Verizon has a bad habit of adding new fees — but when you’re the nation’s largest wireless carrier, who’s going to stop you?
Verizon customers have seen a variety of new fees on their bills recently, including a $20 monthly fee for having a smartphone attached to a line and another $20 monthly fee for unlimited data (for those who have it).
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The new $20 fee
Now, the company will charge a new, different, $20 fee for anyone who activates a phone on a monthly payment plan on Verizon’s service. According to the Consumerist, the new fee will impact the majority of Verizon’s new customers, as well as existing customers who upgrade their phones (and therefore become ‘new’).
The $20 fee is an activation fee — a charge for Verizon to activate your phone on its network. Here’s how the Consumerist describes the new fee: ‘so basically it’s for the time that it takes from the Verizon employee turning on your new phone, with activated SIM card inside, to the time it takes the network to reply that it’s got you, and the phone is legit and can use the Verizon network.’
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According to Droid Life, the new fee will start on November 15 — the same date that unlimited subscribers are seeing that new monthly fee as well.
