It’s classic manipulative psychology: do something awful, then scale it back a bit later. You’ll come out looking good, and still get what you wanted all along.
Verizon Wireless just dropped ten handsets from the list of devices that qualify for its new, repulsive $350 early termination fee (ETF), Wireless Week reports. The list of “advanced devices” now only includes smartphones and netbooks, and no longer appears to include feature phones.
Back in December, the FCC asked Verizon to provide details on its new ETF program and why it doubled the ETF from $175 to $350 for customers ending two-year contracts early, and why it doesn’t pro-rate the ETF so that it declines to zero at the end of two years.
“Customers as a whole would be worse off if Verizon Wireless were to [pro-rate the ETF to zero] because early terminations occur disproportionately in the early part of the contract term, and relatively few customers terminate near the end of the contract term,” the company said in response, adding that if the ETF was reduced to zero at the end, they’d have to raise the ETF even higher than $350 to cover themselves.
A month later, that beautiful logic is still sinking in over here; what do you all think?
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