I love how people got outraged. Even funnier that Verizon was forced to back off. They should have just quietly slipped it in. (that’s what she said!)

I have a few bills that have ridiculous fees attached. I’ll spare the complete list and just use this as an excuse for more Waste Management bashing.

Verizon wanted to charge people a $2 ‘convenience fee’ for paying their bills online.

Waste Management includes a $4 ‘administrative fee’ on each bill which I find really interesting as we’re paperless and I pay online. They waive that fee if you sign up for automatic payments. (which is exactly what Verizon wanted people to do – not so coincidentally)

I dunno. Of course charges like this are stupid, but it sure looks like this is the next wave. Just like these businesses don’t want the expense and hassle of sending a physical bill, they don’t want the hassle of physically processing payments and, more importantly, not getting payments. They want to take the money automatically. Seems like the fee acts as a sort of insurance against non-payment.

Like I said, I already have a few monthly bills that follow similar protocol and Waste Management is charging twice the ‘outrageous’ amount Verizon wanted.

Is it stupid? Yes. So get used to it.