I have a credit card through US Bank. They recently announced that payments over the phone will be subject to a $10 fee. They used to be free if you did them automatically, and only cost money if you needed to talk to a person.
I called and asked why. They said that this is a policy change. I agreed that it certainly was a change, and I was wondering why. The service representative cheerfully acknowledged that there was no particular reason for it, that there is no underlying cost involved that they have to recover, and that it’s simply a way to gouge extra money out of customers.
I mean, not that these are good things. But it’s refreshing, I guess, that they didn’t feel the need to lie to me about it.