WRONG....
This move by Verizon is much more insidious, as this guy goes on to say:
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Verizon Drops $2 'Convenience Fee' Due to Complaints
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WRONG....
This move by Verizon is much more insidious, as this guy goes on to say:
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The headline should be:
"credit card companies win again, Merchants stuck with paying outrageous transaction fees."
The headline should be:
"credit card companies win again, Merchants stuck with paying outrageous transaction fees."
I understand what you are saying but I pay a couple of bills via echeck and to do so you must give not only your account number but the routing number too. So, no, the bank is not the only one that has you account information.
I'm comfortable doing so because i have set up a checking account that is not linked to any other account and I use echecks and a debit card from it to do all my online payments. I deposit just enough cash in that account every month to cover my bills and a bit more for online purchases. This way my main accounts are never in anyone's database except my bank. I don't even have any other account with that bank.
re original article
glad i dumped vz awhile ago - bunch of monkeys, scammers, and maggots - from customer care all the way to upper management
glad i dumped vz awhile ago - bunch of monkeys, scammers, and maggots - from customer care all the way to upper management
Do you even have any proof that Verizon pays these fees? This is not your local convenience store with a credit card terminal that dials into a modem; this is a company with millions of paying subscribers with a fairly centralized, integrated electronic billing system.
In other words, the more subscribers pay with credit cards, the more the credit companies stand to benefit from potential interest charges. Their benefits probably greatly outweigh the cost/effort of what it takes to process recurring payments. I should think that there are deals made between Verizon and the credit card companies where encouraging credit card payments is incentivized. One of the ways it could be incentivized is reduction or elimination of these 2-3% processing fees you refer to.
I am strictly guessing with the above comments, but I think that others have gotten closer to the understanding the original purpose of the convenience charge - to encourage recurring, automated payments in general.
*********. This is a victory for the customers who don't have to pay $2 for non-recurring payments. It is a loss for Verizon, a break even deal for the CC companies, and a win for consumers.
VZW can fight its own battles with Visa. Thinking that it would be a *good thing* if consumers were stuck with a $2 fee is just irrational.
If VZW weren't so greedy, they could have offered to give customers a $1 discount per month if they used recurring payments plans or linked to their bank. This would be a win for the customers, a loss for the CC companies, and probably a break-even for VZW. It would have been great PR (as opposed to the present debacle), but, no, it's VZW, and they couldn't resist adding another fee onto their customers. They just can't help it. It's in their DNA.
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Companies that process a lot of credit card volume pay less than 2%. People arguing the credit card companies win are being silly. It is a matter of convenience for customers. Accepting credit cards is part of doing business.
Listen I understand the issues businesses have but this was not the answer. I saw a couple years ago the entire profit of the convenience store industry was equal to how much they spent on credit cards. So you could argue it cut their profits in half. The reality is people spent more and more often with credit cards so it is not cut and dry.
People want no fee credit cards with rewards, that is what these fees allow.
So the banks and consumers divy up the money instead of the business it is what it is.
AgentElliot007 said:Yes it would be cheaper for them.
I always roll my eyes when a company asks to switch me to electronic billing for MY convenience. It's obvious it saves the company more that it helps me. Somehow the offers never seem to offer a discount for this benefit to me.
Personally, I'm an old fuddy duddy who likes to keep the paper bills for a while to verify the charges. Just don't seem to look at the electronic bills as closely as paper.
The money they save on printing and mailing paper statements pails in comparison to what they lose when we pay online with a credit card and they have to pay 2-3% credit processing fees on every transaction to the credit card company. My bill with Verizon is about $260 a month (family plan, 4 iPhones, 1 voice-only phone, family texting, 25% corporate discount hanging around from an old part-time retail job). If I pay with a credit card and they're only paying 2% to the credit companies, they're losing about $62.40 a year on me alone, and that's just so I can pay with a credit card. It doesn't cost them anywhere close to $62.40 a year to send me paper bills and process my checks. I think a generous estimate would be $15 a year to send me bills and process and verify my physical checks.
Spread that out over 107 million subscribers. Even if only 10% of subscribers are paying by credit card (it's likely a great deal more), you're still talking hundreds of millions of dollars lost in credit processing fees. For years, this was a cost of doing business as many have suggested, and they swallowed it because there wasn't a better way. But now, there are many better ways for not only them but us, so they tried to make a move. I don't fault them for it. I'd fault them for plenty of things before this. This makes sense and in my mind would've added up to progress.
Companies that process a lot of credit card volume pay less than 2%. People arguing the credit card companies win are being silly. It is a matter of convenience for customers. Accepting credit cards is part of doing business.
