Customer Reviews

Regulatory Cost Recovery Fee

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(18)

 

 

This is just another way for corporations to squeeze the consumer. Regulatory Cost Recovery, my aching back!! This is merely another cost of doing business that is being passed on to users. What's going to be next, an Employee Salary Recovery Fee? This fee, while "only" $2.50 per month, almost made me reconsider signing up with Cingular (Verizon, my last service, didn't charge this fee.) Bogus!

All I can say is: WOW! I've had regulatory cost recovery fees before, and this one blows them all away! As usual I was a bit skeptical at first, but after paying the regulatory cost recovery fee for a couple months I was hooked! I'll _never_ go back to my old regulatory cost recovery fees!! Now some of you may not be convinced, and you may think the price is a bit high, and it is - but you have to think about the value you're getting. I don't know about you, but I'm willing to pay a little bit more and get a more feature-rich and reliable regulatory cost recovery fee. And frankly, I wouldn't want my money going to a fee that I wasn't 100% sure would recover my regulatory cost. So in conclusion, if you're looking for a great, albeit somewhat pricey regulatory cost recovery fee, you can't go wrong with this one!

The regulatory cost recovery fee rocks! I haven't had any problems with the charge being added to my bill. I was afraid that this was one of those specials that only select customers would win, but fortunately I was able to qualify without filling out any forms. Thank you Amazon for not doing any of those pesky rebate forms for this, you've instantly added it to my bill without my having to do any extra work.

I love regulations. And I love fees even more. Amazon has done an amazing job entertwining the two into a fun, easy to use package enjoyable by all. Supurb.

What is a Regulatory Cost Recovery Fee? It's a charge the phone companies add to your bill to recover a cost they pay to do things the government forces them to. It's composed of several things

1. Fees paid to the FCC. The FCC rakes in money for the things it regulates and cellular phone services is one of those things.
2. Federal TRS service. Cingular must pay a fee to this fund that's used to pay for someone to sit on the other end of a TTY service and "talk" to you when the person who's calling you or that you called is deaf.
3. Wireless Local Number Portability and Number Pooling. It use to be in the old days that the local exchange portion of the telephone number (the 555 part of a number such as 1-813-555-1212) routed your phone call to a specific piece of equipment in your neighborhood or to a particular cellular phone company. When we started to have choice is home phone service and more choice in wireless phone service people wanted to be able to keep their number. This service allows them to do that but to implement it the phone companies needed to talk nice to each other and all upgrade their equipment. This is a fee you pay to make sure all the phone companies talk nice to each other.
4. E911. This pays to make sure there's someone who picks up when you dial 911. It is now also supposed to ensure that when you call 911 from a cellular phone the operator can figure out where you are since you're likely not at your home address.

Why isn't this just called a "Tax"? Well, most of it is just money paid to the government to make things happen, but unlike most taxes the money isn't taken from random places and used to pay for random things. It's money taken from a service to pay for things related directly to that service. Additionally some of the money is not paid directly to the government but to quasi governmental groups (they aren't the government, but the government runs them and forces you to pay them). If politicians called these things "Taxes" then they wouldn't get elected again. If the phone company simply added the fees to their expenses and increased the costs of your plans then some day one phone company would realize that they could offer a lower priced plan but then just tack on the fees after you've signed up and in essence charge you the same amount. This may also be the phone companies way of saying "see what you made me do?"

How can they make me? Well, they are the government, they are here to help us. Seriously folks, they are the government. They have the police, the FBI and the IRS on their side. They also have the military if it gets to that point, but really, I don't think they'll go that far over Regulatory Cost Recovery Fees. On our side we have the vote. People said they wanted to have 911 work and to know where they were no matter where they were using their phone and we have it. It costs money one way or another and we either pay the cost recovery fee or alll the phone companies rates go up a little bit.

There is a little known secret about these fees though. You don't have to pay the fees. The downside is that the phone company will shut off your service at some point in time for not paying the extra couple of bucks a month, but with number portability you can switch to a new provider for as long as they will let you slide and with the FCC allowing more than two providers in each area you can run that game for some time. Eventually though you'll run out, probably within a year and likely saving no more than a single months . That's why I pay my Regulatory Cost Recovery Fee in full, on time, every month and you should too!

I was going to buy a new PlayStation 3 and a few games when I stumbled across this offer for Regulatory Fee! I really couldn't resist and in fact next to being torn with the temptation of ordering a Rolex, ordering the PS3 or pulling the trigger on this one, I found an uncontrollable urge and my mouse going crazy to do a left click.

So now I have a new Blackberry Bold that I love and a Regulatory Fee that I hope I don't see again until this phone dies in about 2 years.

Yep, we (consumers) allow phone companies to charge us this 'optional' charge. ... It is obviously a government allowed ripoff that just goes to line the caughers of the phone companies. They charge it for land lines AND wireless connections. Just check ALL your phone bills. I would not be supprised to see the cable companies be allowed to charge this same fee.

AW YEAH! Love paying fees, especially to recover regulatory costs. Those are my favorite kind of costs, doubly my favorite to recover. CAN I GET A HALLELUJAH? AMEN MY BROTHERS!

Amazon if you're hiring and want programmers who write code that doesn't send out idiotic review-requests for stuff like this, email me.

out of all the regulatory fees i've ever paid, this was HANDS DOWN the BEST!!!!!!!!!!!!!! i absolutely loved every minute of the joy that it brought to me and my family!!! five out of FIVE STARS!!!

I DO NOT UNDERSTAND WHY I HAVE TO PAY REGULATORY COST RECOVERY WHAT DID ALL THE TAXES PAY FOR