Verizon quietly hikes prices of its administrative fee again

A couple of years after first increasing its administrative fee, Verizon has done it again.

Verizon has hiked its “Administrative and Telco Recovery Charge” fee from $3.30 to $3.50 per month for each voice line. As users on Reddit noticed and Androidpolice first spotted, the company is increasing the fee for data lines from $1.40 to $1.60 per line.

In 2022, Verizon raised the administrative fee from $1.95 to $3.30, while the fee for data lines increased from $0.06 to $1.40.

Even though this price hike isn’t as significant as the first, most users don’t like the fact that the company includes this fee on top of monthly subscriptions and does it without warning users.

Verizon's support page claims that its administrative charge “helps defray and recover certain direct and indirect costs” the company and its agents incur.

These may include the costs of complying with regulations, wireless local number portability, taxes, and network costs.

Some suggest that the broader problem may be the lack of proper regulation in the US. According to Politico, which quotes a recent study by the European Commission, European consumers, where the market is heavily regulated, customers on average pay €16.15 for 20 gigabytes of mobile data compared to €37.87 in the United States.

This isn’t the first time Verizon has angered customers for similar fee practices. This spring, the company settled a class action lawsuit for unfair and not adequately disclosed fees. The company agreed to pay $100 million without admitting any wrongdoing.

Other telecom operators, such as AT&T and T-Mobile, also have similar fees for their customers.

AT&T faced a class action lawsuit in 2019. However, it settled for only $14 million in 2022.