think about it: Services operators, of all kinds, got the advantages of disruptive technology evolution without giving consumers. The regulated market (licensed frequencies) slows competition and we are more and more on their hands.
Why not non profits for Internet, etc? Why not cooperative Internet? Hmm.... with IPv6 and users talking with each other directly, without the need for a service like Skype? Many things should be re-thought. A few people can understand how things works. Well... would like to discuss this with people aware of this situation.
just get a paper bill from them and pay them by filling out credit card info fields on the attached payment form. it will cost them both printing, mailing, data entry, and credit card fees. it will cost you 4 minutes of your time and 45 cents.
they don't care about cutting costs. they want people to agree to be charged automatically and never look at the bill. then they can add fees on it without scrutiny.
Technically speaking- a conventional check can come in numerous forms.
If I remember correctly- all it has to include is a properly formatted routing-number, the "pay to the order of", a signature, the amount, and maybe a memo line for your Verizon account number.
I have had friends send bricks, bowling pins, and old shoes with this information included using a felt pen at various points in time. Each time it was accepted as legal tender.
"shipping charges may apply"
-apayne
Money-grab is the business model of Verizon. Everything new charge and variation is predicated on nickel-and-diming customers. What is amazing here is they have come up with something that people will actually notice, especially after the Bank of America ATM fiasco, when they normally work with tiny charges that no one is supposed to see. On the other hand, using autopay with credit card has never cost anything and still doesn't, and most utilities (water, gas, electricity) already charge similarly for the payment procedures for which Verizon is going to charge. So the real question is, do you accept their business model and keep your account, or do you leave? I'm leaving.
I thought from your previous few posts that you were merely asking questions about how to go about it, and I was just giving you ideas how to make a bit more money.
And thank you for it. I've updated my article with your suggestions and their caveats.
Now with this last question (which has no basis in anything I said)
I admit that the comment about choosing an employer is not directly related to what you said. But I do seem to remember some other posters (not you) in other contexts saying things to the effect: "If your employer mistreats you, why do you continue to work there?" I was trying to anticipate someone's rebuttal, but it ended up not being your own.
I think you've been trolling me all along.
I humbly apologize for coming off that way. But back when I was working for a company that didn't offer direct deposit, a low-dollar-amount checking account at a bank that requires a direct deposit to avoid an annual fee wasn't really an option, especially when borrowing against that $1,500 cushion would cost $12 per month. Perhaps it's my thorough approach; my experience as a programmer causes my thoughts to be drawn to possible corner cases that could break an algorithm. So I want my arguments to cover all bases, including any corner cases that I imagine are likely to occur in a representative sample. I see addressing corner cases early as like the stitch in time that saves nine or the ounce of prevention that saves a pound of cure. (See the graph of relative costs of a bug fix.) And again, I apologize for not making this clearer.
Due dates are 20-25 days after the bill date anyways so you have plenty of time.
For the last few years, I've been noticing that more and more bills arrive in my mailbox less than a week before the due date. Those that have postmarks show that they were mailed only a few days earlier; it wasn't the postal service's incompetence that got them here so late.
My conjecture is that this is a way to increase the likelihood that customers' check won't reach them until after the due date. I usually pay electronically now, but even then, sometimes (such as when I'm away from home for a few days) I end up with late fees due to this short lead time.
This is especially true of credit-card bills. But I've seen it with our cell-phone bills, too.
Part of the news here in the US has been the proposals in Washington to cut back on postal service support. So snail mail may soon be a lot slower (and no Saturday deliveries). This will presumably add to the difficulty in getting payments in on time, and increase the corporate world's income from late fees. And give us all lower credit ratings when we fall for such tactics.
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
www.BigBangWireless.com
Exactly right and incredibly wrong at the same time: the merchant raises everyone's price. And typically the card companies contractually don't allow the merchant to differentiate price based on payment method. If that across-the-board raise (say, 0.25%) is less than the cash-back bonus (say 1%), then congratulations, the card holder is making all the other suckers who paid in cash pay for his bonus. (Though he is only getting some fraction of the advertized %.) So in the end the rewards transfer wealth from other customers who's reward is zero (or even just below the average) to those with better rewards programs.
