WTF?! Is Qwest in some kind of cahoots with the Post Office?

[Kali]

I just tried to pay my little land line bill (~ $25) over the phone. LIKE I HAVE BEEN DOING FOR YEARS. And they tried to charge me $4 for a "convenience fee". Convenient for THEM! :wtf:

Waited and talked to a human and she said I could avoid the fee my sending my payment in the mail? again :wtf: How in the FUCK can that be more convenient for ANYBODY? The old system was automatic - done by a computer and the new one involves at LEAST 3 or 4 people physically moving paper around and then entering data into a computer. At least I presume it will involve a computer, maybe Qwest knows something I don't and they are going back to a real cash system. Maybe I should sent them a fucking chicken.

[Broken_Hero]

1. Not sure,

I had a Sprint phone in 2002 and they charged a 4$ convenience charge if you paid your bill at their store, if you mailed in your payment it just cost you a money order/stamp.

I didn't think it was convenient to have to pay an extra 4$, I hate to channel Joe Pesci(thinking Lethal Weapon II), but they screw you with your bill payment options! :)

[Echo In Light]

2. The electric co in our area charges a whopping $7 service charge to pay over the phone

... which I'm guessing such a cocksucker move is in place b/c the evil fucks realize that people are often in a last minute, desperate situation to get a bill paid prior to having their power switched off, and so have people over a barrel.

[SpiralHawk]

3. More and more companies going that way...pay to pay

it is sooooo republicon...perverted Republicon family values...

[Kali]

4. this is new and it was done with no warning

finding info on the google - god what assholes. I am so sick of this petty ass nickle and diming by the corporated FUCKS.

[myrna minx]

5. The same thing happened to me as well.

You have to pay $1 for the convenience to pay online as well. I couldn't believe it when I called.

[catbyte]

6. DirecTv charges $5 N/T

[dixiegrrrrl]

7. The great and mighty DISH took my CC card payment on the phone

for 3 months, then suddenly it was a 5.00 fee when I called to pay.
No explanation.
And I was paying early, when the bill arrived !
So now I send them their money a week later, by mail.

AT&T charges 5.00 to pay in their teeny cubbyhole of an office, so they get to to wait a week for me to mail their checks, too.

I see an ugly trend coming.

edit: spelling

[pipi_k]

8. Oh, here's one from the state of Mass...

The other day the RMV decided on its own to institute a $5.00 fee for people wanting to talk to a real live person at the RMV.

Here in Mass people can conduct a lot of registration business online, and it's only every ten years we actually have to go to the registry to renew our licenses and get a new photo taken. In between we can renew online.

But some people don't have computers. Some people don't have credit or debit cards that would enable them to conduct RMV business online.

And the worst part about it was there was NO warning whatsoever. None. One day there's no charge, the next day, there it was.

So Gov. Patrick says he'll rescind the right for the RMV to charge a fee for human contact but it may take a while to go into effect. Yeah...OK. Didn't take the RMV "a while" to decide to charge people, did it...

rotten moneygrubbing bastards...

:nuke:

[Robb]

13. Colorado charges $7 for online payments for vital record stuff

...free to "walk in."

I don't understand that one at all.

[Kali]

9. somebody on one of the things I found on google

suggested paying by mail with pennies and LOTS of styrofoam peanuts - if you are going to get ripped off, might as well have some fun with it.

[liberalhistorian]

10. It doesn't make any sense to me, either, but

my credit card company is like that. They charge seven bucks if I pay both over the phone OR on the internet; the charge is nothing if I send it in. A couple of other places do that, too. Makes absolutely no sense to me, but whatever. I'll just send the money in, I have no intention of paying a company for simply paying a fucking bill.

[Kali]

14. it makes perfect sense

because these companies = greed and any way they can ream out a few more buck out of 100s of 1000s of "customers" they will.

[Gormy Cuss]

11. My guess (supported by this link FWIW) is that they want customers to sign up for auto-pay.

http://www.kval.com/news/consumertips/85148637.html

That's the cheapest and most reliable way to collect payments. An automated phone system requires maintenance and system administrators, plus sufficient equipment to process the payments. It may not be any cheaper than processing paper checks given recent innovations in check clearing.

Of course there's always the possibility that it's just another way to soak a customer.

[Kali]

12. auto pay is absolute parasitism

I'm too much on the edge to have these kind of assholes sucking out of my accounts automatically.

I am actually glad to give the local post office a little more business, it was the no damn warning more than anything. I had been gradually going to over the phone or electronic because THEY seem to push it so much and it saved me a fucking stamp. Well back to stamps I guess.

[Gormy Cuss]

23. I hear you.

Auto-pay is great when you don't have to worry about the bank balance but like most payment "enhancements" offered by businesses these days, it's just another way of making it harder for people who have to watch every penny.

[Echo In Light]

16. This is why most Customer Service Reps are instructed to promote that to the nth degree

NEVER sign up for auto pay

[OKNancy]

18. I love auto pay

I'm on the edge too, but it keeps the water and electricity on with no late payment fees.
Not to mention the time savings.

