April 18, 2024

Bits Blog: Verizon Drops Plan for $2 Fee on Some Bill Payments

Brian Snyder/ReutersCustomers at a Verizon Wireless store in Boston.

4:05 p.m. | Updated Adding background and analyst comment.

In a remarkably swift reversal, Verizon Wireless has canceled plans to impose a $2 “convenience fee” on some bill payments, just a day after announcing the new policy.

The company said in a statement that it was dropping the plan in light of customer feedback.

“Verizon Wireless has decided it will not institute the fee for online or telephone single payments that was announced earlier this week,” it said. “The company made the decision in response to customer feedback about the plan, which was designed to improve the efficiency of those transactions. The company continues to encourage customers to take advantage of the numerous simple and convenient payment methods it provides.”

Objections to the fee came fast and furious, and highlighted just how quickly things race around the feedback loop now, even when a company attempts to deliver the bad news during what is supposed to be a slow news week when fewer people are paying attention.

The commentary appeared first on Twitter, where many people mistakenly believed that it would be applied to all credit and debit card payments for Verizon products. Instead it was meant to apply to one-time payments that Verizon Wireless customers made via phone or on the company’s Web sites.

Some people started petitions on the same Web site where a similar campaign helped convince Bank of America to rescind its now infamous $5 monthly debit card fee. Many others insisted that they would switch to paper billing, in effect to punish the company for its actions by finding the most cost-consuming way to pay their bills each month that did not require them to pay a fee.

Consumer advocates, like Edgar Dworsky, a lawyer who runs the Web site Consumer World, began the morning vowing to investigate whether Verizon Wireless’s fee violated the terms of its merchant agreement and federal laws that limit card surcharges.

And later in the day, the Federal Communications Commission said it was planning to question Verizon about the new policy, saying it was “concerned about Verizon’s actions.

At which point the company had apparently had enough. A Verizon Wireless spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Article source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=efd59bbced12fc39306238beec346bea