Qwest Hits Users With New 'Convenience Fees'

AT&T charges a $5.00 fee for processing over the phone payments, as does Sprint. I went to a local Sprint store to make a payment while I was in town one day, and they were going to charge a $5.00 convenience fee. All these companies are crooks, it's up to you to decided which one steals less from you.

Sprint has the "ATM" type machine as does AT&T. They have a surcharge? I never used them .

SAID IN ARTICLE:Straight Talk wireless is $30/month for 1000min/1000txt - no other costs. Sure it might be technically "prepaid" but who cares!

Heck my Sprint SERO phone was a killer deal but tax on $30 service was $6+.

Landline is similar - I use a provider that charges me $1.50 a month for the phone number and 1.5 cents per minute - my average phone bill is around $3-4 (less than the taxes on my old VZ home line!)

Can I choose my own phone? No? No dice.

Depending on the state you live in yes there are more fees to the $30. Ohio charges sales tax on the prepaid cards. So you'd pay about $35.

The local Verizon store charges $3 if you pay in person. Why? Aren't the employees there getting paid anyways? How is that an extra expense.

They are there to SELL products and services.. generate revenue.. not take payments. I've walked into SPRINT stores and wait in line long enough so I can give them more business.. I could only imagine just how much longer it would take me being in line if everyone was there making payments... thank god, at least, that Sprint has those payment kiosks for people to use.

Most of the time the store is EMPTY. It's right next to the wal-mart that typically sells the same phones for much less. Even the Verizon website is cheaper most times. Even when there are people in there most time they are bicthing about a erroneous bill, not buying phones.

For example I was due an upgrade in Nov 2008. I was looking at a Chocolate 3. Verizon store wanted $99, Verizon website wanted $79, wal-mart had it for $28.88. All three on a 2 year renewal. Guess who I went with?

Okay.. so that's fine.. your store is empty.. the corporation is nationwide, are they not? Can you imagine if they said that your "empty store" had no payment processing fee, but the busy one down the street does? You know what happens when someone walks in to your empty store all the time to make a payment and got it for free, walks into the busy store and they're charged?

People don't know how to handle "I'll do this for free this time for you" or "I'll do this because we're not busy"... they'll complain that the company can't get their act together and all that... so, the policy stands company wide.. it's the only way to handle that.

Well, Qwest just lost a 20-year customer over their "convenience" fee. I used the landline strictly for faxes, and don't have that many of those. If they want to charge me to take my money, they just lost a customer. I already save them money by doing electronic billing. Screw Qwest. I'll just use my cell phone and fax from work.

Using the Post Office's "if it fits it ships" scenario, pay by mail in pennies.

LOL get confirmation too!!!

And make sure the pennies are protected with plenty if styrofoam peanuts.

That would be worth the $4.95 that it would cost to send it the priority mail in so many ways....

Lets see.. 3500 pennies weights about 20lbs...

But it all reality, a company like Qwerst would never take notice to this...

Meh, that's too evil. Pay with shiny new dollar coins. That'll make Qwest less angry but still peeved...

"I work for a major credit card company. I'm quite familiar with merchant fees. As I pointed out in the original post, there are costs associated with every method of collecting payments. That's the cost of doing business. Besides that, for as large a business as Qwest is they can get a lower percentage transaction fee than the 1-1.5% quoted. Even if that wasn't true, $1 is still way over what they'd be charged for processing my transaction. I don't buy it for a second. It's just another attempt to add a below the line fee. The cell phone companies have been doing it and getting away with it, so why not a landline company?"

The pot calling the Kettle black per chance?

Agreed wholeheartedly. No one is more greedy than the credit card companies. This person would have a right to complain if Qwest charged 15% interest to make a payment, then without notice raise it to 22% the next month.

Hunh. I pay my card off every month and haven't had any below-the-line fees assessed. I even get rewards on my purchases.

I did get socked with an overlimit fee once, but that was my own fault.

APR-wise I'm sitting pretty at 9.24%. Not bad for an unsecured loan of up to $14,500...

