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Verizon Drops $2 'Convenience Fee' Due to Complaints
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Yes, I would rather it went to Visa or Mastercard. VZ and Visa/Mastercard engaged in a business relationship a long time ago, and VZ agreed at that time to pay the 2-3% in order to have Visa/Mastercard keep and maintain the system to make it all work.
Now, VZ, and many other retailers are looking at those profits, and at a time when people such as yourself are demonizing the credit card companies (for making a profit) they are licking their chops and wringing their hands, looking for ways to keep that 2-3% for themselves, while not giving a damn dime of it back to the consumers.
Fact is, VZ makes money as if they had a printing press, and they have these 2-3% credit card fees built into their fee structure. If they were to offer 2-3% discounts for using my bank account, or for automatic monthly payments, I would be more than willing to sign up for it.
But uninformed/misguided souls such as yourself are exactly the people who VZ and other retailers are trying to dupe when they whine about their "excessive credit card fees." It's exactly what the retailers association did last year when they used their lobbying power to have congress and our socialist administration intervene in established contractual agreements between them and the banks over swipe fees. Don't know about you, but I haven't seen retail prices come down one penny because of the lowering of swipe fees. And you won't, because the retailers kept the gravy, and left the banks to come back to you for the money that the government redistributed. Now the banks, who had a BUSINESS AGREEMENT with the retailers are the bad guys?
Quit being a knee jerk, reactionist liberal.
This is 100% true! If you read the text of the announcement, Verizon only planned to charge a fee if you used a debit or credit card to pay your bill. As AgentElliot007 states, Verizon was trying to encourage people to switch to alternate payment methods which didn't feed the credit card companies.
You know that 3% cash back, mileage rewards credit card that you have? It isn't the banks that are funding the rewards baby, it's the merchants that have to pay outrageous fees every time you use it.
I don't like vendors having my bank account number, so I use free online bill payment from my credit union to push payments to my credit card, gas, cable, mobile phone, etc suppliers.
No, it's not the merchants who are paying "outrageous fees." It's the consumers who ultimately buy the merchants' products. Problem is that the merchants built the fees into their pricing years ago, and now they're trying to double dip. Amazing that people don't see that.
Last I knew, AT&T charged people to pay their bills at their stores. Why should Verizon be charred and AT&T left uncooked and rotting?
And I think their 'charge' was $5.00!
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We had a 'merchant account' and the fees were ridiculous.
PLUS! Get this: If their credit processing didn't catch that a card was 'bad' and processed the charge and it was found later to be fraudulent, who pays for the Ooops? The merchant who is already our the products and now has to pay the card company the costs charged!! We dropped our account rather than be screwed with all of the fees (Sometimes over $20.00 a month as a base) and stupid conditions. A store would have to almost have 'credit card screw back' insurance just in case...
And I think their 'charge' was $5.00!
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We had a 'merchant account' and the fees were ridiculous.
PLUS! Get this: If their credit processing didn't catch that a card was 'bad' and processed the charge and it was found later to be fraudulent, who pays for the Ooops? The merchant who is already our the products and now has to pay the card company the costs charged!! We dropped our account rather than be screwed with all of the fees (Sometimes over $20.00 a month as a base) and stupid conditions. A store would have to almost have 'credit card screw back' insurance just in case...
No. They are pushing for customers to automatic bill pay, so customers wouldn't notice any overage fees or look at their bill so verizon can just keep taking money from customers.
What fee did GoDaddy get hammered back on?
Why can't "we" hit back Cox, et al- on these data caps..
oh, because they all colluded to do it.
Convenience fees general rant re ATMs
Remember when ATMs became popular? They were open all the time, good for the customer, and allowed the banks to hire fewer tellers and keep their costs down. No fees were involved - you were saving the bank money. I have seen fees for using ATMs now as high as $5.00 (I know there are higher ones out there) and that is on top of the extra fee from the bank if you use ATMs that don't belong to them or use your own bank's ATMs too many times. This while they are paying out about 1% on deposit accounts and pretty comfortable bonuses to themselves. Banks are no longer really a customer oriented business. Cell phone and cable companies were never really customer oriented as far as I can tell from my dealings with them. It is just a constant repackaging/renaming of the same services and seeing what you pay go higher and higher while what you get either does not change or you get charged extra for what you had.
Someone made the comment earlier about the scam of caller id. Add to that text messaging in general. Costs phone company way less to carry text messages than voice calls but they really stick people with those charges. People then feel they are getting a bonus for a smaller "unlimited text" charge. I hope Apple puts a big dent in that through wifi texting. This has been going on for as long as I remember. How about AT&T making people rent their landline phones years ago? Long after you could pick up a POT for under $20 they continued to hit the old folk with that fee until they noticed or a family member noticed that they were paying the cost of that phone in rent over and over and over.
Remember when ATMs became popular? They were open all the time, good for the customer, and allowed the banks to hire fewer tellers and keep their costs down. No fees were involved - you were saving the bank money. I have seen fees for using ATMs now as high as $5.00 (I know there are higher ones out there) and that is on top of the extra fee from the bank if you use ATMs that don't belong to them or use your own bank's ATMs too many times. This while they are paying out about 1% on deposit accounts and pretty comfortable bonuses to themselves. Banks are no longer really a customer oriented business. Cell phone and cable companies were never really customer oriented as far as I can tell from my dealings with them. It is just a constant repackaging/renaming of the same services and seeing what you pay go higher and higher while what you get either does not change or you get charged extra for what you had.
Someone made the comment earlier about the scam of caller id. Add to that text messaging in general. Costs phone company way less to carry text messages than voice calls but they really stick people with those charges. People then feel they are getting a bonus for a smaller "unlimited text" charge. I hope Apple puts a big dent in that through wifi texting. This has been going on for as long as I remember. How about AT&T making people rent their landline phones years ago? Long after you could pick up a POT for under $20 they continued to hit the old folk with that fee until they noticed or a family member noticed that they were paying the cost of that phone in rent over and over and over.