It's from Verizon:
"Fees often added to customers’ payments" January 05, 2012|Todd Wallack, Globe Staff
After just a day of heated complaints by angry consumers on social networking sites, Verizon Wireless last week shelved plans to charge customers a $2 fee to pay their bills with credit or debit cards.
Fine, I'll keep the money instead.
Related: Verizon backs off fee amid backlash
Verizon to pay $800,000 settlement
Yeah, the overcharging was all a computer software glitch, ooops.
Also see: Verizon Cut Off
Corporate Tax Dodge and Debt
They even received millions in a tax rebate when they made billions?
Despite the outrage over Verizon’s “convenience fees,’’ similar charges are almost everywhere.
Such fees are routinely imposed by telecommunications providers, electric utilities, lenders, schools, and government agencies on consumers who pay bills with plastic or get help from customer service employees....
Just wondering why the Globe left the banks out of the question.
Analysts say companies are rolling out the fees to boost profits and steer customers away from costly services. Many companies have to pay processing fees (usually around 2 percent) when they accept a credit card, for instance. And it costs money to hire additional employees to assist customers.
Where are all these hires taking place?
But the boom in social networking sites, such as Facebook and Twitter, is making it easy for customers to band together to fight fees they particularly dislike.
Before Verizon, for instance, Bank of America Corp. scuttled plans to charge a $5 monthly debit card fee after more than 300,000 people signed a petition on Change.org to protest the fee, and many customers threatened to close their accounts.
I take it back. They were mentioned -- later.
BoA and the rest gonna get around it, too.
Consumer advocates and analysts said Bank of America and Verizon Wireless caught attention while similar fees from other companies go unnoticed because both are dominant players in their industries and receive close attention from the media. In addition, the fees came at a time when many people already felt stretched by the weak economy.
“The bottom line is people need to feel the fee is fair and they are getting something for it,’’ said Barbara Anthony, the state’s undersecretary for consumer affairs and business regulation.
Countless other payment fees remain.
AT&T Wireless charges $5 to make a payment in person with a clerk or via phone with a live agent. And T-Mobile USA: $5 by phone with an agent.
Many cable TV providers levy similar fees. Comcast Corp., the region’s largest cable television provider, charges $5.99 to make a payment via phone with the aid of a representative. And the two largest satellite TV providers, DirecTV and Dish Network, both charge $5 to make a payment through a representative. RCN, which charges as much as $7 for some types of payments, could not be reached for comment.
National Grid, one of the state’s major energy utilities, charges $2.25 for residential customers to make a payment of up to $600 with a credit or debit card. (Customers who owe more would have to enter multiple transactions and pay multiple fees.) Both National Grid and NStar said the fees are collected by an outside vendor, Western Union, and none of the money goes to the utilities.
In other words, everyone is taking their chunk of fle$h out of you.
Many lenders also charge extra when people make installment payments via credit card. HarborOne, for instance, says it has to recover the cost of processing the payments.
“This is a service we offer customers to pay at the last minute on their credit card so they don’t become late on their loan,’’ said James Rice, a senior vice president with the credit union.
First of all, it sounds like robbing Peter to pay Paul, but what I really want to know is WHERE is the CUSTOMER SERVICE!!???
Even nonprofits and government agencies sometimes charge extra when customers make credit card or online payments.
Oh, FIRST they ENCOURAGE such a thing and THEN they CHARGE YOU!!????!!!
I can understand business and banks trying to $crew us, but the PUBLIC SERVANTS of GOVERNMENT?!?!?
The city of Lowell, for instance, charges 25 cents to pay parking tickets, water bills, and property taxes by transferring money electronically from checking or savings accounts.
The modern version of nickel-and-dime.
Lowell also charges a variable fee of at least $1 to use credit cards. For instance, customers would pay $2.25 extra to pay a $50 ticket. A $2,000 property tax bill would cost $60.55 extra, or about 3 percent. The city attributes the fee to a vendor, Metropolitan Communications LLC, which handles payments for other cities and towns in seven states.
I'm starting to think no one should pay. Make them earn their looted salaries by chasing you down.
Many colleges, including Wellesley College and Brandeis University, also partner with a company called Tuition Management Systems, which charges students an extra 2.99 percent to process tuition payments made by credit card. That adds $299 to a $10,000 tuition payment.
Hey, what is $300 more dollars to the debt-saddled college kid?
Honestly, this is the MOST OUTRAGEOUS of ALL the INSTITUTIONS to be doing this -- although I guess the kid sure is getting an ejerkashun on how the real world work$ in AmeriKa.
The company, a unit of First Marblehead Corp. of Boston, also charges students $10 if they use a representative’s help to make a payment via telephone. Scott Juedes, director of student financial services at Wellesley, said some families want the option of paying via credit card.
But he said the college also offers many ways to pay the bill free of charge, such as by cash or check. “It’s just part of the suite of options we offer,’’ Juedes said.
Why should the busy-with-their-studies (and work) students have to take time to make sure he/she is not getting the shaft? WTF ha$ happened to AmeriKa?
Other organizations said they, too, offer many payment methods that avoid surcharges.
But Anthony, the state’s consumer affairs chief, said some companies could do a better job of alerting customers about potential surcharges and letting them know about alternatives to avoid the fees....
But that would CRIMP PROFITS!
"U.S. companies are generating record profits."
Time to hang up.
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