Stupidest Fee of the Year

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Verizon Wireless will soon make some customers pay for the privilege of paying their bills.
The nation's largest wireless company is instituting a $2 "convenience charge" for those customers who make one-time bill payments either online or by telephone. The fee will go into effect on Jan. 15.
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http://money.cnn.com/2011/12/29/technology/verizon_convenience_fee/?hpt=hp_t2

The phone payment fee is already pushing it - but making people pay two bucks for doing one-time online payments? Most corporations would do anything to get more clients paying online.

That's why this is the stupidest fee of the year.
 
i had AT&T once on a landline and they charged me $1.XX fee which goes towards low income houses and ppl who need help paying their bills. I said, I'm a student I have zero income...I need help paying my bills. Apparently I needed to be section 8 as a student my tutition (even as a student loan) is considered my income.

i've seen companies charge for online payments because it's easier for us, some companies mainly cable and other communications charge ppl an extra $1 + now to continue to recieve paper bills. Some banks will offer a one time $50 bank credit if you go paperless.

depending on your type of bank account, it's possible your bank will charge you for paying bills online as it's considered a "withdrawl."

meh.
 
Most sporting venues now allow you to print tickets at home when you purchase them. If you want to use your printer and your ink, and save them the cost of shipping them, or having to pay additional employees to sit at Will Call, it only costs you an additional $3/ticket.
 
same thing with the government. If you get a parking ticket and want to pay online, which makes it eaier for them, you have to pay a $2 convenience fee. convenience fees should be illegal.
 
It is pretty lame. Doesn't affect me as I use auto payments, but still lame.

And like most fees, it hurts poorer folk more as they're the ones most likely to use it and not want to sign up for auto payments for fear of not having enough money in the bank when the auto payment is drawn.

Speaking of government fees, my state charges $5 to renew your car registration with online payment rather than mailing in a check. How does that make sense? Isn't it cheaper to process an online payment than to have to pay someone to open mail and process checks?
 
I got Straight Talk which runs off Verizon's network. $30 a month isn't bad at all. $45 if you want unlimited. Saved a crap load so far.
 
Verizon didn't get the memo from Bank of America telling them that right now isn't the right time to make a cash grab with arbitrary fees for making transactions in a certain way.
 
There are three ways for customers to avoid the charge: Customers can make a one-time payment using an electronic check, they can pay their bill using their home banking accounts, such as Citibank (C, Fortune 500) Online, or they can use a Verizon gift card or rebate card. Otherwise, single telephone and online payments will incur a $2 fee.

The idea is to encourage people to cut Visa and Mastercard out of the equation. Even if you use a debit card, they still have to process it on the credit card's network and incur fees of their own. If we should be bitching at anyone it should be the credit card companies for jacking their fees up.
 
So is this "one-time" payment different from a scheduled monthly autopayment? I don't see why we'd have to pay the equivalent of an ATM charge to give them money for an already overpriced service when they already force subscribers into contracts. That's like a double assfucking.

I guess I'll just change my credit card number to my debit card number. And hope Verizon doesn't get hacked like PSN, because I already had my credit card number stolen from them. But at least with PSN I'd only be responsible for $50 of whatever got charged rather than being cleaned out.

Maybe the cunts at Verizon can soften the blow by offering unlimited internet for $30 or less a month instead of the caps bullshit.
 
I've had to pay $3 per bill to pay my utility bill for a long time. This isn't even an online payment fee. It just shows up on every bill. Nowhere else to go so you can't avoid it.
 
[quote name='VipFREAK']So glad I've been with fail Sprint. lol[/QUOTE]

Just FYI Sprint charges $5 per one time payment for customers with a spending limit.
 
This actually affects me. I use the one time payments because I don't want VZ to keep a copy of my financial info.

I'm going to switch back to paper statements and mail a bill in, just to cost them more than the $2 fee. The cost of printing paper, delivering it, then processing it when I send it back in has to be at or near $2.

What kills me the most about this new "convenience" fee is that they're charging for a service that they've been offering for free, for YEARS. I could understand if they were building new infrastructure for online payments, but that cost has already been sunk well before now.
 
[quote name='crunchb3rry']So is this "one-time" payment different from a scheduled monthly autopayment? [/quote]

Yes, it's just logging in and making payment manually. If you use automatic bill payment (even with a credit card) you wont get the fee.

I guess I'll just change my credit card number to my debit card number. And hope Verizon doesn't get hacked like PSN, because I already had my credit card number stolen from them. But at least with PSN I'd only be responsible for $50 of whatever got charged rather than being cleaned out.
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I wouldn't do that. Just set up automatic payments with your credit card and you'll avoid the fee. Never good to put your debit card online as if you get frauded you have to file a report and wait for the bank to investigate and give you your money back. With a CC you can dispute the charges and never pay them and thus never be without that money for any amount of time.

