And right now is not the time to slap American consumers with another fee.
See, we all love our cell phones, but we also spend a lot of money on them already, and don’t want to spend more in unnecessary charges.
The latest attempt to add such a fee came from Verizon, which had planned to introduce a “convenience fee” of $2 for payments made online or over the phone via credit card. This wouldn’t have applied to other payment methods, such as automatic withdrawal from a bank account, but it would have affected millions of customers who go online every month to pay their bill. … (also, as an side note, you gotta love the naming convention here; how exactly is it convenient that you would be getting more of my money for apparently no reason?)
As you can imagine, the backlash was plenty. A petition on change.org against the fees had gathered more than 57,000 names by Friday afternoon.
Fresh off the huge backlash against Bank of America for their proposed $5 debit card fee, which was also nixed in the wake of consumer outrage, this Verizon $2 fee plan did not go over well. It doesn’t sound like much, but if millions of people pay it every month, Verizon would have made out pretty well in the deal.
Verizon, at least, has admitted the customers are the reason for their reversal. The company cited “consumer feedback” for their reasoning to not institute the fee as planned on January 15. And this is a smart move. Verizon is the No. 1 wireless network in America, and I’m pretty sure they would like to keep it that way. Having thousands or millions of people defect because they are seen as trying to nickel and dime the customers in every way possible would not be a smart business strategy.
Like I said, we love our phones, and we already pay a pretty penny to operate them and pay for all those data plans that are required on almost every phone now. There’s no need for these companies to push it too far and try to sneak one by the public … particularly in a time of economic uncertainty, customers will notice things like this and the reaction will be negative.
Verizon is not the only offender here, far from it. I’ve seen these $1 or $2 increases on all kinds of bills – from cable and satellite providers, to landlines, and more. Every company will do what they can to get a little extra from the customer and try to cover their expenses better.
But as the Bank of America and Verizon examples show, some fees are a stretch at best, and will be shot down by customer feedback before they even show up.
Why? It’s simple. The cost of the backlash would outweigh any benefit they could get from the fee. It turns out the people do have some power after all, and the key is to stay vigilant so that these kind of fees can’t slip through without our noticing.
Contact Matt Myftiu at matt.myftiu@oakpress.com, and follow him on Twitter @MattMyftiu.
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