Listen I understand the issues businesses have but this was not the answer. I saw a couple years ago the entire profit of the convenience store industry was equal to how much they spent on credit cards. So you could argue it cut their profits in half. The reality is people spent more and more often with credit cards so it is not cut and dry.
People want no fee credit cards with rewards, that is what these fees allow.
So the banks and consumers divy up the money instead of the business it is what it is.
Sort of wise idea. But still the amount of people that see people's banking information is bigger than most people think. Even more so if the bank does not do their own in-house work.
So the same goes for the amount of people that see your information with verizon either via credit card or echeck. You trust the people along the way and the companies handling it.
I honestly thought this was Verizon's plan to save the USPS. People would start mailing checks, giving USPS some much needed business.
once the FCC started nosing around with this VZW backed off pretty quick. i'm sure it would have gone on longer if not for that. sure, they expected some customers to be unhappy but time would make people forget...
at least its done with for now.
at least its done with for now.
I
ichrisg30
Guest
kinda cool that you can even still pay with "paper" in the US. here in germany they require you to be over 18 and to have a bank account where they can automatically take the money from each month (its like that for most transactions in general) been like that since i can remember. then again we dont do checks here at all and barely any people have credit cards either
The irony here is that the gov't pressured Verizon for a $2 credit card convenience fee yet the IRS has been using CC processors for years that charge the tax filer anywhere from 1.9% to 3.93% if they elect to pay with CC. So seems a bit hypocritical to me for the gov't to say VZW can't charge a fee but the gov't can (albeit 3rd party). (Seems like it chapter out of Animal Farm).
I'm NOT in favor of the fee, but gov't intervention here was a bit much. I bet if the FCC had not stepped in VZW would have had to drop it anyway due to customer and media pressure. But no worries. While the FCC scored political points VZW will now charge every customer $2 extra somewhere else. They'll be smart this time and hide it.
Hardly, more like Verizon saying "lets not piss off the FCC more than we already do."
You speak as though CC's have just arrived and are a new phenomena. May I remind you they have been charging the same fees for decades, nothing has changed on that front, and the service/retail sector have had these baked in for years. Seems as though the marketing department is doing a fine job teaching us old dogs new tricks.
Another thing that burns my a$$ are these gas stations charging .10 less for cash vs. credit, another scam I look out for every time I pull in to pump.
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If they really wanted to encourage everyone to use Autopay, they could have offered a $2 discount if you enroll in Autopay and everyone would have been happy and considered switching. This was all about stealing more money from the consumers.
If they really wanted to encourage everyone to use Autopay, they could have offered a $2 discount if you enroll in Autopay and everyone would have been happy and considered switching. This was all about stealing more money from the consumers.
And people will figure out that they did this and scream that it is a change in terms and will say that that should let them get out of their contracts without an ETF and Verizon will have the same PR mess to deal with.
Frankly I suspect if Verizon does anything they will simply drop the service. So since the customers didn't want to pay a $2 fee to call in and give their CC to someone to pay their bill right away, fine, that option is gone. Verizon would love that cause then all those folks that forget until the last minute are at risk of having paid late and they can charge their pre announced late fee which is likely way more than $2. When they complain about it the answer will be 'we are not responsible for the fact that you can't pay your bills on time, the fee stays'
Has Verizon hired Netflix as the new PR company?
Lots of people don't pay until the last minute. For many of those people it is a necessity. $2 just to pay a bill is crazy and is aimed at the poorer people. The same people who often just don't have the time or energy left to complain.
I told Verizon this and told them that this move fosters as much customer sympathy as fuel surcharges. Don't ever put convenience and fee in the same sentence when the economy has been down. Has Verizon hired Netflix for PR?
I was expecting a class action but it was much quicker when the FCC started in with the questions.
Lots of people don't pay until the last minute. For many of those people it is a necessity. $2 just to pay a bill is crazy and is aimed at the poorer people. The same people who often just don't have the time or energy left to complain.
I told Verizon this and told them that this move fosters as much customer sympathy as fuel surcharges. Don't ever put convenience and fee in the same sentence when the economy has been down. Has Verizon hired Netflix for PR?
I was expecting a class action but it was much quicker when the FCC started in with the questions.
Wrong. It costs them way more than $15 a year to print and mail bills and receive and process payment. It costs way more than $62 a year to do that. I work for a bank. It costs us about $5 to process a check deposit in a branch. You are not thinking about many of the overhead components required.
After two years of dropping my phone & using only an iPad for communications, I look forward to going wifi-only, and not spending a single penny on any of these crappy US cell providers in 2012. Starting tomorrow.
...in three minutes.
...in three minutes.