Plus, the only debit cards you could use would be Visa/MC check cards and they probably count those as CC's when making a one time payment, so you'd still get the feel.

Other ways to avoid the fee are to use online bill pay through your bank's web site, pay via electronic check, or just go back to paper bills and mailing checks.

Annoying for sure in any case for anyone who wasn't already using automatic payments or their bank's online billing system.

Maybe the cunts at Verizon can soften the blow by offering unlimited internet for $30 or less a month instead of the caps bullshit.[/QUOTE]
 
[quote name='dmaul1114']I wouldn't do that. Just set up automatic payments with your credit card and you'll avoid the fee. Never good to put your debit card online as if you get frauded you have to file a report and wait for the bank to investigate and give you your money back. With a CC you can dispute the charges and never pay them and thus never be without that money for any amount of time.[/QUOTE]

Yeah, I'll never understand why people use debit cards instead of credit cards.

Unless you have absolutely zero self-control, credit cards are the way to go.
 
[quote name='camoor']Yeah, I'll never understand why people use debit cards instead of credit cards.

Unless you have absolutely zero self-control, credit cards are the way to go.[/QUOTE]

Yep.

Especially when you factor in rewards programs on credit cards. Which are free cash as long as you're responsible and treat your CC like cash and always pay the bill off in full each month so you never pay any interest.
 
[quote name='camoor']Yeah, I'll never understand why people use debit cards instead of credit cards.

Unless you have absolutely zero self-control, credit cards are the way to go.[/QUOTE]

Also agree. If you're paying off your balance every month, why not let the CC companies essentially loan you the money for free until the end of your billing cycle. I'm the worst customer a credit card company could have. I don't buy a lot, and I never carry over a balance.

This debit card craze never made any sense to me.
 
[quote name='QiG']Just FYI Sprint charges $5 per one time payment for customers with a spending limit.[/QUOTE]

I've never got it then. Never heard of it.
 
Ticketmaster (one of the worst companies) has been doing this for years. I always do "will-call" to avoid the fee for printing my own tix. Ridiculous, but I'm cheap.

I agree that these "conveinence fees" should be illegal.
 
I just dont understand why people always seem so surprised when corporations pull this kind of crap, especially banks and the telephone companies. It is their job to increase profits year after year. If they cant do it one way....well, I guarantee they will do it another way. Welcome to corporate greed 101.
 
[quote name='100xp']i had AT&T once on a landline and they charged me $1.XX fee which goes towards low income houses and ppl who need help paying their bills. I said, I'm a student I have zero income...I need help paying my bills. Apparently I needed to be section 8 as a student my tutition (even as a student loan) is considered my income.

i've seen companies charge for online payments because it's easier for us, some companies mainly cable and other communications charge ppl an extra $1 + now to continue to recieve paper bills. Some banks will offer a one time $50 bank credit if you go paperless.

depending on your type of bank account, it's possible your bank will charge you for paying bills online as it's considered a "withdrawl."

meh.[/QUOTE]
My bank(a lil local one) charges me a $.35 fee to pay my credit card bill online cuz they consider it basically an 'online check' that I'm using to pay it, so it's listed as an ACH fee.

But I have also seen that fee that the government makes utility companies take from customers to help low income people pay their bills. It's bullshit to me that my family has to help pay someone else's bill but yet when I needed help from the government a while ago to pay an unexpected hospital bill it was like pulling teeth to get approved and once I did they sent me a physical card that was only good for that ONE day hospital bill.:roll:
 
[quote name='dmaul1114']It is pretty lame. Doesn't affect me as I use auto payments, but still lame.

And like most fees, it hurts poorer folk more as they're the ones most likely to use it and not want to sign up for auto payments for fear of not having enough money in the bank when the auto payment is drawn.

Speaking of government fees, my state charges $5 to renew your car registration with online payment rather than mailing in a check. How does that make sense? Isn't it cheaper to process an online payment than to have to pay someone to open mail and process checks?[/QUOTE]
Except if theres a billing error, it'll be like pulling teeth to get it corrected and the funds deposited back into your account. Thats why so many companies push like hell for people to do autopay
 
Just a matter of calling and getting a credit applied to your account if overcharged in my experience with Verizon and other places I use autopay.

Companies push for autopay as it saves expense of mailing bills and proceeding checks, or paying visa/mc fees on one time payments.
 
I remeber my ex GF bought some sneakers from some independent shoe store and after lacing the shoes they add a $2.50 lacing fee. Dumbest fee i've ever seen.
 
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