"You saved 1968." - Ms. Valerie Pringle to the crew of Apollo 8
It's more like gas (and time) is so expensive that you'd be a fool to drive somewhere to pay a bill.
I personally just tell my bank how much to pay Verizon, and they cut a check, for free. I get the convenience of online pay without this stupid fee.
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Seriously, the way money is handled over there cracks me up. Checks ! "online" payment-solutions from a single provider. Typing in of accountnumbers and amounts and whatnot. Bank-tied agreements, hassles if you ever change banks, no unified system for electronic invoices, or automatic payment of same, certainly not any system that works cross-bank.
Here, if a company wants to send me a bill, they do so electronically. The bill automatically shows up when I log in to my online bank (regardless of which one, if I have several I'll see the bill in all of them) and paying it is then a one-click-affair. (if the amount is over a by-me-configurable amount payment requires a click and a one-time-password to confirm) I can (at my option) have bills from certain sources under certain amounts paid automatically, and again, this too works cross-bank (i.e. I could change banks and not have to start over with my settings)
It's not that our system is so modern - it's old-fashioned in many ways (still uses SMS as a method for informing me that a new bill arrived, for example), it's just that reading about money-handling in USA sounds so very archaic.
I worked for an armored car co. Pay in dimes, they're heavier by volume. A Federal Reserve bag of pennies ($50) weighs between 25 & 30 pounds (I forget the exact number), same bag filled with dimes ($1000) 50.3 pounds.
Or pay in half dollars, I still have night terrors about those disks forged of hate and pain.
"You can see I know very little about pimp policy." George McGovern.
Once agine a stupid reason to take hard workers money away from them. A clear example of corporate greed
They'd apparently tried the carrot (enticements to sign up), and are now resorting to the stick (a fine for NOT doing this). Essentially, Verizon customers are to be FINED each month that they do NOT sign on to allow Verizon unfettered access to their bank account and identity information. It's despicable. What about those who do NOT happen to want to increase their exposure by turning over their information to a 3rd party yet again? It's extortion. "Let us see your bank account, or we'll empty it faster." Rotten scoundrels, if you ask me.
Verizon knows once you get on autopay, you are going to stop watching the bill. The 10 days will pass and the money will be gone, and you will be left with no options.
I check my bank and CC balances weekly, if not daily.
For me, autopay worked great until payroll was messed up and I was accidentally deleted instead of the person that was supposed to be terminated. Payday came with no direct deposit followed by all those wonderful autopays triggering.
Get a credit card. Seriously! Make sure that you can set that up to autopay from your bank account; you'll have ~30 days to dispute any charges that appear on the CC bill before any of your money is actually "gone". Just make sure you don't spend money that you don't have; it takes self control, that's all.
The only things I don't use my credit card for are the things that I can't use it for, which is (I think) a couple of utilities and automatic transfers to an investment account. Those come out of my bank account.
The only other thing I can think of to mention is that for a monthly CC payment you're going to need to have the money to pay the CC in the bank account when the autopay hits each month, which means you're going to be operating month-to-month instead of payday-to-payday. Really, though, you should have more "float" than that. Buckle down and save up a few paychecks worth in that account and you'll never have to worry about a missed payroll direct deposit like you described.
COOL! I think I'm going to start mailing in my bill. Paid in pennies. Postage Due On Reciept.
They're welcome to the extra 4 roll for the "convinience fee"?
In the US they want people with credit cards to become like drug junkies with their credit. In fact, until it was abolished recently, they intentionally set the minimum payments so that you would make effectively no progress with your balance. That way they can collect just the interest payments (and sometimes nice fat late fees), while keeping you in hock for the larger amount. And most people are stupid, so they would dutifully pay the minimum, while just assuming that it would reduce their balance.
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