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Verizon Wireless are setting in place a new charge scheme for American customers which is sure to cause problems.
From January 15th 2012, they plan on charging an extra $2 to customers who pay their bill with a credit or debit card. The fee is said not to take effect for those who pay by an automated system.
Verizon are one of American's largest mobile carrier organisations, with over 90 million customers. They said the fee is to help cover their own costs for the many credit card transactions they process every month.
People can avoid the charge if they pay by electronic cheque or by paying electronically via a banking website. Other options include mailing in a cheque or paying in a Verizon store by credit card.
Let us hope it works out better than their FiOS TV and Internet service charges, as they tried to introduce a $3.50 fee for using a credit card. They had to remove it after a huge number of complaints were issued by customers.
Kitguru says: This isn't going to be a popular move.
Where are the regulating agencies over b.s. like this? Any other business has to price their product to take into account things like payment and processing fees and all other costs of doing business. Other web discussions of this isse have pointed out that a consumer (in the U.S. anyway) would have a legal argument that they have breached their contract with the customer to try and add any kind of fee before the term of the contract has expired. This could end up costing them LOTS of customers. Nothing but a money-grab!!