After Outcry, Verizon Abandons $2 Fee

Verizon Wireless bowed to a torrent of criticism and reversed a day-old plan to impose a $2 bill-paying fee that would have applied to only some customers.

The consumer vitriol, which cascaded across Twitter and onto blogs and petitions all around the Web, struck a chord with a company that was clearly not expecting it. “The company made the decision in response to customer feedback about the plan, which was designed to improve the efficiency of those transactions,” Verizon Wireless said in a statement referring to the reversal. That a company with revenue of $15 billion in the most recent quarter would have to quickly change course over such a small fee suggests something particular about its business and others like it. Similar to fee-bedeviled airline passengers with little choice on many nonstop flights, or bank customers who do not want to spend hours untangling automated payments so they can switch institutions, Verizon Wireless customers have limited options because they are locked into multiyear contracts. And they apparently did not like being told that it would cost money to pay money to the company. Verizon Wireless may also been have moved to change its mind when the Federal Communications Commission put out word Dec 30 that it thought the company’s actions merited closer scrutiny. (Dec 30)