What's funny is how long Bob goes on with the logical arguments when it has nothing to do with logic, and the CR told Bob that ("that option is not available to me"). The dropdown the CR has in front of her does not include "remove charge for router maintenance". No amount of arguing is going to change that. Bob is arguing with the wrong person. Bob asks for a supervisor. Supervisor says that it's not on his dropdown, either. Maybe they're lying, but it doesn't matter if they're keeping their stories straight and Bob's not threatening to leave Verizon.

johng has the right idea: go argue with someone that is empowered to do something about it.

yeah, looking into filing an informal PUC complaint now. I did later in the conversation mention that I was going to be exploring other internet options. Of course that didn't make a difference in the conversation.

Clearly the maintenance fee allows them to maintain the income they would be receiving if you were renting a router from them!

true! I didn't ask them what the maintenance fee is designed to "maintain"

99% of people are going to call Verizon support if they have a problem with their non-Verizon router and can't get on the internet and it will take longer for customer service to fix the problem because the router options etc will be different. This makes perfect sense to me.

I understand that but a customer shouldn't be force to buy hardware from the vendor, or be charged a fine for not doing so. Either work the cost of the hardware into the price of the service, or offer a way to have the service with limited support if the customer wants to take care of it themselves.

Verizon should be able to know if their service works all the way to THEIR box, after that it's my responsibility if I choose not to pay for the additional service.

Charge your for router if you have it, charge you for not having it... they win either way. It should not be legal. I'd contact the PUC/PRC for whatever state you are in.

would this fall under the PUC? I didn't think internet was considered a "utility"

thanks for the tip. I may just do that

this just makes no logical sense!

Mmm... If they called it "third-party router penalty" you wouldn't be wasting all this time with this.

Obviously they want to make extra money on top of what you pay for the internet. That comes in form of renting you a router or getting the money anyway with a fee.

The naming is wrong. It shouldn't be called "maintenance fee", but it doesn't look like there's anything you can do.