New Verizon Fee A Surprise To DU Professor
CBS4 KCNC-TV
A Colorado business expert says he's surprised Verizon Wireless is moving forward next month with a plan to charge $2 for every payment subscribers make online or by telephone with their credit cards.Verizon Wireless dropped the plan to start charging after a backlash from customers. In a statement on its website Friday, the company said "customer feedback" prompted the decision to drop the "convenience fee" it wanted to introduce on Jan. 15.
The billing fee would not have applied to electronic check payments or to automatic credit card payments set up through Verizon's AutoPay system. Paying by credit card in a Verizon store will also be free, as will mailing a check.
Verizon calls it a payment convenience fee, but University of Denver Daniels College of Business Professor Mac Clouse says those extra credit card fees for Verizon would be minimal. “Usually electronic transactions are pennies, not dollars. So $2 seems extremely high,” Clouse said.
Clouse said there are two recent examples of fee hikes that have been unpopular — with Bank of America and with Netflix. “The public was pretty well outraged and they had to take the fees away,” Clouse told CBS4. more>
