Remember last month when I complained about the myriad annoying fees that we’re subjected to? One of the most galling is the extra charge for touch tone service on a phone line. This is 2003. Why in the world are they still charging for this?
Well, in Hawaii, Verizon is the subject of a class-action lawsuit that is challenging this fee:
At issue is the billing fee for touch-tone dialing, a service first offered to customers in 1968 when Verizon’s predecessor, Hawaiian Telephone Co., used mainly rotary dial phones and had to bring in special equipment to provide the digital service.
By 1998, however, touch-tone dialing was the standard and no new equipment was needed, according to the suit. But Verizon continued to charge for the service in a misrepresentation that constitutes an unfair or deceptive business practice, the complaint charges.
For years, residential customers have been paying an extra touch-tone charge of $1.65 a month, while businesses have been charged $2.15.
Joseph W. Cotchett, a California attorney working with Krueger on the case, estimated that Hawai’i’s main telephone company reaped an extra $17 million a year for offering essentially a nonexistent innovation for at least 14 years.