[Echo In Light]

19. I know of horrible situations it creates for the working poor living payday to payday

[Kali]

20. one screw up of not having that money in there and it could result

in 100's of dollars in fees. NO FUCKING WAY. I can talk my way out of things with most billing companies way easier than talking a bank out of overdraft/NSF charges.

[Echo In Light]

21. The banks must LOVE auto pay

[tammywammy]

15. My mortgage company charges $20 to pay over the phone

$20! And if you pay online even one day late it's an extra $12 you shell out (though it's not considered late until after the 15th).

But no extra charge if you snail mail and it gets there a day late. Crazy!

[Hotler]

17. Waste management of Denver charges $3.00 to pay by check. n/t

[izzybeans]

22. It's not a conspiracy with the post office.

They charge the fees because they can. Every bill i have that I've paid over the phone has this same fee. They are charging it because most people call the day the bill is due to avoid a late fee. Since they have those people captive on the phone they charge them extra (and pretend it saves them money because they avoid the late fee).

They also do the same with their bs "tax recovery" fees. Instead of paying the taxes themselves they charge you for it. In this case, instead of paying the salaries of the phone operators themselves they charge you a fee for their time, even though these costs are already factored into the price of their services (as are the taxes). So the essentially get paid twice for the same service. You are paying them a fee for the right to pay them. In a sane world, this would be known as double billing and illegal. But we don't live in a sane world, we live in a libertarian dystopia where theft is legal and justice costs tons of cash.

[Kali]

24. they never charged it before and there is NOTHING about it on my bill.

There are a few companies that have an option when you pay by phone to have it be "rush" payment - to stick it to those paying on the due date - same with their on-line payment. Even though the system is perfectly capable of up-to-the-second/instant postings, they pretend it will take 3 to 5 days and stick it to you by blackmailing you over possible late fees and, HORRORS!!! notifying the credit reporting companies.

[izzybeans]

25. I've never seen it on a bill either. The other alternative is

that they shop out their call center and payments are done through a vendor. They passed the fee on to you (even though in most cases companies build administrative costs into the delivery of your service).

Every time I've paid by phone in the past few years I've had to pay a fee. The worst situation is when a company contracts with a vendor to handle payments, you make your payment, and it doesn't post for several days because of how inefficient contract services typically are. The standard refrain when I asked for my money back was "well it takes a couple of days for our systems to sync up". I got my money back because I keep the payment confirmation information, but they bank on most people not complaining.

They are all just seeing what they can get away with, like a Bully searching for lunch money on an unsupervised playground.

[EFerrari]

26. A lot of companies are doing that now. n/t

[Better Today]

27. Good I love USPS, never switched never will.

[Kali]

28. I agree with that.

I hate having to use fed ex or ups when I order stuff, because they won't come down our road and it's all a huge PITA. The post office sticks it in a package locker and leaves a key in my mail box. Convenient and easy.

[upi402]

29. Me too. Reagan killed Ma Bell and Qwest is what we get

We get scammed and skimmed at every turn. It's no cheaper, and the service sucks.

[Kali]

30. ok what do you think? LTTE, corp commision, qwest HQ, attorney general

Suggested LTTE headline: “At Qwest, our top priority is providing you with quality customer service.”


Yesterday (March 3rd, 2010) I dialed the customer service number for Qwest (motto on bill: Spirit of Service), in order to make a payment by phone. As I had done with my last payment, and in fact have been doing for YEARS. I was informed at the moment of entering the payment information that I would be charged a $4 “convenience fee” to complete this transaction. This is certainly NOT convenient for me, and frankly I don't really see how it is convenient for anyone other than the USPS, since after I got to a human being in the system I was informed I could mail the payment in with no further charges.

Excuse me, how is that convenient for anyone? Convenient for Qwest (and others who pull this nonsense on their customers) is about all I see. On the one hand a computer completes virtually all the task, in the other scenario at least three people have to handle and transfer paper products over quite some distance – a cost in time, labor, and environmental effects. And then it still needs to be entered into a computer. At least I presume it will involve a computer, maybe Qwest knows something I don't and they are going back to a real cash system. Maybe I should send a live chicken.

Beyond the ridiculous logic involved in this and other deceitful ways of promoting a low-cost product yet still including all the costs of doing business by calling them “other fees and taxes” is the fact that this fee (which amounts to an increase of 16% of my monthly bill!) was imposed with NO NOTICE WHATSOEVER. There is NOTHING on my bill about fees for using the phone. As mentioned above I have been paying by phone for years. And I am sure it was because I was encouraged to do so by notices on those very same bills years ago!

While this is minor in the grand scheme of things, all the nickel and diming of customers already struggling in this economy at least as much as a large corporation, it would still be nice to see some semblance of competence or even consideration and have been given notice or perhaps a fee waiver for this new “policy” during some kind of reasonable implementation period.

Perhaps this is the impetus for me to finally give up the land line. The wiring is over 60 years old, goes dead every time it rains, and is only used for emergencies and a dismally slow 24 Kbps internet connection.

Kali
possible former customer