Add Verizon to the list of US corporations gouging customers over unspecified rising costs. From an email received 6/30/2022:
“Due to rising operational costs, you’ll see an increase of $6 per month on your current plan, which will appear as a separate charge, no sooner than 8/2/22.”
Exhibiting no shame, the rest of the email is a sales pitch to upgrade to a 5G plan with “since you’re going to be paying more now anyway” logic. Behold the bullshit:
“With this charge, you may want to consider exploring our 5G Unlimited plans, which offer unlimited calling, text and data at great prices-without worrying about overages.”
Of course, there is not one detail about what those “rising operational costs” are, nor an acknowledgement that the increase is merely a race to the bottom response to ATT’s own ridiculous increase.
Verizon has 95 Million wireless subscribers, so that’s an additional $570 Million dollars to meet those “rising operational costs”. Again, there’s not one goddamned detail about what those rising costs might be.
Be on the lookout for Verizon to:
- Buy back a shit-ton of their own stock
- Announce a new round of exorbitant Executive bonuses
- Reward shareholders with a share of the plunder
- Announce mass layoffs
- Make donations to rightwing, anti-democracy zealots and maybe host a fascist rally or two (crooksandliars.com/… ))
Verizon must be in terrible shape financially to enact such a dramatic increase on customers, right? They only made $22Billion in 2021, after all…
The only number I could find for Verizon corporate is not a working number. THREE calls to customer service lead to transfer to a supervisor, all three resulting in black hole transfers with no hold music and an eventual disconnect.
Articles on the announced increase going back to May note increases far less than the now announced blanket increase of $6 per customer. USA Today noted on 5/26/22: www.usatoday.com/...
“These are the price changes that will begin in June:
- Consumer accounts will see their monthly administrative fees increase from $1.95 per voice line to $3.30 per voice line during the June billing cycle. This will also impact smartwatch and tablet devices – but will not impact hotspots.
- Many business accounts will see a new monthly economic adjustment fee of $2.20 per line for smartphones or data lines. Basic service plans will include an additional $0.98 fee per line beginning on June 16, 2022.
Since these fees are charged per line, customers with multiple lines will see the biggest price difference.”
US corporations are largely in lock step with this Republican push to end democracy. Worldwide inflation, following a global (and ongoing) pandemic and due to an unjust war of territorial expansion, is being unfairly blamed on President Biden, and that’s the calculation. Make the people suffer, incorrectly blame it on Biden, then when the party who is certain not to tax them or regulate them at all will have no trouble seizing power. Prices will never come down, but once the fascists take power, corporate media will simply cease all discussion of inflation, the economy, the border...you know, all the boogeymen being put before the befuddled face of every Facebook-infected Maggat in the country (and a lot of actual human beings too tired from working 3 jobs to sort through what is actual journalism and what is incendiary Facebook agitprop designed to destabilize Democracy) . Problem solved!
Similarly, Republicans continuing to provoke and incite violence and mass murder is calculated chaos to create a “need” for a tough guy law and order Republican to take power and save us from the boogeymen they themselves create. Looking at Ron Desantis here.
I entreat the DailyKos community to join me in a resounding “Fuck You” to Verizon and to the rest of corporate America, so hellbent on exploiting us and facilitating the sinking of the ship of state. Somehow, I don’t think this will turn out the way the financiers expect. It certainly didn’t for Fritz Theissen under nearly identical circumstances. His book, “I Paid Hitler” is available to read free in its entirety at archive.org
archive.org/…