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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?"
The fee is waived if you pay by electronic check or auto pay. This only effects last minute payments.
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.
There's two obvious reasons for this: Points on my credit card (i.e. free money/miles/ etc), and convienience. It allows me to watch only my credit card bill and pay it once. Also, there's a little bit of money to made on the float (not much these days w/ the low interest rates).
It's the complete reverse in the rest of America, too. Everyone else is pushing for online payment and electronic billing because it saves on paper and postage costs.
Verizon is the first company I've seen try to pull an asshat move like this. I think why Verizon is trying it now involves a couple things. For one, large telecoms like Verizon and AT&T have for years felt entitled to licenses to print money hand over fist, and whenever revenue drops due to market changes or technological development, their biggest priority is to find somewhere else to recoup that lost revenue. My guess here is that Verizon noticed that a majority of their customers were already paying their bills online, so they decided to start charging a fee to do it, knowing that their customer base already appreciates the convenience of online bill payment and inertia would prevent them from paying by mail. Other service providers, public utilities for example, likely have much older, entrenched, and less 'tech-savvy' customers so they need to provide incentives to move towards online billing and its associated cost savings.
A majority of their customers certainly pay their bills online, but they do it automatically and are hence exempt from this fee. Verizon is doing something very simple, encouraging their customers to prefer the automatic process over the manual one. There is undoubtedly a price break to handling the exact same payment method month after month vs handling a unique one each time, and they know they will save more money than they will lose in pissed off customers.
BUT, having a credit card, and using it, and paying it off is actually all but required in this country. Having no credit history is just as damning as bankruptcy in America. Right now, I'm applying for a mortgage. I was told by the bank that my $20k+ in student loans and my $18k car loan...help me. It's twisted, but true. Also, living on credit and using a credit card for ease are not the same. Also, many banks DO charge for external transfers of money here.
Well, in our world, for one. Not paying a debt until it's due doesn't constitute credit, it's called "float" in financial circles. If someone sells you a good or service and doesn't require payment until the end of the month, then it's not "buying on credit" to hold off paying until that date. So, in short, you're right that it's not length of repayment that's a factor, but whether you're being extended credit (buying something for the promise of repayment against future income) or whether you're being given a float to allow you to gather the funds in the form agreed upon (which is why so many businesses started offering due dates for purchases in the first place).
Virg
If you read the fine article you'd know ACH transactions are exempt. So are all payments that are set up as recurring in Verizion's system, including credit cards. The only thing that gets charged as far as I can tell (and I could be wrong about this) is one off credit card payments. This is really a non-story.