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FWIW, if you pay with credit/debit, then there is a fee charged by the banks to process that payment, whether you pay in-person or online. I've never read of a city that isn't statutorily prohibited from absorbing the costs of those fees. They're added to the amount owed.

In regards to online payments, I wouldn't be surprised if your city outsourced that service, which adds an additional cost (vs. paying in person).

I live in VA's largest city, and they charge $4.95 to pay a parking ticket or city bill (like water) online with credit/debit. For taxes owed, it's 2.5%. Paying online with a check is free.

Well whatever the case is, it's ridiculous. Almost everything is done online nowadays. There are extra charges because they know that. Whether its the credit card companies/banks, etc.
 
I hope everyone raises a stink about this and gets Verizon to reverse course like they were able to do with bank of America.
 
My rental agency did the same when they started accepting online payments, so I continued to mail them a check. I figure that is more inconvenient for them. A few months later, I received a letter saying that they no longer charge a fee for online payments. I still mail them a check.
 
What Verizon is trying to do is encourage everyone to sign up for the automatic payment so they can avoid the processing fees. They could have phrased this as offering a $2 "discount" while raising some other official-sounding fee and probably avoided some of the bad PR. I wouldn't be surprised if they do this with paper statements next, the way some banks and utilities have done.
 
i will never understand what has happened to customer service, it has fallen by the wayside in order to maximize all profits all the time, everything else be damned.
 
I hope this isn't their first step into "time warner" territory (horrible service, customer service, product, EVERYTHING. I loathe TWC).

I am one that would be impacted by this. I usually go online and click "pay bill" and use my saved MC to process the payment.

I was about to "convenience" them by calling and reminding them that I no longer want to receive a paper bill but if it's going to cost me $2 to pay online which is more convenient for BOTH myself and Verizon, then I'll just keep getting the paper bills and start paying them via check/mail.

You better watch it Verizon... you're starting down a slippery slope.
 
Convenience fee!! It's for their convenience to handle it online. There should be a $2 online discount!!!!! What a bunch of arsewipes. :eek:
 
Guess I'll be sending a check and reactivating paper statements. My mortgage company used to take online payments for free (direct bank acct draft) then they added a $10 processing fee. They get a check in the mail too
 
Wireless companies hold all the power and now they're abusing it.

"We're only going to give you a certain amount of data to use, so if you go over, either pay us more or just don't use your device that you're paying us a monthly fee for. Also, we're charging you for everything you want to do."
 
Another increase bt Verizon. One of the reasons I'm glad I'm still with AT&T. However I can see AT&T doing the same exact thing. Greedy mo fos.
 
Another increase bt Verizon. One of the reasons I'm glad I'm still with AT&T. However I can see AT&T doing the same exact thing. Greedy mo fos.
This was one of the stories on NBC Nightly News tonight. If this story maintains traction with the media, like Bank of America's "plan" to charge $5/month if you used your debit card to buy anything did, I could see them scrapping the plan before it launches (like BofA did).
 
This is hella dumb. And judging by the amount of times i had to refresh the 'Contact Us' page of their site just for it to display properly, others feel the same. As someone else said, resume paper billing.
 
Don't be upset at verizon, be upset at banks and VISA/Mastercard/etc for raising transaction costs for using debit/credit...

for the millions that verizon take from our pockets they should be paying the $2!
 
Yet another reason I'm glad I'm not on Verizon.

My first reason is that they turned me into a creditor without any prior notice, written or oral for a bill I had paid well before it was due and had full proof of paying.
 
Ridiculous. I hope clients are able to beat this, including myself. If these effects me, I will go old school by sending checks in mail while complaining constantly.
 
I hope this isn't their first step into "time warner" territory (horrible service, customer service, product, EVERYTHING. I loathe TWC).

I am one that would be impacted by this. I usually go online and click "pay bill" and use my saved MC to process the payment.

I was about to "convenience" them by calling and reminding them that I no longer want to receive a paper bill but if it's going to cost me $2 to pay online which is more convenient for BOTH myself and Verizon, then I'll just keep getting the paper bills and start paying them via check/mail.

You better watch it Verizon... you're starting down a slippery slope.

TWC charges an extra $1 per month to receive a paper statement. However, they characterize it as a "discount" for receiving an electronic statement. Either way, they are still more expensive than Verizon FIOS, so I'm making the switch.

I tend to have less of an issue with these kinds of fees because they are avoidable, and it's just as easy (easier, actually) to set up automatic payments (it's just one less thing to forget to do each month). My biggest issue is when companies quote one price in ads, but then tack on fees and give them names that sound like they are taxes when they really aren't.
 
Relax & pay using the prescribed method and you'll avoid the fee.

Do I like it? No

But the fact is one way or another, the price of using a smartphone or feature phone just went up.

If you think you're smarter or able to get around this, you're going to waste more time than $2 worth.

Verizon is not a group of dummies, they know exactly what they're doing. And just like Apple they're always the first.

Some of you may remember the huge uproar when Verizon raised the ETF from $175 to $350. Despite the protests and initial class action suit, Verizon prevailed. Setting the new standard the other carriers followed.

Welcome to smartphone operating costs circa 2011.
 
I am re-activating paper statements (sorry tree :() and will mail them a check, on the due date. I'm tempted to stop by the bank and get $200 worth of nickels and mail it in a box, with my bill.

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Also if you think this is bad, you haven't seen anything yet. Lots of rumors and sources saying that sometime in 2012 even grandfathered unlimited data is going the way of the dodo. That will be the final push I need to switch to AT&T and buy my phones off contract.
 
Well hopefully the public gets Verizon to stop these shenanigans before it takes effect. I'm on a family plan with friends on AT&T...each paying individually online because we're all geographically separated. If this happens to AT&T too, we'll each be setting up the online bill pay with our different credit unions ($%#@ banks) and they'll be receiving four mailed checks per month :)
 
Everyone complaining about this knows that there's no fee if you are signed up for automatic monthly billing/payments, right? You can also make payments through your own bank without incurring the fee. The only time this new fee is being charged is if you literally go to the website and manually make a payment there. Yes, it's stupid, but you're all smart boys and girls; read the fine print and avoid the fees. But reverting to sending in checks is ridiculous.
 
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