They really crossed the phone line this time.
Verizon Wireless is being accused of obfuscation and “greed” after eagle-eyed users noticed that they hiked up an unpopular hidden fee.
“I just looked at the online PDF of my current bill, and was met with a note that the Verizon fee is going up again,” the disgruntled user declared in a post taking off on Reddit.
They said the fee will now be “$3.50 per voice line, and $1.60 per data line” — up from $3.30 per voice line and $1.40 per data line, The Verge reported.
Reps for Verizon — which is the largest telecommunications firm in the US by revenue — confirmed this fee increase.
“Starting December 18, the monthly Verizon wireless Administrative and Telco Recovery Charge will increase by $0.20 per line for mobile voice (basic phones, Second Number, smartphones, etc.) and data-only (hotspots, tablets, etc.) products,” Verizon spokesman George Koroneos told The Verge. “Verizon Home Internet services are not affected.”
According to Verizon, the surcharge “helps defray and recover certain direct and indirect costs we or our agents incur.”
These include property taxes, operations and charges required to comply with “regulatory and industry obligations and programs.”
However, the Redditor argued this fee is often hidden in the billing details and forces customers to foot the bill for operations expenses that they felt should be “baked” into the user’s standard plan.
“It’s the fee Verizon charges for the cost of doing business with them,” griped the Redditor in a follow-up post. “They obfuscate it by calling it the Administrative and Telco Recovery Charge. But it basically pays for their property taxes and other costs of doing business.”
They analogized the fee to having to pay an additional electricity charge after buying an appliance at Target.
Redditors were none too thrilled with the fee hike.
“The greed is insane,” declared one outraged user, while another deemed the surcharge “fraudulent.”
“How do they not ban this practice?” said a third. “I smell government action on this.”
This isn’t the first time the telecommunications firm has come under fire for hiking fees, which notably increased from 40 cents per month for each phone line in 2005 to $3.30 in 2022.
Last winter, Verizon Wireless agreed to shell out $100 million to settle a class-action lawsuit that alleged that this administrative fee was unfair — with customers eligible to receive as much as $100 each.