No doubt. I had a credit card that charged an $8 fee for paying online, which I did every month. They wouldn't let you pay more than your current balance either, so I couldn't include the fee in the payment and ALWAYS owed them at least 8 bucks. I hate checks and rarely use them, but I had to to close out that account.

Name an industry that isn't gouging these days. If it's not some sort of "recovery" or "convenience" fee, it's some sort of licensing scam.
Competition is useless when they're all in collusion!

This must be a just that bank. I have no problem with my banks accepting a payment larger than the current total. They just show it as a credit which us then used to reduce my next bill.

Do yourself a favor and join your local credit union. Most of them allow membership if you simply live, work, or worship in the same county they are in.

I get a free ATM/debit MasterCard and free on line bill paying. Been with the same place for 15 years now, and I couldn't be happier.

All they ask is you keep 5 bucks in your savings account. That's it.

Yeah I don't do credit cards anymore, I've had a debit card for five or so years now. This was one of those 'introductory' cards because I didn't have any credit back in the day. It seemed sheisty and steered me away from credit cards.

GE Money charges $5 online and $5 on the phone to accept payments.

Both of my cards (Chase and Barclay's) charge $0 for online payments.

»usa.visa.com/merchants/o ··· tes.html

these look a little bit more than spewak was talking about

lol i so wanna try paying in pennies even if its just to pay 5.00 on a bill maybe qwest would get the hint if enough people did it lol

Just pay the fee instead.. becuase when you go through the time, effort, trouble and expense to ship your pennies off to their payment center, you're only going to get them back un-accepted.

Second, since you're in WV, you have NOTHING to bitch about since Qwest doesn't serve your area anyway.

they have LD there.

Ummm.. I believe that Qwest got out of national long distance as a provider and only serves the states they have local service in.

Do you have a link on their website that shows otherwise? When I just checked, and as a Qwest customer for 12 years, I do believe they ended that a long time ago.

yep!

how about though going to: www.qwest.com and looking. but here is a screen shot.

I am so damned happy that I don't do business with them anymore. Its bad enough that they want you to pay to pay with a CSR and now that most people probably have stopped doing that, they figure they gotta get their money by charging a fee to pay via CC on the website. I would NEVER use Qwest AutoPay service because Qwest tends to make a lot of billing mistakes and I want control of when money is taken out of my account. Also, I don't do checks as they tend to "get lost in the mail" or some dipsh** at Qwest mishandles the check and payments don't get applied. I've seen it all. All I can say is that all of Qwest can collectively kiss my a$$!

While I agree with your post, there is ONE thing that I DO like about Qwest over many other companies..

Yes,.. Qwest is HORRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRIBLE about billing mistakes... GOD do I know this one.. mine lasted for about 6 years and I lost MANY hours of my life on the phone with them. (Every time I called them, at least, no joke, 2 hours of my life was gone - poof.. out the window)

BUT, the ONE thing that I can say that IS nice about them is that they still bill you on your bill date... but they don't take the payment until the due date. So, for those on Auto-pay, they'd have a few weeks to spot them and get them worked out before they hit your account. AND, they at least let you know which day they will hit your account too.. I'm ALL too tired of those companies, in general, that take your payment on the bill generated date BEFORE you even get a chance to look at your statement.. Not only is it wrong, it goes against Visa's (for one) merchant processing agreement. You HAVE to notify the customer at least 7 days in advance of what you're going to charge them. There are exceptions to this, like fixed bills like gyms.. you're already knowing what it's going to be so that is in itself notice. But phone bills can fluctuate and they have to tell you. VONAGE is one that I hate too.. they take your money and THEN send you an invoice.. that's why they no longer have a valid credit card on file with me!

But like you, I'm done with Qwest.. Sadly, I'm in a Century Link area now.. and they're just as bad.

my power company charges me 5 bucks to do it by cc.

and all industries are doing everything they can to charge more and screw consumers.

Whether it's cable, telcos, the CC people, or any other business, they simply look to charge more.

Too many ways for companies to abuse the position. Please go paperless so we can save money and then charge you extra when you have no other choice for payment.

