Well, that didn’t take long. Less than 24 hours after word got out that Verizon Wireless planned to introduce a painfully ironic “convenience” fee of $2 for anyone paying their bill online, the carrier has just officially confirmed that such plans have been cancelled.
Why? Because the Internet more or less exploded in their face. We called it a joke immediately. An army of armchair protestors rallied almost instantly, with a petition against the fee hitting 50,000 signatures in a matter of hours. By this morning, the F.C.C was already investigating the fee.
What’d they expect? The masses went absolutely bonkers went Netflix hiked their fees up a few bucks, and that’s something people actually like to pay for. Charging them a convenience fee for paying online? Yeah, they’ll just love that.
Verizon’s official statement on the matter:
“At Verizon, we take great care to listen to our customers. Based on their input, we believe the best path forward is to encourage customers to take advantage of the best and most efficient options, eliminating the need to institute the fee at this time,” said Dan Mead, president and chief executive officer of Verizon Wireless.