Goodbye old, useless, fees, hello new!
So the feds have been repealing some old laws lately. They did away with the “Federal Excise Tax.” This one was enacted in 1898 to fund the spanish american war. You have been paying it on every phone bill your entire life, funding a war that was over well before you were born.
Now they’re working on the “Universal Service Fee.” This one is a bit more relevant, but still kind of ridiculous. The program was to help subsidize telephone expansion into rural areas. This goes back to when Ma bell was a government sponsored monopoly. I say that somewhat facetiously, I don’t really think much has changed. Sure we now have all the baby bells (which are merging together like rabbits,) and we have deregulation, but in effect the phone companies are STILL government subsidized, still legislated out the wazoo, and in effect still monopolies very closely tied to the government.
I have no problem with monopolies. I’m all for them, as long as they get there on their own merit instead of the feds passing laws that create them and maintain them. That’s what happened here. The phone companies that exist today did not get where they are through good work, fierce competition, or even competence, it was because the government said “ok we need this, we choose you guys, you have control.” At some point a few people up higher realized what a bad idea this was and started deregulating them. So the door is open now, it’s just that the doorway is covered with spikes and disease so you better have lots of armor, patience, and strength if you want to step through and start competing.
But back to my original point, the USF is no longer required, and neither is the excise tax. Awesome, two silly surcharges off your bill! Sure it’s not much but it adds up over time.
Wait a minute… what’s this? “Supplier Surcharge.” How about that. Verizon is now charging a new fee, almost exactly what the old ones were. Bellsouth is too, except they’re not trying to hide anything. They just flat out say “we’re going to charge the same amount, regardless.” It’s a price increase without having to notify anyone, and they don’t have to change their advertised rates!
I wish some of these clever accounting and marketing trolls could use some of that brain power on providing better service instead of providing deceitful ways of taking our money.
In the end it’s not that big of a deal. On an individual level it’s chump change, and there’s really no alternative. It’s just the fact that they take so much effort to squeeze a few more percentage of profit out without doing any actual work, or improving their product. I have no problem paying a premium for service/goods. I switched to Mac last year, way more expensive than a PC for effectively the same thing, but I did it for the quality of service and quality of goods.
I wonder when some of the larger corporations will realize they don’t have to lie and steal to get our money. We’ll gladly give it to them for a good product and friendly service.
*update 9/1/06*
Verizon has backed down. They have said ‘We have listened to our customers, and are eliminating the charge.’
Why do I think it’s more that they got caught in blatant customer abuse and now have to back down? Nice move Verizon, at least we know you’re listening!
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