(Image Source: Orlando Sentinel)

BY CHRISTINA HARTMAN

Score for outraged customers. It started with this -- from WOIO.

“Verizon starting January 15th is going to start charging you a $2 convenience fee if you call in and use a credit card to pay your bill or you go to Verizon wireless...”

Verizon announced plans Thursday to charge customers a so-called convenience fee for phone and online bill payments.

But customers -- as you might imagine -- were none too pleased.

Seattle’s KING hit the streets to capture the consumer conniption.

WOMAN: “They are all about making money. The problem is when one starts it, then pretty soon everybody starts it.”
REPORTER: “Verizon calls this a convenience fee, which really begs the question, for whom is this charge convenient?”
MAN: “Not for us, obviously.”

But by the time KING aired that report Friday afternoon -- Verizon had already caved under pressure. Boy, was that fast. Could it have had anything to do with this Friday afternoon?

From Fox Business: 
“The FCC declared it is concerned about Verizon's brand new plan.”

From KGW: 
“The FCC says it is looking into Verizon's new customer fees.”

So yea, after the FFC indicated it was considering a probe into the potential fee -- Verizon switched gears. Fox Business has it.

“This from Dan Meade, president and chief executive officer of Verizon wireless. At Verizon we take great care to listen to our customers. Customers were furious about $2 fee to pay your bills. Verizon backed away decided not to institute the fee for online or telephone single payments.”

And CNN asks -- sound familiar?

“We're seeing this happen again. We saw this happen with Bank of America, with their $5 debit card fee on purchases. Bank of America went ahead and retracted that fee and now we're seeing Verizon wireless retract its fee.”

So -- next time a big company tries to slap you with a fee -- maybe there’s hope? All you have to do is get enough people together to get really, really mad.