Sunday, January 1, 2012

Verizon Spokesperson Fights Back On $2 "Convenience" Fee Controversy


New York - January 1, 2012:  A Verizon Wireless spokesperson clarified their position one day after it was announced that they would scrap the idea of charging a $2 "convenience" fee when customers made a one-time online credit card payment:

"Although we are scrapping the $2 fee we want to clear up several things:

1. We could've slipped the $2 fee into our customers' bills without announcing it. We doubt too many people would've ever noticed it. We believe that we deserve a lot of credit for being up-front about the fee hike.

2. We'd also like a little credit from our customers for the fact that we didn't charge more. Look at Bank of America who tried to charge their customers $5.

3. We didn't get much blowback from the multiple service outages in December so we thought, what the hell? If they don't get that upset about service outages, they won't care about an extra $2 for the privilege of sending us their money. We were wrong, but I don't think anyone can blame us for trying. It is pretty clear that our customers are not the brightest group of people on the planet, but I've got to give them credit for catching us this time around.

4. We are the largest cell phone company in the U.S. and we think it is time our customers realize it. We thought this was a good way to let them know that although we value our customers loyalty, we value our balance sheet even more. And what better way is there for a customer to demonstrate their loyalty to Verizon Wireless than send an extra $2 along with their bill payment?

5. We earned about $11.9 billion in pre-tax profits in 2010 and we believe that was cutting it a little too close for comfort. This $2 fee would've helped our top executives sleep a little better at night and I think that we can all agree that a well-rested management team is a little more important than a few troublemakers who act like $2 is going to ruin their life. Just pay your damn bill and shut up already."

She finished her statement by telling the stunned group of hastily assembled reporters, "Come to think of it, some of our customers are acting pretty damn whiny about the whole thing. I mean don't they understand that a corporation's primary mission is to make as much money as possible? We've got them under contract. Where are they going to go? To the small portion of ungrateful and unappreciative customers I say, Can you hear me now?"