Some companies (Banks, Verizon, Comcast, credit card insurers, United, car dealers…) continually find new ways to be hostile to customers. It really is amazing people put up with their horrible practices. The latest from the fees to check bags, fees to for paying company expenses, waste your time on voice mail hell if you want to talk to us crowd is fees to pay bills using automated systems.
The customer hostility of these companies is part of their DNA. We should recognize the new attempts to fleece customers but there is no reason to be surprised by the new, ever more hostile customer behavior of these companies. There are alternatives for consumers, just find them, and support them. Some industries are dominated by customer hostile companies (which can make avoiding them hard): banks (both consumer and investment banks), credit cards, airlines, cable companies, cell phone service. Even in those industries you can find ethical companies: Southwest Airlines, many credit unions, CarMax…
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And yet these guys are charging $15. I asked Chase, “How can you charge that much for an automated transaction?” They said, “Well, that’s how much we charge.” And you look at some of the other charges out there. For instance, this week Verizon Communications is introducing a new $3.50 charge if you pay your bill online, automated phone system, or to a service rep without using their recurring, automatic bill paying system.
Time Warner Cable charges $4.99 to pay by phone with a human being, but it too charges nothing to use the automated system.
“People pay for a product or service,” said Doug Heller, executive director of Consumer Watchdog, a Santa Monica advocacy group. “They shouldn’t have to pay again just for the right to pay them.”
Related: Protect Yourself from 11 Car Dealer Tricks – Poor Customer Service: Discover Card – Best Buy Asks Man to Change His Name – Is Poor Service the Industry Standard?