Unnecessary fees? Get them waived. Here's how.
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Trent Hamm Guest blogger
颁辞尘辫补苍颈别蝉听love聽to tack fees onto your bill, no matter what service they鈥檙e providing.
Why wouldn鈥檛 they? Fees are pretty much pure profit for them, and for most customers, fees are glanced at and forgotten. A couple monthly fees per customer times a million customers and you鈥檙e talking about a pretty nice chunk of change.
However, for most services, we live in a buyer鈥檚 market. There are usually several different companies competing for customers, and that means the customer has an advantage. A customer has the power to negotiate a bit.
What鈥檚 often available to negotiate with? Those fees.
Let鈥檚 say you鈥檙e thinking about signing up for a new cell phone service. You鈥檙e looking at the contract and you notice a few fees involved. Ask right then if those fees can be waived because, if not, you鈥檒l look at another service. Chances are some or all of those fees will disappear.
This goes hand in hand with the idea I mentioned yesterday. Let鈥檚 say you鈥檙e looking at a service that you鈥檙e not under a long term contract for and you notice a fee on your bill that doesn鈥檛 seem to be for anything important. It鈥檚 probably well worth your time to call up that company and ask for that fee to be removed.
Simply put,聽if there is competition in your area for a particular service and you don鈥檛 have a contract, you鈥檙e in control.聽Ask for any and all fees to be removed and, if they鈥檙e not, don鈥檛 be afraid to shop for a different service.
A few tips:
If you鈥檙e calling a customer service number, don鈥檛 expect that the first customer service rep you talk to will be able to eliminate any fees.聽You might have to talk to a supervisor before you see any action.
Make it clear that you鈥檙e looking at competing services.聽It should be clear to them that you鈥檙e considering switching services because of cost issues. This often gets fees eliminated from bills.
If this is due to a personal mistake of yours, stand on your reputation.聽If you鈥檝e been a good customer for a long while, fees such as overdraft fees or late payment fees can often be waived. Companies tend to be good at doing this unless you establish a pattern of late payments.
The fewer fees you pay, the better off you are. Keep an eye out for them, whether it鈥檚 when you鈥檙e signing up for a new service, shopping around for a replacement service, or fixing a mistake that you鈥檝e made.
This post is part of a yearlong series called 鈥�365 Ways to Live Cheap (Revisited),鈥� in which I鈥檓 revisiting the entries from my book 鈥�365 Ways to Live Cheap,鈥� which is available聽at Amazon聽and at bookstores everywhere.聽
