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When customers push back on fees
Verizon's had its "B of A moment," reversing on its decision to add a new fee after customers retaliated.
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Jeremy Hobson: OK, so that's the company's side of the story. But what about the consumer? What is it about a $2 fee that is so offensive right now?
Here's Marketplace's Eve Troeh.
Eve Troeh: Verizon just had its Bank of America moment. When the financial giant backed down from a $5 debit card fee this year, it sent a message well beyond the financial industry, says David Butler at Consumers Union.
David Butler: That these fees are going to attract more scrutiny from media, more attention from customers than they have in years. Customers are ready to speak out and look at their options and vote with their feet.
And ready to show up in your lobby singing angry Christmas songs.
Crowd: You behave as if you own us.
'You behave as if you own us,' they sang at a B of A Seattle branch.
Jeanne Bliss of Customer Bliss says consumers flipped the script this year, and they were right to. When big companies are in survival mode, like they are now, customers have more power.
Jeanne Bliss: They're putting the pieces together, so that they say: Look I have this value. I've been with you a long time. Don't take me for granted.
Bliss says the internet acts like a megaphone for those individual hurt feelings. Customers tweet about a new fee, or blog about tricky fine print, and soon the company's voice gets drowned in the outcry.
Bliss: Seventy to 75 percent of a customer's buying decision is based on talking to other people, talking to colleagues, and reading reviews and reports on the Internet.
And consulting with all those friends, real and virtual, will only give customers more courage to call up a phone company or bank or cable service and say: I'm just not that into you.
I'm Eve Troeh for Marketplace.
Well now Verizon has found a new way to annoy and outrage it's customers. They are going to cancel the MSN Premium that came with their DSL service. This includes the McAfee Anti virus. Why? I have no clue, no explanation is offered by either company in their emails, just that the service is to end in March and if we want to keep it we will have to pay MSN for it. Nor is the price of this revealed to us. It's a secret... a procedure is laid out to subscribe, but it doesn't work. They came up with this on Friday, so maybe they'll come in all bright and bushytailed Monday morning and straighten this whole mess out. I hope so. The MSN /McAfee thing is what convinced me to go with Verizon in the first place. I'd like to know if I cancel my long distance could I break even? Verizon needs to keep in mind that I and millions (?thousands?) like me can get along without a landline, and DSL isn't all that hot anymore either. I'd rather just pay them to keep things as they are but I can easly imagine a future without Verizon. When do they file for chapter11?
Great segment. Now... If the Feds started looking at Verizon charging $2 if you use a credit card but don't sign up for Auto-pay, how is it that RCN Cable can (for at least a year) charge $1 for the exact same situation? And as I think about it - isn't it illegal to charge a fee to customers to use a credit card, or does that not apply in this case?
