Sunday, October 30, 2011

Consumer Sovereignty

Bank of American recently instituted a $5 a month debit card fee. The public was upset by this causing many other banks to reconsider making a similar move. Even politicians criticized the bank for this fee. Now Bank of America is considering reversing this policy and ending the fee.

Netflix went through a similar public outcry when it attempted to break up its website and not offer DVD-by-mail and movie streaming on the same website.

Both of these are examples of the customer making a difference by voicing opposition and refusing to use the services involved. Can you think of another item in society that might cause people to get upset? What could you do to see the business change its practices?

9 comments:

  1. Hey its Olivia...
    I know that when my family wants to go somewhere like a concert, or a theme park, the additional fees are outrageous. Parking is always an extra $10-$15 at a concert, and six-flags has parking passes available...for $30!!!!! also websites that supposedly help make it "easier" to buy tickets ahead of time charge a service fee, which is a $12-$18 fee that makes it eligible for you to even buy the 75$ tickets that you want. All in All, that's just one of the many outrageous examples of a thing that used to cost only a decent amount in the 70's, about $10-20, and can now be up to $400 for a family of four or five to go, and the price is still going up.
    alright,thats all i have to say
    -Olivia=P

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  2. Hello Bauer.
    Another item that causes customers to get upset is the airlines when you change the date on your flight. Airlines make money on that and also if you have extra baggage they charge you a whole bunch. My family and I have gone through that its a pretty penny for that.

    Also gas stations charge you 45 cents or more when using the credit card to pay for gas. Some gas stations have signs on how much you're going to pay for in cash and in credit its a rip off.


    -Gaby Inzunza

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  3. Big businesses do outrages things all the time! Sometimes its not hear of because of because it doesn't last long enough to be heard about. Customers play a significant role in decisions that businesses make. Anytime a business decides to up the price of their product, the public are not happy and as a result, they find the service someplace else. For example, Blockbuster, at one time had a fee of over $3 for a rental, because of that consumers went to RedBox and got the same movies for $1 instead. Block Buster didn't lower their prices and in turn, went out of business. Five dollars a month adds up and i bet Bank Of America lost a lot of customers. I know my mom wouldn't have been a happy customer there, haha she already wasn't.

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  4. Along with the examples listed above, there are the extra costs given on cell phone bills such as going over in minutes or sending picture messages. Half the time these are accidents yet charge the costumers extreme amounts. If people were to complain about these different examples and campaign against in potentially large amounts, the companies would have to listen in order to have business and earn money. Personally, I could inform others who may not know about different changes and hope that they try to make a difference too.

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  5. ALex Abbott period 2

    Something in society that can cause people to get upset is basically raising prices on goods in general.Goods such as breakfast cereal was too expensive so they lowered it. And when the cost of gas shot up they began to investigate but that didnt really help; however, now alot of people are investing in cars that get a better gas mileage or even hybrid cars to save money.

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  6. Flying anywhere nowadays is crazy but now you have to pay extra fees on everything at the airport. taking an extra bag is the worst thing, you have your carry-on but if you bring another bag they charge you like 100+ dollers extra. I heard some airlines are making it difficult for people to only bring one bag by making size limiations on the suitcases so that if the bag is "too big" you have to bring another on and they charge you extra.

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  7. The only event that i can think of would be the price of a ticket to the parking lot of a stadium. i mean i understand that the reason thats the oarking ticket is $30, is that so that some of it goes to the employees, the cleaning of the stadium, and the vendors, and others. but they should put that tax on another type of good not for parking your car.

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  8. In the past year or so, Microsoft's XBox LIVE service increased from 50 dollars annually to 60. The increase caused an uproar mostly for monthly payers, who had their 7 dollar a month bill jumped to 10. It may not seem like a significant amount, but it adds up very quickly. Some people decided to stop paying and switched to other services like Sony's PlayStation 3 which offers a free online service. Microsoft did not back down on the price increase because they have loyal consumers who have the need to fuel their competitive game-play. However I believe if enough customers had fought it, Microsoft may have pulled a Netflix.

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  9. hello Bauer,

    Facebook is a big reason for this blog. First and foremost, i remember seeing on the news when they wanted to start charging for facebook after millions of people made it get huge. And they realized how much they could of made. So they got stingy and wanted money from people just for signing up. I think this is horrible. You shouldnt create your own website and tell people its free just to blow up, then when it does you want to charge? that is something that should not be legal to do.This became a huge crisis for facebook owners. People were saying they were just going to delete it or stop using it. They almost lost all there people. What was the point in that? Nothing!!!

    sincerely,
    mason weaver

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