So glad I have the choice between qwest and comcast. No thank you qwest for your shitty 5-ish mbps/500 kbps high latency connection. I'll take my 22/5 comcast with no bullshit taxes or convenience fees..

At least here in Boulder, Qwest doesn't charge any taxes or fees for DSL without phone service.

Also, my latency (interleave turned off) on Qwest is better than it was on Comcast. I regularly see 9-10ms to my server in Denver, and around 6-7ms first hop.

Agreed. Only tax is sales tax on the modem rental, and that's because I don't want to go out and buy a D3 modem quite yet.

The FTC has the authority to address this issue. And all fees should be in the advertised rates, except state & local taxes which vary by locale. National ad campaigns can't give you an absolute final price that includes taxes. But they could & should include everything else.

Care to rethink that one for a minute?

The moment they start wrapping up fees to process payments in the advertised rates, the more EVERYONE is going to pay.. no thanks!

I don't chose methods that cost me money to pay my bill.. there have been times where I forgot a bill and I gladly paid the $5 to pay over the phone.. why? becuase it was MY fault and it saved me from more expensive restart fees and deposits.

I am FINE with them passing the costs on to those that CHOSE to use these options.

People think that airline baggage fees raised the cost of tickets.. in fact, many people save money. The average ticket price, pre-baggage fee, for me from MPLS to Sacramento was about $440 for a coach ticket on Northwest Airlines. The AVERAGE cost of the ticket now is about $260.00. Add in the baggage fees and it's about $340 to $400 round trip now.. consistently! There are many people that fly with just a carry-on now.. those people save money. If you CHOSE to carry on bags, you'll pay the fee.. right? South West Air doesn't charge for bags,.. but, to this day, any long haul flight still is MUCH higher than the rest of the airlines.. EVERYONE pays the higher cost on SWA now even if they travel with a carry on only.

I have no problem with them charging these fees so long as it keeps MY costs down and I only pay them IF I "chose" to use the services. Also, they ARE advertised in their rate disclosures.. per law. (You should read them sometime, they're in there)

The fact is.. these companies are saying to their customers.. "mail in your payments.. we don't want to become a bank and process monetary transactions any more".. what part of that do people not understand? They're making it loud and clear with the fees.. If you want to use it.. pay for it.. that's what they're saying. The FTC isn't going to stop these fees.. and if they tried, the companies are just going to meet that with "fine! no more payments by phone then"... so what do you want? The consumer isn't going to win in this case... nor should they.

Send them in, or pay their fees... there is no right or law that says you have a fundamental right to make payments by phone for free. Sorry.. but there isn't.

Isn't this against Visa/MC regulations, to charge a fee to accept a credit card payment?

qwest stay out of CA or you will get sued

under ca sec code(insert sec code here):

california it is illegal for a merchant to add on a
surcharge to credit card purchases/services

Jerk offs!

you can use your banks bill pay no fees

For me that isn't an option. All they do is send a check for you. That takes time and you still run into the situation of the check mysteriously getting lost and such. No thanks. I've seen it too many times before.

My mortgage company removes the 14 day grace period if you paid online. You had to pay by the 1st of the month or pay a $5 late fee. They told me that online payment was a privilege so I just told them to re-start sending me a paper bill and I would pay after 10 or 12 days of the grace period. It cost me 44c for the stamp and now they pay for the printing of the bill, 2 envelopes and postage to me.

is not very convenient.

"While the FCC seems endlessly transfixed by the idea of things like ETFs, we've yet to see them launch any kind of inquiry into transparent billing practices." The FCC is the federal agency that allows telecommunications unfees in the first place. The FCC could propose a ruling tomorrow (and tell their buddies at the state utility commissions to do the same) to get rid of the phony fees.

