Verizon drops $2 fee

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-->>>> good evening. i'm harry smith filling in for brian. power to the people is a phrase from the '60s u.s. corporations have begun to feel in a big way this year. whenever companies propose new policies or changes consumers don't agree with, the response is instantaneous and unequivocal. as we reported last night, the latest case comes from phone giant verizon. as pete williams reports, verizon is listening. pete, good evening.

>> reporter: harry, barely 24 hours after saying it would charge a fee for paying bills online, verizon wireless abruptly took it back. the company said it was acting in response to what it politely called customer feedback. cell phone and internet users have been complaining loudly since word of the new fee first leaked out, flooding twitter with critical comments and launching petition drives.

>> i think it's a little bit unfair. i mean, it's going to affect probably verizon.

>> reporter: all in response to the company's plan to charge $2 when customers pay their bills once a month by phone or going to the company website. it offered ways to avoid the fee such assigning up for automatic billing. then an official of the federal communications commission said, on behalf of american consumers, we are concerned about verizon's actions and are looking into the matter. the company's about-face came late today. in a written statement the ceo of verizon wireless, dan mead said, we take great care to listen to your customers, adding that the decision was based on their input. customers declared victory on twitter. oh, yeah. verizon can hear you now. power of the masses equals amazing, said another. a third said, we did it. industry experts said they thought the e fee would push more customers into using automatic billing which speeds up payments. it's ee's the latest in a series of corpora corporate. video company netflix backed off a plan to divorce its internet and mail services.

>> companies are learning that the price sensitivity is there. customers online in particular can respond quickly and they are going to have to think of other ways to get customers to do what they want rather than charging a fee.

>> reporter: tonight verizon says it will continue to encourage customers to pay their bills without having to go to the company's website every month. the key term here being encourage and not charge a fee. harry?

>> pete williams in washington tonight. thanks.
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