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News You Could Do Without

by Carlo Longino

Mon, Aug 21st 2006 12:42pm





Verizon Taking Pricing Cues From The Onion

from the life-imitates-fiction dept

Every so often, somebody starts a minor uproar on the web by not getting an obvious joke, oftentimes from the pages of the satrical newspaper The Onion. Of course, sometimes it can be quite hard to tell if The Onion is kidding, such as in a recent story called "Verizon Introduces New Charge-You-At-Whim Plan". It details a new pricing plan from the telco, with "widely varying, but always high" charges, determined through "an unjustified, arbitrary and, if you'll allow us to boast, frankly unjustifiable method". Anybody that's ever paid a phone bill can get the joke, but given Verizon's recent news that it would stop collecting a USF recovery fee to its DSL customers, but replace it with an essentially off-setting "supplier surcharge", the story hits closer to home for some people.

12 Comments | Leave a Comment

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  1.  
    identicon
    Maria making pictures, Aug 21st, 2006 @ 1:03pm

    Onion proves it !

    Yes I agree with you this story of Verizon is a mess of it's messiest kind.
    I think Onion does a good job by summerizing the whole truth about Verizon in an artistic way.

    Thank you for sharing this story with me !

     

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  2.  
    identicon
    Anonymous Coward, Aug 21st, 2006 @ 1:28pm

    Verizon has nothing on airlines when it comes to pricing.

     

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  3.  
    identicon
    pandlcg, Aug 21st, 2006 @ 1:37pm

    Links

    Both of your first two links take you to the same page.

     

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  4.  
    identicon
    Guard, Aug 21st, 2006 @ 1:41pm

    Removing charges to make room for more charges! Yay.

    And btw, that link to the Onion article points to the preview "Man didn't get abortion joke" article, not the Verizon article.

     

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  5.  
    identicon
    Carlo, Aug 21st, 2006 @ 1:43pm

    Re: Links

    fixed, thanks.

     

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  6.  
    identicon
    Dee, Aug 21st, 2006 @ 1:46pm

    Links

    Here's the Onion Verizon spoof for all interested.

    Verizon Introduces New Charge-You-At-Whim Plan |
    The Onion - America's Finest News Source

     

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  7.  
    identicon
    Anonymous Coward, Aug 21st, 2006 @ 1:52pm

    Hate the salon registration....

     

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  8.  
    identicon
    Sanguine Dream, Aug 21st, 2006 @ 2:04pm

    Sounds familiar...

    I signed up from Sprint DSL and they told me my first bill was gonna be a little larger than the usual bills. They said is was gonna be about $150-$180. No problem. So when I get my first bill of $270 I wasn't happy.

     

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  9.  
    identicon
    Count Porkula, Aug 21st, 2006 @ 2:30pm

    Great article and oh so true.

    No one can deliver satire like the Onion.
    (remember when Xinhua picked up the Onion's article about Congress installing a retractable dome over the capitol building?) :)

     

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  10.  
    identicon
    krum303, Aug 21st, 2006 @ 2:57pm

    Onion

    Life imitates fiction every day when it comes to The Onion's story with the great title, "Drug Deal goes Great!"
    Gotta love The Onion.

     

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  11.  
    identicon
    Anonymous Coward, Aug 21st, 2006 @ 10:28pm

    Blasted Adblock!

    Can't even make use of the Salon pass using Firefox + Adblock... oh well?

     

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  12.  
    identicon
    Wizard Prang, Aug 31st, 2006 @ 8:55am

    Can you say...

    www.southwest.com ?

     

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]


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