When your bill is more than it is supposed to be with auto deduct it still comes out then they promise to fix it later.
Now you can fight it if not auto deduct so they add a fee so they still screw you.
Qwest upper management could give a (&%$%^ about customers or employees. They want to make the company merger friendly so they get their golden parachutes as have all the last management since Sol sold USWest to Qwest.
They could care less about customer service as the new company can deal with any complaints. Thank Ed for this.
So any customers that have not fled to cable or wireless are sheep waiting to be fleeced. All you are is $$$. Expect any profit to go into faster speeds. Well maybe if you are in a top market like Denver, Phoenix, Minneapolis, or parts of Washington. The rest of you can expect the same ole fleecing with nothing to show for it until someone buys you.

The FCC is nothing but a bunch of a$$-licking toothless hags who won't do anything to upset their hush money stream. Why they endlessly belabor issues and hope they go away or just roll over like a whipped dog and piss all over themselves when the big Telco Gorillas start their pressure tactics is beyond me. I haven't seen the FCC do much of anything to protect anyone but themselves and their "friends" in the various telco businesses.

... well, mostly.

I've always said.. Times have changed. The credit card industry has forced change for business as well and I think business is adapting finally.

First off, customer service departments are there to help customers with trouble with their service, billing related issues, and to sell new services. (As well as make changes) With that said,....

These companies ARE looking at how the phone resources are being used. MANY people are calling in to make payments these days and there is no need to.

Not too long ago, most people mailed payments and customer service reps could do their core jobs. I think they never should have allowed payments by phone to begin with OR should have charged from the start.

It costs money for them to sit there and take payments as well and takes up the time from customers calling in for legitimate reasons OR for reasons that will generate the company more money - afterall, they are in it to make money, not loose it. Taking payments is now costing them money and in the name of competition, they have to keep their prices either in line with other providers, or low enough to be competitive.. PART of competition that everyone wants, right?

Also, how many times have you sat on hold when you wanted to upgrade, downgrade or order new service? How many times do you sit on hold to get your service repaired and had to wait 5, 10, or more minutes? Part of that is becuase of the number of people calling in to make payments..

I DO believe they should charge a fee to take payments over the phone.. how much? not sure, but there should be a fee.

I DO NOT believe they should be charging to make a payment on the web, no matter what or ANY method that takes no physical individual human power to process. (IE: one or two employees can manage the automated services better than a one on one transaction which takes a lot of time and money to do)

I can also see why they want people to use Auto-Pay.. it means that more people will pay on time, however, that late fee charged at a percentage of the past due amount should be enough to cover that.

I CAN see them wanting a fee to use a credit card since they have to pay part of the transaction to the credit card processor, however, most processors don't allow convenience fees JUST for using the card either... but they have loopholes available to them.

Airlines charge you to use phone resources... why can't anyone else? They ALL have perfectly functioning websites to TAKE payments.. use them.

I DO see convenience when you can pick up a phone to make a payment.. many times its becuase people are running late on their bill or in jeopardy of being turned off. Again, other fees do take care of THAT part, but still, it is taking resources. The late fees are in place becuase companies count on you making payments ON-TIME.. and it does cost them money when you're late.. so I see that as not only fair, but the price you should pay for being late.

So, in the point of Qwest.. I'm in agreement with them, HOWEVER, I DIS-agree in charging for non-employee related payment options INCLUDING their website, OR automated phone system.. which, I will say, their automated phone system works AWESOME! It understands your audible responses and sounds dang near human in return..

But anyway.. this is my feelings and while I agree and both disagree, I know the hate replies will fly. I just simply believe that people don't understand there is a cost associated with everything done in business, for one, and that people don't want to pay these things. People DO have options and they don't want to use them becuase they're not "convenient" to them to do so.. and feel these providers should just do this for free becuase the company owes them as a customer. I think these companies have shot their selves in the foot long ago for doing this for free; they never should have done it in the first place.

I just don't see why people are hard on phone and cable for these fees becuase most power and gas companies have been charging upwards of $15 for years for the same "convenience" and no one generally gives them crap.

Again, too, I"m shocked that people are so upset for this, ESPECIALLY on this site, about fees for payments on the phone. Is this not a website LARGELY about the internet and technology? Most places still let you pay for free online.. so exercise that option and use the web for payments...and if that's not good enough, pay the fee, mail your payment, or just suck it up.