On March 15, Verizon Wireless is increasing its administrative charge from $0.40 to $0.70 per line, while the monthly regulatory charge will decrease from $0.05 to $0.04 per line. Many blogs have reported that this change constitutes a "material" and therefore "adverse" change to the contract, allowing any unhappy subscriber that is willing to get on the phone and make that claim, to get out of their contract with the carrier sans early termination fee. Verizon Wireless spokesperson Debbie Lewis said the carrier "does not view this as a materially adverse change." That said, "if a customer does call we would, potentially, credit the difference in the fee (30 cents) for the remaining part of their contract so they would pay the same as they were before," Lewis said. It's also worth noting that Verizon Wireless is the only national carrier to pro-rate its ETF.
For more on the VZW administrative fees:
- see this debunked report from the Consumerist