You know, it’s kinda nuts how prepaid works. Many times, people opt for prepaid because of credit issues. They don’t want to pay the ridiculous deposit charged by most major carriers, so they move to a medium that doesn’t require a credit check. But then they have the burden of paying for the plan, which in many cases is most easily done via credit card. This is also a problem for the other large prepaid demographic — teens — who most times don’t have a credit card at all.
Sure, most providers have locations where you can walk in and pay your bill. But they’re not always in the most convenient locations. And, in our experience, many of them don’t stay around too often (can’t tell you how many times we’ve had to find a new store because the one we were used to closed).
Verizon has your back, though. They’ve partnered with CheckFreePay, a service that offers “in-person payments at more than 11,000 agent sites located in check cashing, retail and grocery stores.”
Just how convenient is this? That depends on your location, really. We did a quick search, and found 40 authorized Verizon dealers within 25 miles of our house. CheckFreePay only gives you the locations within 10 miles of your home, but we found 65 of them. So yeah, while it’s not so inconvenient to head to a Verizon dealer, it’s even less inconvenient to find a CheckFreePay (sorry for the double negatives).
But for places less metropolitan than where we live, it could really make a difference. We randomly searched out Little Rock, Arkansas, and found four Verizon dealers in the area, while we found 19 CheckFreePay outlets. For a more obscure place, Bismarck, North Dakota has one Verizon dealer, while they have five CheckFreePay outlets.
So the really big benefit comes to the less metropolitan locations, since there are a ton more CheckFreePay outlets than Verizon dealers. However, never underestimate the power of convenience. Many prepaid customers are in it for the convenience: the convenience of no contract, no credit check, only paying for used minutes.
Would the added convenience of being able to not go out of your way to pay a bill be enough reason to sign up for Verizon? We were going to say yes, but then we looked through CheckFreePay’s agent locator. Guess what other companies’ bills you can pay through their agents? Yep: Cingular, T-Mobile, and Sprint.
When we first saw this press release, we thought it was Verizon gaining an edge. But really, it’s just Verizon keeping up with the pack. We suppose it would be much worse if they just ignored the CheckFreePay option, though.]]>
Posted in Prepaid Services