Verizon‘s new $2 fee is now under the scrutiny of the Federal Communications Commission, according to a statement by the agency on Friday.
“On behalf of American consumers, we’re concerned about Verizon’s actions and are looking into the matter,” the FCC told the New York Times.
Verizon announced its new fee on Thursday, targeting customers who pay their bills online or by phone. The fee, which will cost consumers $2 per online credit or debit card transaction, puts emphasis on Verizon’s free methods of payment. These include automatic deduction from a bank account or electronic check. After receiving the news, customers quickly opposed the new plan, voicing opinions on social networks. The outrage might have also been spurred by three Verizon Wireless outages that occurred this month.The company explained the downtime was simply an issue of “growing pains” implementing its LTE 4G service, in a statement today.
Verizon is calling this a “convenience fee,” though it really seems to be an effort to avoid credit and debit card fees. As VentureBeat reporter Tom Cheredar pointed out on Thursday, customers have a reason to be concerned about signing up for a direct withdrawal system. Wireless carrier bills are notorious for being different every month. Many customers feel they have been over charged upon receiving a bill, and want to challenge those charges before making a payment. In fact, in 2010 Verizon admitted to over charging 15 million customers.
Some have even began an online boycott of Verizon on Causes.org. A similar boycott was held when Bank of America announced a fee for debit card usage, a fee which the bank soon retracted.
We have contacted the FCC and Verizon for comment and will update this post upon hearing back.
Image via Ian P. Miller/Flickr
Copyright 2011, VentureBeat
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